Not sure if what kinds of issues these Chromis face, but they are wonderful to watch in action! Photo by A Meyer and courtesy of USFWS
During a recent trip to New England, I spent an afternoon wandering around an aquarium- I love watching all of the undersea life, but one of my favorite exhibits is always the shallow coral reefs with their diversity of brightly-colored fish. I know that there are a number of conservation concerns for the fish we see in salt and fresh water tanks, both in large public aquaria and in the tanks we have in our homes. Some of those concerns have to do with the aquarium trade itself, but other concerns stretch to the wild populations which are facing issues like climate change and pollution.
But I don’t know many of the details about those conservation issues, especially when it comes to the aquarium trade, so this month I’m going to look into the conservation status of fish found on coral reefs, as well as best practices for having some of those same fish in an aquarium. This is likely to be a very, very big topic- I mean, the world’s oceans have a wide variety of reef systems and fish within those systems- so I may focus in on specific aspects, but hopefully I can also provide a sense of larger trends, too.
So, if you enjoy watching those colorful fish dart in and out of coral formations as much as I do, hopefully this month I can provide a picture of the larger conservation issues they face.