Reef Ramblings

An Introduction to the Marine Aquarium Council.
(MAC)

In this article I’d like to tell you a little bit about MAC – the Marine Aquarium Council, its aims, and what it can mean for the hobby.

I first became aware of MAC back in 2003, subscribed to the MAC newsletter to be kept up to date, and then when I visited MACNA in 2004 I met up with some of their people for the first time. I brought back a lot of their material which I read with interest, but at the time, although the aims of MAC seemed very laudable, it didn’t seem that pertinent to Europe and in particular the UK. MAC has started to become more active in Europe so it seems an appropriate time to introduce more aquarists to its activities.

The Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization. Its aim is to bring together conservation organizations, the aquarium industry, public aquariums, hobbyist groups, and government agencies to ensure that the marine aquarium trade is both responsible and sustainable.

MAC’s mission is “To conserve coral reefs and other marine ecosystems by creating standards and certification for those engaged in the collection and care of ornamental marine life from reef to aquarium.” MAC is trying to accomplish this mission through a number of different activities: By the establishment of independent certification of best practice standards. By raising the public awareness of the conservation role of the marine aquarium industry and the hobbyist. By providing objective, accurate data on the marine ornamental trade. By promoting the sustainable use of coral reefs and other marine ecosystems though the responsible collection of marine ornamental life. By ensuring the health and quality of marine ornamental life through responsible collection, handling and transporting practices. And by encouraging responsible husbandry through education and training.

MAC Certification.

At the heart of this is the system of MAC Certification. This is an international, third party certification system, providing the means to verify responsible, environmentally sound industry operators and healthy marine aquarium organisms.

I think the header on the MAC newsletter tells you quite a bit about the organisation:
International Certification for the Quality and Sustainability of Marine Aquarium Organisms … from Reef to Retail.

The phrase “from reef to retail” is central to MAC’s method of operation. Between the collection of a marine organism from the reef and that animal ending up in the display tanks of your local retailer there are a number of intermediate steps.
The animal is initially caught or collected and put into holding tanks on board the collection boat; from the boat it may be transferred to an interim holding facility or go directly to the exporter’s holding tanks; the exporter sorts and packs the animals ready for transport; packed boxes are delivered to the airport, loaded onto air transport and flown to the receiving country; the boxes of animals are picked up from the airport and delivered to the wholesaler’s holding facility; the animals are unpacked, acclimated, and held in quarantine; after an appropriate quarantine period the animals are transferred to sales tanks from which they are chosen by the retailer, packed and boxed for transportation; after the journey to the retailer’s shop the animals are again unpacked, acclimated, and held in quarantine; from quarantine the animals are moved to the shop’s sales display tanks where you, the hobbyist, make your purchase; your fish or coral is bagged up one last time for your journey home.

The aim of MAC is to have all the links in the above chain of custody, starting at the reef and ending up at the retailer, covered by a system of certification. Currently there are four areas of certification: the collection area; the collectors; exporters, importers, and retailers; and of course the marine organisms themselves. Further certification is planned to cover maricultured and aquacultured organisms.

Collection Areas: the MAC Ecosystem and Fishery Management Standard (EFM) covers coral reefs and marine aquarium organisms in the collection area. Certified areas must have a management plan that includes requirements such as a defined collecting area and the management and monitoring of the reefs and fishery stocks.

Collectors: the MAC Collection, Fishing, and Holding Standard (CFH) covers collection practices and handling after collection. Certified collectors must be trained divers, collect only to order, use non-destructive methods keep logbooks, segregate organisms, minimize stress, and test for water quality.

Exporters, Importers, and Retailers: The handling, husbandry, packing, transport, etc. of marine organisms by exporters/importers, wholesalers, and retailers is covered by the MAC Handling, Husbandry, and Transport Standard (HHT). Requirements here include appropriate facilities and qualified staff; suitable packing and transport; appropriate acclimation; the monitoring and recording of mortalities; monitoring and recording of water parameters; and holding documentation to ensure traceability of organisms.

Marine Aquarium Organisms: Fish, coral, other invertebrates, and live rock that have been collected in a MAC certified collection area and then been only handled by MAC certified exporters, importers, and retailers are labelled as MAC Certified on their containers and tanks.

So, when you go into your local aquatic shop in search of new animals for your reef and see fishes and corals labelled as MAC Certified, you can be assured that best possible practises have been followed in getting these animals to you.

Why the Need?

You may wonder what all the concern is about. A lot of collectors, exporters, importers, and retailers adhere to good practises that have the aim of safely bringing healthy fishes and corals from the reefs to hobbyists with minimum wastage but unfortunately these firms are in a minority.

Many firms involved in the collection and supply of marine animals to the hobby work in primitive conditions with only rudimentary ideas about how to maintain the organisms they’ve collected in good health. Feeding may be cursory, with inappropriate foods used, or even neglected. No great attention is given to water parameters. Corals that are collected for the hobby are kept out of water for longer than is wise when the shipper is choosing which corals to buy; in a recent report, part of which was presented by Rachel Jones of ZSL at the coral symposium at Burger Zoo, photographs were shown of piles of corals that had been discarded to die when not chosen to be purchased by the exporters, From what was shown in these photos it was clear that this wasn’t just a recent occurrence, but something that had been going on for sometime. Once these animals have been bagged and packed it’s not unusual for them to spend time out in the sun on the tarmac the airport while waiting loading onto their flight. All these factors, plus others I’ve not gone into, contribute to an unnecessarily high mortality rate amongst the fishes and corals handled in this way.
And where do these poorly handled organisms end up? At your local fish shop! These are the animals brought into this country (and others) through the process known as consolidation. Not all animals that come the consolidation route have been badly handled but the majority may well have been at some point in their travels. Uninformed retailers buy via consolidation in the mistaken impression that they’re saving money and are buying animals at a bargain price – the thought that there’s a reason for this low price and that a high proportion of the animals they buy are destined to die prematurely doesn’t seem to enter into the equation.

MAC Today.

At the time of writing (May 2007) MAC has been going for around 8 years. Currently their website indicates a total of 77 MAC Certified Industry Operators worldwide. Europe accounts for 14 of these with the UK containing 4. I don’t know how up to date or accurate these figures are. Although there are 4 listed for the UK this is slightly misleading as one MAC certified wholesaler no longer exists and TMC accounts for the other 3 listings, in addition there is one MAC certified wholesaler in the UK who’s not listed here and has yet to start selling MAC certified livestock. I’ll include information about this retailer in a future article once it’s up and running with MAC fishes.

One of the reasons for my doing this article is to help bring the Marine Aquarium Council and its aims to a wider audience and hopefully to popularise the idea of its certification scheme. Rather than just play lip service to the ideals of sustainability and an environmentally friendly marine aquarium hobby why not mention to your retailer that you’d like to buy MAC Certified fishes and corals?
The various groups belonging to the MAC network, be it conservationists, hobbyists, industry operators, public aquaria, etc. all have different problems to contend with and different issues to address. However, they all agree that consumer demand for environmentally sound products can motivate the industry to adopt and adhere to standards that ensure resources are sustainable, responsibly managed and supported by good husbandry and handling practices.

Problems?

Although I’m completely in agreement with MAC’s aims, I have to say that there appear to be certain problems with the organisation and the way it operates, and with the measure of success that it has had so far.
I have to question the success so far of MAC as it applies to the hobby. MAC was established some time around 1999 (at least this is the date of the earliest MAC annual report) with the first importer being certified in 2002. Today according to the website we have 13 MAC certified collection areas, 19 MAC certified collectors (companies), 20 Exporters, 15 importers, 8 (9 including the UK – see above), and 3 MAC certified aquaculture companies. Now it’s understandable that the largest amount of work needing to be done to bring this whole concept to fruition is the work in the field, without collection areas, collectors and exporters we can’t have MAC certified organisms. It’s also understandable that not every importer is going to immediately sign up to MAC, on the one hand ethics and profit don’t always go well together, on the other some companies will have already got a well organised responsible supply line in existence and may see no reason to sign up to MAC.

What I do have to question in particular is why are there so few retailers signed up to MAC? In terms of numbers retailers outnumber every other part of the supply chain added together, to only have 8 or 9 MAC certified retailers worldwide strikes me as something of a failure.

MAC appears to be an organisation taken up with bureaucracy, something that I think you’ll see reflected in the jargon-ridden style of its reports and other written material.

There also appears to be an element of secrecy about the organisation, as a writer on marine aquarium matters, and indeed as someone who has signed up as being willing to become certified, I’ve been not been allowed to sit in on a MAC meeting of certified parties.

A few years back there seemed to be a certain distrust of MAC among some in the US aquarium industry, which seemed to revolve around the idea that it was all a government plot. I believe this fear has since subsided.

What currently alarms me though are reports of discontent with MAC amongst collectors in the Philippines, this is something that has come to my attention from more than one source. I’ll report more on this aspect in due course.

In the UK, one thing that hobbyists should be aware of is that any shop that sells livestock, in particular captive bred clowns from TMC, and marks them up as being MAC certified is misrepresenting the situation. Any MAC certified livestock sold to an uncertified retail outlet ceases to be certified as soon as it leaves the wholesaler. Any retailer selling animals as being MAC certified is guilty of fraud as there is the implication that they are running their livestock system to a certified standard.

The Future.

Only time will tell how successful MAC will be in its aims. I believe that the aquarium industry need to police itself, to show a responsible attitude to the welfare of the animals it depends upon, in order to prevent legislation being forced upon us by bodies outside of the industry who may have no specialised knowledge or insight into the maintenance of captive marine fishes, corals, and invertebrates. MAC is one way that this can be done.

I intend to come back to the subject of MAC and look at various aspects of its work, and also at criticisms of the organisation, in future articles.

For more details about the Marine Aquarium Council have a look at the MAC website: www.aquariumcouncil.org

Any questions or comments, or if there are any particular topics you’d like to see covered on this site, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Tim Hayes
Midland Reefs
©2007

Reef Ramblings, April 2007.

It’s been another busy month at Midland Reefs, particularly the second half of the month. Both Jon and I have been out of the country for over a week, attending the 1st International Symposium on Coral Husbandry. This was an international public aquarium event following on from two previous conferences, the first on water quality, the second on Elasmobranchs – Sharks and Rays. The aim of all these conferences has been to “write the book” – to produce a handbook as a guide for public aquariums around the world.

We were attending the conference in two roles, Midland Reefs (along with Green Skies) was there as one of the 12 major sponsors of the event, and Tim was there to participate in the conference, deliver a presentation, and contribute a paper to the resulting book.

It was a little disappointing that so few UK public aquariums or aquarium industry suppliers attended the event. As far as sponsors go there were ourselves – Midland Reefs, ZSL – Zoological Society of London, and a combined presence from Tropic Marin / TMC. Speaker wise there was myself, two speakers from ZSL, one speaker from the North of England Zoological Society – Chester Zoo aquarium, and a speaker from an aquarium design company. In addition to this just two other representatives from a UK public aquarium turned up to benefit from the event – well done The Deep.

Over the course of four and a half days aquarium specialists from around the world gave presentations about various subjects pertaining to coral husbandry. The sessions were split up into a number of different subjects:
Coral Husbandry, Aquarium System Management, Population Management, Conservation and Transportation, Coral Exhibits, and Large Exhibits.

The Coral Husbandry session.

Eric Borneman, a name I’m sure that’s familiar to many of you, chaired The Coral Husbandry session. Eric also gave the session Introduction, a general overview of the subject under discussion.
Presentations here included:

Effect of Feeding on Coral Physiology.
Light Enhanced Calcification. Both by Sylvie Tambutté.

Nutrition in Juvenile Corals – a Case Study by Michaël Laterveer and Dirk Petersen.

Evaluation of Different Types and Concentrations of Food on the Growth of Pocillopora damicornis Comparing Diurnal and Nocturnal Feeding by Silvia Lavorano, C.Gili, C.Muti, D.Corsino, M.Taruffi and G.Gnone.

The Coral Holobiont: A Review by Eric Borneman.

Pests, Predators and Disease of Corals by Mitch Carl

Apidioplana: A Polyclad Flatworm Affecting Acroporid Corals in Captivity by Fernando Nosratpour.

Ex situ Cultivation of the Zooxanthellate Soft Coral Sinularia flexibilus for Biotechnological Exploitations by Mohammad K. Khalesi and Rene H. Wijffels.

The Aquarium System Management session.

The Aquarium System Management session was chaired by Max Janse and Andy Aiken.

Presentations here included:
Abiotic Filtration Methods for Live Coral Systems in Public Aquaria by Richard Terrell, Richard Klobuchar and Carrie Pratt.

Ecological Purification In The Captive Reef by Ashley Sharp.

Scientific Considerations on a Technique of Ecological Purification That Made Possible the Cultivation of Reef-building Corals in Monaco by Jean M. Jaubert.

Current in Aquaria, Best Way to Create by Ernst Pavlowsky.

Calcium and Carbonate in Closed Marine Aquarium Systems by Dieter Brockmann and Max Janse

Trace Elements by Hans-Werner Balling and Piet Sondervan

Macronutrients N P K, Levels and Management by Ernst Pavlowsky

Spotlight on Corals: the Role of Light in Coral Physiology and its Implications for Husbandry by Ronald Osinga.

LEDs – The Future of Lighting for Display Aquaria by Tim Hayes.

Environmentally Tough Coral Species as Candidates for Aquarium Culture by Tony McEwan and Sondos Abdul Razzak.

The Population Management Session, chaired by Dirk Petersen, included:

Mariculture Coral Fragments for Public Aquariums by Shai Shafir and Baruch Rinkevich.

Acropora palmata project at Xcaret Aquarium, Elkhorn Coral Propagation in Controlled Systems as Reproductive Alternative for Exhibition Supply and Environmental Restoration by Rodolfo Raigoza, Ana I. Ceron and Rafael Valdez.

The Role of Sexual Coral Reproduction in Captive Population Management – a Review by Dirk Petersen.

Coral Spawning at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps: Observations on Timing and Behaviour by Fernando Nosratpour.

The Fog is Lifting: Molecular Tools Differentiate Among Reproductive Modes, Identify Individuals and Delineate Populations in Corals by Iliana Baums.

The Conservation and Transportation session.

The Conservation and Transportation session was chaired by Mike Brittsan and Rachel Jones, talks here included:

CITES regulation by Rachel Jones.

Shipping Live Coral: Techniques, Tips and Headaches by Charles Delbeek.

Coral Restoration in the Florida Keys Using Colonies Derived from Aquacultured Fragments by Ryan Czaja, Ilze K. Berzins, Casey Coy, Craig A. Watson, Kathy Heym, Scott Graves and Roy P.E. Yanong.

A Report From the 2nd SECORE Workshop: Towards the Conservation of the Threatened Elkhorn Coral Acropora palmate by Dirk Petersen, Eric Borneman, Mike Brittsan, Mary Hagedorn, Michaël Laterveer.

The Role of Public Aquaria to Enhance a Sustainable Coral Trade, The Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) by Nathalie Gamain.

Conserving Montipora dilitata: A U.S. “Species of Concern” by Charles Delbeek.

Coral Reef Crisis: the Role of Japanese Science and Technology for Restoration by Makoto Omori.

Health, State, and Recovery Process of the Maldivian Coral Reef 8 Years After the 1998 Bleaching and 4 Months After the 2004 Tsunami by Maura Taruffi, Silvia Lavorano, Edith Canepa, and Guido Gnone.

The Coral Exhibit session.

The Coral Exhibit session was chaired by Charles Delbeek, who also gave the session Introduction: Design Considerations for Live Coral Exhibits. This was followed by:

The Science Behind Creating a Coral Reef on Land by Joe Yaiullo.

Tank Design and Aquascaping for Live Coral Exhibits by David Lazenby.

Sulawesi Beaches and Shores: A Look at an Unusual Coral Tank by Mitch Carl.

Coming in 2008: The Steinhart Aquarium’s Philippine Coral Reef Exhibit by Bart Shepherd.

A New Live Coral Exhibit Being Designed For Chester Zoo Aquarium by Colin Grist.

Impact of Design-Build Process on the Construction and Functionality of a Large-Scale Live Coral Exhibit ” Reef-Building by Design-Build” by Mike Concannon.

The Large Exhibit session.

The Large Exhibit session was chaired by Bruce Carlson and Max Janse. This included:

The Georgia Coral Reef Display by Bruce Carlson.

From Chemical Chaos to Ecological Synergy: The Science Behind Creating a Coral Reef on Land by Kirsten Michalek-Wagner

Monaco Coral Reef Display by Pierre Giles.

Ecological Management of a Large Coral Reef Eco-display at Burgers’ Zoo by Max Janse, Henri Gieling, Tom de Jongh and Joep Wensing.

An Experimental Prototype Coral Reef Tank at Steinhart Aquarium by Bart Shepherd.

Review of 9 Years of Operation of the Tropical Lagoon Tank in Nausicaä by Nathalie Picke, Frédéric Cousin, and Stéphane Hénard.

I hope you’ve not found this listing of presentations too boring, I wanted to give you some idea of the breadth of subjects under discussion at an important symposium such as this one.
What I intend to do in future articles is to write more about the content of some of these presentations. I’ll pick out the subjects of most relevance to the reef hobby and also try and draw your attention to areas of environmental interest.

If anyone wants to get in touch to let me know which of these presentations they’d like to know more about, then please do. It’ll help me decide which ones to tackle first, although my inclination is to take a look at those that discuss sexual propagation of corals in captivity, as I think this is one of the most important subjects covered during the symposium.

We finally got back to the UK on the Wednesday morning, after having spent a couple of extra days doing some consultation work for a Dutch client, absolutely shattered … That left just a couple of days to catch up on orders, write articles, look after livestock, etc. before we were off to our next event …

CGA Open Day.

On the 28th of April it was the CGA (Coral Garden Aquatics) open day. This seemed to be a very successful event with plenty of people turning up on the day. There were a series of presentations from TMC, myself – Tim Hayes, Simon Garrett, and few others. All the trade supporters of the event had some of their lines available at a discount, so lots of people went away happy with great deals on various bits and pieces of hardware.

As one of the features of the day was the chance to buy livestock at discounted prices, 30% off regular prices, it was nice idea the way that everyone was given a raffle ticket, with the numbers being pulled out of the hat, as a way of determining the order in which people were to be served.

Reef News.

An experiment reported in the journal Science has revealed that some coral reef fishes appear to have notable homing instincts.
The scientists involved in the project tagged two species of reef fish larvae in an effort to investigate where they end up after drifting around in the open sea for a period of weeks as they mature. The tagging was made possible by collecting female fish from a small reef in Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea, and injecting them with a rare, stable barium isotope. This isotope was passed on to the developing larvae where it accumulated in their bones, resulting in a unique detectable marker.

Some weeks after the “tagging” the team involved in the study returned to Kimbe Bay to collect juvenile fishes and find out how many of them, if any, had returned to their place of birth. The unexpected result was that approximately 60% had found their way back home

The two species investigated were the Common Clownfish and the Vagabond Butterflyfish. Although the study only involved two species, it’s likely to apply to other reef fish too, and if so it might have important implications for reef conservation. It demonstrates that small no-take marine reserves could well be a good way to protect species vulnerable to over fishing, as there should be enough juveniles returning to the area to sustain numbers over time.

Previously the question of where do the larvae go has been something of a mystery. Most marine fishes produce small eggs, which result in small larvae that then go on to live a pelagic existence before metamorphosis into a juvenile and settling onto a home reef. Given the small size of the larvae it’s been difficult until now to find an easy way of tagging them.

It remains uncertain how the juveniles manage to find their way home, leaving room for further speculation on the subject and for future research.

For me this raises the question of, “where is the other 40% ending up?” Apart from the implications on fishing stocks and species preservation it makes me speculate on whether populations of reef fishes can successfully relocate in response to changing climate.

Science 4 May 2007:
Local Replenishment of Coral Reef Fish Populations in a Marine Reserve.
Glenn R. Almany, Michael L. Berumen, Simon R. Thorrold, Serge Planes, Geoffrey P. Jones.

Tip of the Month.

Here’s something to think about when you’ve purchased a new lighting unit or reflector. After you’ve unwrapped everything take a careful look at the shiny reflecting surface of the reflector. Notice anything? Well some people certainly don’t! It won’t happen in every case but quite often there’s a thin plastic cover, similar to cling film, covering the reflecting surface as protection against damage during the manufacture/assembly/packing process. It may be clear or coloured, I’ve seen both shades of pink and of blue used in this application. Please look for this protective sheet and remember to peel it off before putting it into service. If you don’t, at best you’ll be getting less light than your unit is capable of producing, at worst you’ve got a potential fire hazard.
Years back when I was in retail I saw this a couple of times, usually in connection with people up rating their fluorescent lighting by adding reflectors. Yet last week I saw a fine example of this phenomenon on a lighting unit used over the mud sump of an advanced aquarist who should have known better. You know who you are …

New Shop Stuff.

Given the number of queries / searches that we’ve been experiencing about Nano reefs we’ve just added a new category to the Midland Reefs shop site, called Nano Reef Essentials. We’re going to feature food and equipment that I recommend as being suitable for Nano use. The Nano brings some interesting problems with it, particularly that of the potential for pollution in a small volume of water, consequently some products that can be used without problem in larger systems may not really be appropriate for these small tanks. Look out for an article on Nano “Dos and Don’ts” that I’ll be publishing here shortly.

Any questions or comments, or if there are any particular topics you’d like to see covered here, please feel free to get in touch with me.

Tim Hayes
Midland Reefs
©2007