M.A.C. Certified Fish

[Cliff]

Up until this weekend, I had no idea there was a Marine Aquarium Council. Basically, they offer a certification service for companies / individuals that collect fish from the ocean to be sold to wholesalers in the hobby. Not only dose a certification require all fish to be net caught, but it also covers the safe handing of the fish from the time they are taken out of the ocean until they are delivered to the wholesaler.

Our SW LFS has started using MAC certified vendors. The owner of the store said he has noticed a very big different in the health of the fish and has considerably less losses.

I found this very interesting so I thought I would post it


http://www.aquariumcouncil.org/

[Rue]

Excellent! Always good to know there are some checks in place...otherwise, people, being people, are too ready to exploit beyond what the environment can manage...

[Fishguy2727]

We used some MAC certified sources at the shop Iw as running. I didn't see a difference. A high quality importer is a high quality importer, MAC certified or not. We saw an article about it in a magazine (can't remember which, maybe an industry magazine) and short no chemicals the care of the fish didn't seem that above and beyond.

But if the quality of the fish at the shop you are shopping at has improved that is a good thing, regardless of the reason.

[Northernguy]

Do the fish cost any more then buying from a private fish breeder?

There should be some sort of Fish Police out there assuring that breeders are using some kind of quality control.

[Cliff]

According to our SW LFS, buying MAC fish costs more than non certified ones, but after factoring in the costs related to poor quality fish, it can be a lot cheaper. Our SW LFS is a small family owned business so I'm not too sure if he has access to the same non certified vendors like other larger stores would have.

There's very limited breeders of marine fish. A lot of marine fish take a very long time to rase to a big enough size to be shipped/re-homed in someones tank

I think there is a need for a FW certication tho. There might be one out there, but I was unable to find it. I've seen ourr FW LFS get in some really awful looking fish they had to treat for a while in QT before placing them into their inventory

[Dave66]

The Marine Advisory Council has been around for quite a few years, but it's a win-win thing. The marine fish are net caught by hand, meaning less stress on them, those that do the catching receive more money than those that use other methods of catching, and you receive better quality fish.

Right now there are about a hundred species of marine fish that are, or can be, captive raised. In fact, there's a book on home breeding of marines in my book list. All the marine fish in my reef tanks were either captive raised or MAC certified.

Clownfish are by far the easiest marine fish to breed and raise the fry.

Dave

[LemoDeepBlue]

Does anyone know of other certification program?
I feel it is an important step towards a complete sustainable hobby.