Has the gulf spill affected the hobby??

thatg33kgirl

Just a general thing I was thinking about. Has it affected it already, and if it hasn't, when will it???

I know my LFS gets ALL their live rock from Florida off the gulf coast. Their supplier had to mark up his price too because he made most of his money off of deep sea fishing which is currently prohibited.

This thread isn't meant to be depressing or unnerving in any way, just something I think about.

bearwithfish

i thought of this the day i hear it.. unfortunately yes fish keeping will be greatly impacted ..
1st prices will go up
2nd greedy people will make it go up for items gathered in illegal or harmful ways
3rd the reefs them selves that most of those tracts where put in place to protect will be threatened again...
its going to be a hard issue on a lot of fronts.. i will not get political and i will not bash any one here regarding this (nor should any one else) but the faster this can get cleaned up the better every one will be

iamntbatman

This is a very interesting question, but given the information provided in the OP I can't help but think that it's likely that the saltwater side of things is suffering from the spill. If the leak continues like it has been, I would suspect that it might start seriously causing issues in the Caribbean in general, which would probably be very tough on the environment and would most likely have a negative effect on the hobby.

thatg33kgirl

*nod*

Believe it or not, it was actually the spill that inspired me to start my own marine ecosystem- I'm kinda a hippy in that way. I'm also afraid it will also affect some FW/Brackish livestock that is wild caught in the gulf- I know I'm a fan of Green Spotted Puffers that are primarily caught near Florida- I hope those poor little guys find somewhere to thrive!

Does anyone work at LFS and has observed anything happening?