Propagated corals, tank-raised fish, and cultured live rock

[JeffP]

Is it possible to setup a nice SW tank using only propagated coral, tank-raised fish, tank-raised invertebrates, and cultured live rock. I have a fundamental objection if "stuff" is removed from existing coral reefs.

[Water World]

Don't see why not ... Checkout www.garf.org

[quantim0]

the aquacultured LR is easy to come by. i think that www.gulf-view.com (http://www.gulf-view.com) has carribean aquacultured rock. most places that carry corals will have a captive propagated section. for tank raised fish you have a slimmer choice. you're really limited to clowns, pseudochromids, some gobys and that's really about it. there are some major breakthroughs currently in captive breeding of pygmy angels, but that might be year or two away till it's feasable on a large scale.

so it is certainly possible, but you are mostly limited in the fish department in terms of choices. good luck on your captive raised adventure.

[Boogiechillin]

Hi Jeff,
www.gulf-view.com and www.tbsaltwater.com both aquaculture live rock. They lease big plots of seabed off the coast of Florida and are licensed to legally sell their rock. Aquacultured rock typically brings in more life and is of a higher quality than other LR sources, so it's a win-win situation.

Tank raised fish are limited. See http://www.orafarm.com/ for a fairly typical list. As quantim0 stated, dwarf angels are becoming increasingly available, but it will be a couple years before they are widespread.
Many of these folks lack webpages, but you can always call the captive breeders on this list for info:
http://www.amdareef.com/captive_wholesalers.htm

Propogated coral is an easy one; most big cities have a SW aquarium society, and there are usually a few hobbyists in most areas looking to trade corals. If there's nothing local, lots of people swap coral frags through the mail.

Tank-raised mobile inverts are the big stumbling block to your question as these are typically not captive bred. The difficulties of keeping these organisms alive through planktonic stages of development given their fairly low retail value means that these animals are almost exclusively wild caught.

[quantim0]

great, it's started again. orafarm.com has started to hybridize marine fish. is this really something that we need??? i seriously hoped that this wouln't happen and people would leave SW fish alone in terms of messing with them for a while. but i guess i was wrong.