You are hereTank-Raised Tangs & Triggers Become a Reality
Tank-Raised Tangs & Triggers Become a Reality
Tank-raised Clown Triggerfish, Balistoides conspicillum, at Sustainable Aquatics' Sustainable Islands facility in Tennessee. Image: Lisa Palmer.
By Ret Talbot
Excerpt from the March/April 2011 Issue of CORAL
On any given day you can find between 135,000 and 165,000 animals—species that are decidedly not indigenous to the American southeast—nestled between Carl’s Home Center and the now-defunct Franklin Super Market on West Old Andrew Johnson Highway in downtown Jefferson City, Tennessee. The vast majority are pomacentrids—clownfishes and some damsels—but there are others.
On this particular day, a hard winter afternoon with stiff angled sunlight drawing sharp shadows across monochromatic brick buildings, I am greeted by colorful swaths of butterflyfishes, blennies, gobies, cardinalfishes, and a host of other exotic, reef-associated, tropical marine fishes. This is certainly not what one would expect in this working class town of just over 8,000 people, with its antebellum Baptist college and a median household income of barely $23,500.
But here it is.
Backbone of the SA business is a wide selection of captive-bred clownfishes. Image: Ret Talbot.
Sustainable Aquatics is the reason coral reef fishes often outnumber people 20,000 to one in Jefferson City. “Most people have no idea what goes on here,” Matthew Carberry, president of Sustainable Aquatics, tells me as we enter the three-story brick building at the heart of the company’s rapidly expanding campus. Carberry grew up in this town, but even many of the kids from his high school class still only know the building as the old Jefferson City headquarters of the Appalachian Electric Cooperative.
So what does go on in this old brick building with a new facade facing the
street? Simply stated, Sustainable Aquatics is a saltwater fish hatchery providing captive-bred and tank-raised aquarium animals to the international marine aquarium trade. This, in and of itself, does not make it unique, although the speed with which the young company has moved to the second spot in the North American marine ornamental hatchery industry certainly has captured the attention of many observers.
A DIFFERENT BRAND OF HATCHERY
Tank-raised Sustainable Islands Blue Hippo Tangs, Paracanthurus hepatus. Image: Lisa Palmer.
What really has caught my attention is the Company’s Sustainable Islands division. This initiative adds a radical new layer to the original clownfish hatchery model, and, in truth, it is what motivated me to buy a ticket to Tennessee. While marine ornamental hatcheries today are offering a growing list of species, it is a reality that only a very small percentage of the species we keep in saltwater aquaria have ever been bred in captivity—and even fewer on a commercial level.
Sustainable Aquatics frequently offers animals on their weekly price list that are unheard of from a hatchery. We’re talking tank-raised Hippo Tangs, Yellow Tangs, various butterflyfishes, including the much-coveted Copperbands, and other pelagic spawners.
Because of their reproductive habits and hard-to-feed larvae, these fishes have eluded the best efforts of breeders, and some of them have a dismal reputation when it comes to mortality in the aquarium. So the fact that Sustainable Aquatics is marketing them as hardy and acclimated to aquarium conditions and foods is a quantum leap.
To be clear, these butterflies and tangs, among others, were not bred in captivity at Sustainable Aquatics. These are wild-caught fishes, net-collected as small post-larval and juvenile fishes recently settled onto the reef and then reared or raised at SA’s dedicated Sustainable Islands facility. These fishes, once imported, will spend anywhere from a month to a year at Sustainable Aquatics before being branded as tank-raised Sustainable Islands fish and moved to market.
Sustainable Aquatics is not the first hatchery to deal in tank-raised animals, and these terms—tank-reared or tank-raised—have frequently been confused and even abused. But as much as I get excited about a tank-raised, hardy, Aiptasia-eating Copperband Butterfly that devours a captive diet, I am getting ahead of myself, for the Sustainable Islands initiative only exists because of the able leadership of Matthew Carberry.
A HOBBYIST FIRST
Matthew Carberry, SA's president, does Saturday morning water chores in the hatchery. Image: Ret Talbot.
Matthew Carberry is tall and lanky. In his late 20s, he is inclined to demonstrate his capabilities through his actions. Not a lot of bluster or bravado here. As I come to know him better, however, I am fully aware I am in the presence of a very capable aquarist. Of course actions do speak louder than words, and what I observe during two days of unrestricted access to the Sustainable Aquatics facility speaks volumes.
On this particular Saturday, Matthew is on a stepladder leaning over a rack of tanks full of various clownfishes. As he starts a siphon—this is one president who is not afraid to get his hands wet—he shares his background with me. “I spent six years at UT,” he tells me, speaking of the University of Tennessee, located about 40 minutes away in Knoxville. “It took a long time because I added majors instead of switching.” He ended up graduating with a BA in French language and a BS in ecology and evolutionary biology. Those two degrees were supplemented by a third major in marine biology. While he briefly considered a career in academia after being offered a job with the University, Matthew got the break of which many hobbyists only dream.
John Carberry, Sustainable Aquatics founder and chairman, explains captive breeding techniques to visiting school children. Image: Ret Talbot.
Matthew’s father, John Carberry, was supportive of his son’s hobby. While it is true that John, who now serves as chairman of Sustainable Aquatics, founded and funded the business, it is perhaps more important that it was he who inspired Matthew to follow his passion for the marine aquarium hobby during his formative years. “My father kept fish when he was younger—breeding and selling livebearers when he was growing up in New York and maintaining a community freshwater aquarium in the house,” Matthew tells me. “He just never let it get out of hand like we later did!”
As it is for many father-son aquarist teams, taking care of the home aquarium and making visits to the local fish store were fun weekend activities for the Carberrys. “I can remember it even from when I was four years old,” Matthew says. “I remember taking over the home aquariums when his travel was busy and becoming more involved with the fish—setting up new tanks for baby fish and the like.”
John remained interested and involved with the hobby and always enjoyed having aquaria in the house. “He’s been supportive,” Matthew says, “allowing me to clear the bottles from the bar and the tools from his workbenches to make room for aquariums as the clowns took over the house, but it was also his enjoyment of the hobby that encouraged and allowed that.”
In 2003, a pair of Ocellaris Clownfish started reproducing in a 110-gallon display tank in their home.
Tank-raised Zebra Dart Gobies, Ptereleotris zebra, at Sustainable Islands. Image: Lisa Palmer.
“That was the beginning,” John tells me later. We are sitting at a table in the conference room as late January sun spills through the windows. “I encouraged Matthew to raise them. We started growing rotifers and algae. We studied.”
John, who is also involved with Mossey Creek Enterprises and works on solar technology, still travels a lot, but he remains a hands-on presence at the Sustainable Aquatics campus and regularly advises and encourages everyone on the team with his business expertise.
While he is a hobbyist, it is probably to the company’s benefit that he is, as some people in the business have told me, “not a fish guy.” With a strong background in both engineering and business, John Carberry brings a different skill set to the table that has helped to differentiate Sustainable Aquatics’ approach from that of other marine hatchery businesses.
His vision for what the Company can be has never been anything short of immense—so much so that I sometimes get the sense that those who work day-in and day-out with the animals are a little skeptical about exactly how much a hatchery in Jefferson City, Tennessee, can really accomplish. Not John.
“I knew Matthew knew more about clownfish breeding than most,” he tells me, “and that’s really how this all got started.”
At first, Matthew collected eggs off the glass of the home display tank with a tube and bowl. Downstairs, in a wine-cellar-turned-fish-room, 20 ten-gallon tanks became the nucleus of an emerging business. At this point, Matthew and his father were both still very much hobbyists, and their trajectory from display tank with a breeding pair to basement breeding operation was not unlike that of many mom-and-pop hatcheries across the country.
But then things began to change.
Soon there were 30 more tanks in the workshop, and before long the Carberrys were producing, on average, 1,500 to 2,000 clownfish a month.
“We were working with [Amphiprion] ocellaris, percula, clarkii, tomatoes [frenatus], and black ocellaris,” John recalls, “and we started getting almost 100% yield.” This concept of yield is one John will continually come back to during my two days at Sustainable Aquatics. “It’s simple,” he says. “Yield is about how many of your fish make it to market. Most of ours do.”
In 2004, the Carberrys started selling regularly to local fish stores in Knoxville. They also started shipping some fishes as well. They were selling $5,000 to $7,000 worth of fish a month, which, of course, is nothing to scoff at, but Matthew was still in school, and the chores associated with sustaining that level of production were quickly pushing the boundaries of a hobbyist.
Later, as we walk past rows of tanks with eager clownfish balling at the front glass, John tells me that Matthew decided he wanted to do this—John gestures around him—full-time. “He told me that nobody had ever done it our way,” John recalls. “I told him we had to make this a business. ‘It’s not our hobby now,’ I said.”
And with that simple two-pronged imperative in mind—to do it a new way and make it a profitable business—Sustainable Aquatics was born.
Differentiators
Among the other companies in the current marine aquaculture marketplace, the names that come to mind for most hobbyists are ORA (Oceans, Reefs and Aquariums), C-Quest, Segrest Farms, Proaquatix, and A&M Aquatics.
ORA is clearly the leader, with about 50,000 square feet of marine ornamental hatchery space located at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Campus in Ft. Pierce, as well as another acre in the Marshall Islands, where they carry out mariculture activities.
While there are many important differentiators between ORA and Sustainable Aquatics, perhaps the most important concerns each company’s stated endgame. “Aquacultured marine life is the only alternative to wild-caught fish and invertebrates for aquariums,” says Dustin Dorton, ORA’s president and CEO. ORA’s long-term goal is to provide a full range of aquacultured fishes and corals to the trade, making the 100% aquacultured reef tank the norm in the hobby.
“I don’t believe that the 100% aquacultured aquarium should be the ultimate goal,” says Matthew Carberry. “Not if it means relying only on tank-bred specimens.” Matthew tells me he thinks the marine aquarium hobby will always rely on the ocean to supply the marine aquarium trade. “We’ll rely on the ocean out of necessity,” he explains, “because [some fishes] can’t be bred in captivity, but also out of convenience.”
Matthew points out that many species are cheaper and easier to catch sustainably than to breed. “Almost certainly there will be additional restrictions on the wild harvest of marine life for the trade, so sustainable harvesting practices and aquaculture will be increasingly important.”
SUSTAINABLE ISLANDS
The Sustainable Islands division is yet another differentiator. While Sustainable Aquatics deals primarily in captive-bred fishes, its Sustainable Islands division, which is housed in a separate and completely isolated facility on the SA campus, has for the past year been delighting many marine aquarium hobbyists with tank-raised fishes like Blue Hippo Tangs, Seagrass Filefish, various angels, and Clown Triggerfish.
While touring Sustainable Islands, I ask Matthew about how long most of these fishes reside in-house. “That’s a difficult one since it is so varied,” Matthew explains. “Some fish, like damsels and some gobies, for instance, are able to grow to a large saleable size in four to six weeks, while there are other fish that we have kept and grown for a year before selling them.” He points to larger Clown Triggerfish, some angels, butterflies, and tangs as requiring more time in grow-out. For critics of tank-raised fishes, the time kept in-house is critical, for it could be argued that there is a fine line between a fish that is “acclimated” and one that is “tank-raised.”
In the Sustainable Aquatics lexicon, a fish must remain in-house for a minimum of one month before it gets the tank-raised Sustainable Islands label. “While four to six weeks is our minimum to call at least some species TR and allow for all of the benefits of SI fish,” says Matthew, “three to four months is closer to the average stay and healthy growing time for many species, if they are brought in at our preferred size.”
Preferred Size for Post-Larval and Juvenile Fishes
Yellow Tangs, Zebrasoma flavescens, being reared in conventional glass aquarium, a Sustainable Aquatics strategy to acclimate wild-bred fishes to captive conditions. Image: Lisa Palmer.
“Preferred size” is another area of contention for critics of companies dealing in tank-raised fishes. How small does a fish need to be if it will eventually be marketed as a tank-raised animal? In general, Sustainable Aquatics and others involved in selling tank-raised fishes on the up-and-up refer to their preferred target size for collection as “post-larval” or “juvenile” fishes that have only “recently settled back onto the reef.” Settlement is the time when, after going through metamorphosis from the pelagic larval form, most fishes take up residence—or settle—on the reef.
Unfortunately, the line between “small enough” and “too large” is muddled, even for ecologists. “The most important thing to remember,” says Matthew Wittenrich, author of The Complete Illustrated Breeder’s Guide to Marine Aquarium Fishes, “is that the ecological principal that makes this method of collection ‘sustainable’ stems from the naturally occurring rates of mortality that occur during pelagic larval development.”
What Wittenrich is alluding to is the research suggesting that fewer than 0.01% of fertilized gametes survive the pelagic phase. “Greater than 90% of this mortality occurs in the first three days of development,” Wittenrich says. “So ideally, we would collect three-day-old larvae and rear them from this stage, since this is really the critical period.”
Collecting three-day-old fishes poses some major problems, however. Most notably, at three days old or younger, it is difficult to identify the larvae down to the species level. So while one could collect thousands of three-day-old or younger fishes, he or she may only end up with a small percentage of marketable animals. This is why Sustainable Aquatics focuses on what Wittenrich refers to as “a second critical period” for the fishes destined for the Sustainable Islands division.
“Imagine a tiny fish that just metamorphosed, developed scales, fin rays, and the like—that spent the last 30 days in the open ocean,” says Wittenrich. “Then, hearing the waves breaking on a far-off reef and swimming non-stop until olfactory cues zero in on a suitable habitat, the fish dives down to the bottom—only at night, to avoid predators—and tests the habitat. Some will travel back up into the pelagic zone in search of a better habitat. If they like what they see, they begin to develop color and ‘learn’ their new environment. Tons of them fall to predation at this point.”
This second period, when predation and competition are exceedingly high, lasts only about a week to 10 days after settlement. “The point is,” explains Wittenrich, “the smaller you are, the more prone to mortality you are. The mortality rate of post-settlement juveniles is consistently high, and decreases with increasing body size. So, the short of it is, the smaller you can collect them, the less ecological effect one would have.”
The term “post-larval” is really only used in the aquarium trade, so there is not a hard scientific definition. It may be fair to say that juvenile fishes are not post-larval fishes, but unfortunately, many companies that sell tank-raised fishes use the terms nearly interchangeably, largely because there is not a clear definition. This may beg the question: When does a recently settled post-larval fish become a less-recently settled juvenile, and when should collection occur?
“I would draw the line at two weeks after settlement,” Wittenrich says, “as this is generally when the ‘adjustment’ or ‘critical period’ ends and natural mortality rates subside.”
AVOIDING BIO-PIRACY
Most of the fishes collected for Sustainable Islands are recently settled post-larval and juvenile fishes from the Solomon Islands, although some are simply juvenile fishes. They are net-caught, in many cases, by the same local fishers who have been involved in the aquarium trade for years.
Later, in the conference room, John picks up the thread of sustainability as it relates to Sustainable Islands. “Collecting post-larval fishes that have recently settled onto the reef is more ecologically friendly than collecting adult fishes,” says John, who has studied and been involved with the Atlantic Cod fishery for some time. “Large, mature fish are survivors, and we need to leave them in the ocean as breeder fish,” he says. “The younger animals—the ones imported through Sustainable Islands—typically have a low survival rate in nature.” John points to Atlantic Cod, Bluefin Tuna, and North Atlantic Swordfish. “All of these species are being driven to extinction because we took the broodstock. We can’t afford to do that here.”
Of course, dealing in post-larval fishes and juveniles that have just settled onto the reef is better for business too, as smaller fishes require less water for shipping, and that saves on shipping costs.
“Plus, they tend to survive shipping better,” says John.
Dave Palmer, owner and operator of Pacific Aqua Farms (PAF), a Los Angeles–based importer of livestock arriving from the South Pacific, has been instrumental in shaping the Sustainable Islands division of Sustainable Aquatics. “Dave was the one who emphasized the importance of having wild-caught fishes be part of our business model,” says John. While it’s true that wild-caught fishes add diversity to the price sheets that Cameron Potter, Sustainable Aquatics’ director of sales and marketing, sends out to retailers around the country and overseas each week, everyone at Sustainable Aquatics is quick to point out that supporting sustainable wild collection brings important socioeconomic development to developing island nations.
“Keeping village people employed is critical,” says Palmer. “I don’t like bio-piracy, where we take a natural resource, move it to a convenient location, and raise it for market with no benefit to the local population where the animal came from.” Palmer, who now sits on the Sustainable Aquatics board, explains that he supports what the company is doing because, while they are a hatchery far removed from the source country, they are also directly involved in supporting the supply side of the trade and sustainable wild collection. There are “core species” that fishers in developing island nations need to export to keep their trade viable, Palmer tells me. “Take away the core species,” says Palmer, “and [islanders] cannot support an export trade from what is left.”
Palmer points to clownfishes from the Solomon Islands as one such core species. “Core species support the economy of the rest of the export.”
This is why Sustainable Aquatics, through its Sustainable Islands division, imports clownfishes that it is also breeding in large numbers.
“We also import other fishes we don’t breed,” Matthew Carberry says, as we walk by a tank holding a gregarious tank-raised Clown Triggerfish. “Until protocols are developed for breeding many open-water spawners,” says Matthew, “the Sustainable Islands project is the most sustainable and responsible method for bringing many important species to the hobbyist.”
REAL BENEFITS FOR HOBBYISTS
Tank-raised fishes provide other very real and tangible benefits to the aquarist. For example, Matthew points out that tank-raised fishes learn social behaviors that decrease mortality. “Fishes in the wild live in a world of scarcity,” he says. “Many are fiercely territorial, and associated behaviors often result in losses as they compete for food and territory in aquariums.” In addition to being well socialized, tank-raised fishes do not pose the risk of importing disease into a hobbyist’s tank.
Undoubtedly, food is the single most important aspect when it comes to pushing the boundaries of the marine aquarium hobby, and, as expected, food is a big part of Sustainable Aquatics’ success. By the time it leaves Sustainable Aquatics, every fish—captive-bred or tank-raised—is fully weaned onto a captive diet, and nearly every fish at the hatchery, captive-bred or tank-raised, eats Sustainable Aquatics’ own dry hatchery food, made in the on-site kitchen.
Source country collection area: Pacific Aqua Farms and Dave Palmer are sourcing wild-caught post-larval and young juvenile fishes for the Sustainable Islands project. Image: Sustainable Aquatics.
As the fishes grow, they also socialize to the aquarium environment. Unlike many other hatchery facilities I have toured, the vast majority of the fishes on the Sustainable Aquatics campus are housed in glass and acrylic tanks, where they are accustomed to interacting with employees who feed them and provide maintenance on the systems. “This is very important, especially when it comes to tank-raised fishes,” Matthew says. “Most hobbyists don’t really have the experience to acclimate and socialize a wild-caught fish, not to mention weaning it onto a captive diet.”
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO PROFITABLITY
While marine ornamental fish hatcheries play an important role when it comes to sustainability and the future of the trade, it must be remembered that without profitability, all is for naught. Sustainable Aquatics is a young company, but, as of 2010, they are a profitable company, and that’s pretty impressive. While cash flow is still south of the black as a result of so much continuing capital investment, Sustainable Aquatics is demonstrating that a marine aquarium business can be profitable and good for the hobby, good for the ecosystems on which the hobby has traditionally depended, and good for the socioeconomics of developing island nations.
Undoubtedly, the biggest force behind the success Sustainable Aquatics has achieved is an unwavering dedication to its founding vision. “Everyone here shares this vision,” says Matthew. “It’s something we have followed from the time we decided to move out of the basement and into a dedicated commercial facility.” Matthew’s skills and the skills of those he has hired, combined with John’s business sense, is how the Company has grown. It is how the campus has expanded so quickly. It is how they have been able to undertake the Sustainable Islands project. And it is how they are about to begin offering aquacultured corals to the trade.
“Growing the fish is only one part of the picture,” says Matthew, recalling a time when he thought that selling 4,000 to 6,000 fish per month would be their maximum production. “Now that we have shipped that many fish in a single day, I’m starting to believe that my dad is right about the potential for SA’s growth in ornamental aquaculture and beyond.”
For the fully illustrated article, see the March/April 2011 Issue of CORAL.
Ret Talbot is a CORAL Senior Editor and freelance writer living in Laguna Beach, California. He will follow this article with a first-hand report from the Solomon Islands, where tank-raised post-larval and juvenile fish are collected.
