MAC certification

[SeanF]

I thought I would take some time to educated the masses on MAC certification. MAC is short for the Marine Aquarium Council. The Marine Aquarium Council started a program a few years ago to try and bring about improved survival rates on Marine Fishes. This program requires training of the collectors and facilities that these animals pass through. Every one who touches a MAC certified fish must have been trained in the ideal methods of packing and handling of these fish. The goal of MAC certification is to reduce the Mortality rate on Marine Species to 1% however they do not know if that is an attainable goal. They have set standards for each batch of fish imported that cannot be exceeded for the batch of fish to remain certified. These standards can be found at their website along with a list of MAC certified facilities down to the retail level. The web address is www.aquariumcouncil.org

 

This is a lofty goal but would be great if they could attain it.

 

The progress: Ok so far we have lots of Collectors that are certified, A few wholesale facilities that are certified and a few retail locations that are certified. This sounds great doesn't it.

 

So far the only livestock that has been managed to be certified is Live Rock.

 

Ok to the reason that I feel I must inform the masses. I have learned that at least one retailer is claiming to have MAC certified fish. I just wanted people to have all of the information so that they could make educated decisions.

 

Also just so everyone knows most of the stores that I know where they buy from buy from MAC certified wholesalers or exporters. In fact from the list of collectors on the MAC site I would say that the good majority of them are MAC certified.

[Nyles]

I knew I would see a post... LOL. Nice work Sean. I will check it out.

[Nyles]

My main concern is, OK, you go to your LFS and they are Mac certified, well thats great but the problem lie when the mac dealer buys from a non mac dealer and the livestock was handled, caught, shipped improperly. There is no way to track when / where a fish came from so it could have been caught by a mac cert catcher sent to a really bad distrubutor / wholesaler then sent to a mac LFS, or any other combination.

 

It's really a waste of time right now due to the fact its almost impossible to know where the stock came from down the line, and unfortunatly if it was regulated properly I think the cost on livestock would be triple due to regulation cost.

[Nyles]

 

So far the only livestock that has been managed to be certified is Live Rock.

 

after reading the newsletter It looks like they now have Imperator angels and blue tangs certified and I guess others.

 

Could get confusing, how they label the boxes and tanks, whos to say they didnt sell the mac fish yesterday and throw in a non mac fish today to sell as the mac fish, ugghhh. But interesting none the less.

[SeanF]

I think the biggest issues for most stores is going to be two things: The I think $1500 it takes to be certified and having to have a dedicated system just for MAC certified fish at least for right now when there are so few species available that are certified. I didn't read the newsletters yet. I just know that I have yet to see any species pop up on any lists from the wholesalers I get lists from. There is one place that is certified that I don't get there list so there is a slight possibility that there are a few fish that are coming in certified.

 

I think the difference in fish cost will come in on the cheaper fish and not the more expensive ones. The more expensive ones are already individually bagged and in generally have a great survival rate. Its the fish that they sell cheap that are packed in. Like 5 green chromis per bag. 6 Yellow clown gobies. This is fine to pack them this way the majority of the time but when you get a weak fish that doesn't make it very far into the shipment it can spell disaster for all of the others in the bag.

 

The problem for most of the stores around here is that we don't buy from the traditional wholesalers out of LA even though our fish are coming from the same collectors they don't qualify for MAC certification. I personally have have much better fish since I quit buying from the LA wholesalers. I don't ever have fish come in covered in parasites they are much healthier and cheaper to boot.