commercial production of reef corals
Joseph S. Jones
joe at mountaincorals.com
Mon Aug 28 12:24:51 EDT 2000
Hi,
My name is Joseph S. Jones. Along with my wife I own a company called
Mountain Corals. We started our business a little over two years ago based
on a small coral propagating operation that we ran out of our home. We
were quite successful growing a variety of hard and soft corals and selling
them to the local aquarium stores. While we were attending a conference we
lost our propagation grow out system along with most of our brood
stock. We have not restarted our operation yet. But, that is not the
question. I was only trying to give a little history of my experience to
address this question of commercial production of reef corals. I know
that it can be done as I have done so on a small scale. I have observed
LeRoy Headlee of G.A.R.F. teach many people both basic and advanced
techniques for propagating various corals. I know that virtually all soft
corals can be successfully propagated and grown as can almost all SPS
corals.
The real question that Mr. Zakai is asking is not if reef corals can be
grown but would there be a possibility of getting larvae from the imported
corals into the Red Sea. What Mr. Zakai seems to not realize is that there
is no commercial growing of corals through sexual reproduction. There has
been very little successful research done on this aspect and as far as I
know no-one has advanced to this stage commercially. In any propagation
facility there may occur spontaneous, unexpected reproduction via
spawning. To prevent this from getting out of the facility would be a
fairly simple procedure. Just empty all water into a well and treat it to
kill any larvae. To get foreign larvae into the Red Sea would virtually
take a deliberate act of eco- terrorism.
As to whether commercially growing reef corals can be done, my answer is
that yes it can and has been being done so by many different groups all
over the world for several years. Whether it can be done safely is just a
matter of following simple precautionary procedures.
Joseph S. Jones
Mountain Corals, The home of Velvet Green and Rotifers,
Nature's Premium Planktons
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