corals Wild cought vs. Aqucultured

[shookbrad]

Ok, I am curious what kind of corals most people keep. Corals that were plucked from the ocean or ones that were aquacultured.

Add comments like how you get your corals: diving, stores, hobbiest, etc.

[phenom5]

I haven't always been successful with it, but I try to go aquacultured. It helps that aquacultured SPS tend to do better than wild colonies.

There's a thread about wild colonies on the SPS board. Do I miss the diversity of tank filled with wild colonies over tanks now where everybody has the same corals? Sure. Do I miss getting a completely browned out frag without the slightest clue of what it was going to be, only to have it turn out to be a real gem 6 mos down the road? Sure. Do I miss getting a completely browned out frag without the slightest clue of what it was going to be, only to have it turn out to be a brown acro 6 mos down the road? Not so much.

It's a trade off, but an important one for the long term sustainability of our hobby IMO.

[zoohoot]

it's a trade off, but an important one for the long term sustainability of our hobby imo.

+1

[stanlalee]

I dont know with sps I think you could go a lifetime at this point with not much loss of diversity with aquacultured corals. I think these are easiest to make the transition from wild to aqucultured with. leathers and many soft corals are just as easy and fast growing as well. I think its LPS that will be hardest to transition to aquacultured. I think I have more aquacultured than wild but only because 90% of my sps are aquacultured(all but two actually). I agree that regardless more focus needs to be on aquiring aquacultured coral and I'm slowly moving in that direction.

[dan10342]

I like to keep aquacultured SPS. They seem to survive well in captivity, and they look nice.

Literally all of my LPS were from the wild.

Most of my zoanthids were also aquacultured. I dont like buying huge rocks of wild zoos, as they are almost always filled with unwanted pests.