I had another topic to blog about this morning, BUT...

I went shopping today. I had a check that I needed to cash a check for $7.00 and it wasn't from my bank. I decided the best thing was to go to the bank that it came from. It was reimbursement for something I did for the PTA and totally forgot. So I signed it and sent it through the Jetson tube and they sent it back because they needed 2 forms of I.D....... For $7.00??? Yeah okay so I sent it back. They sent it back with an ink pad because they needed my fingerprint...... FOR $7.00????? I'm not asking for a multimillion dollar bonus from a sinking boat being rowed by tax payers. It was SEVEN FREAKING DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THEN.... I have 2 12 gallon nano reef tanks so I hit all of the fish/coral stores first. There is one store that actually got me into the nano reefing because they had a beautiful large display tank but they also had a 12 gallon nano that was like a tiny jewel. It was breathtaking. The owners moved to a new location and their display tank is a custom built 800 gallon tank (edited for a wild exaggeration. OOPS!). The space they chose is too small and this tank is WAYYYY too big to be a reef tank and as it cycled they put their old and well-established coral in a holding tank for MONTHS waiting for this tank to cycle. They lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of coral. When it was somewhat established they brought in an anemone (HUGE and beautiful) from Vanuatu and a family of 4 generations of skunk clowns. I wanted my kids to see it, so not long after first seeing it I took them in. The original anemone had died in captivity so they had brought in another large anemone for this generational family to host. This one didn't make it either and so they stopped trying. These clowns are still desperately looking to host something. Anything. I even think that now they are selling off the individual clowns. Mostly the damage to all of this coral has been a slow decline with a lot of odd excuses, chiller crash in a very hot store. The expense of changing light bulbs. Various water imbalances and spikes. There was also a Tridacna that was HUUUUGE. These major losses happened in a time that they were on vacation and no one was minding the store and totally baffling to me there is no back up on any of this.
I had an interesting and ironic discussion with the wife of the husband and wife team on how reef keeping is actually very environmentally great, so long as the keepers are responsible in what they keep and what they sell. I've been trying very hard to buy aquacultured and captive bred coral and fish. (Again the point of something has been wasted on the American Public and that is that Nemo was ripped from his natural environment and stuck in captivity with fish that responsible aquarists and reef keepers wouldn't keep together. They aren't compatible and in most cases a death sentence, due to ignorance.)
I will admit that I have lost a lot of animals myself in learning and I am STILL learning. A few months ago my prize and oldest nano crashed unexpectedly. I was able to rescue a few things, but lost a lot and I don't handle failure well. After it was already a lost cause I took the opportunity to let some pests die in the tank deliberately. One of which is called a tulip anemone. They are pretty little things but the plague because they take over and killing them poisons the tank. So for months I've let them drop dead one by one until I was rid of them and am back on the mend cycling and supporting a little life. I am having a set back and have removed some stuff to allow for the newest algae bloom to cycle through. Also a few times I've mentioned to these store owners that if I had a store of my own I'd do a pest tank so people could identify them, learn to deal with them, and watch how they destroy a tank. Imagine my surprise today when I go in and see these anemones for sale for $4.00 a piece. Also the name they put on them is misleading. They called them rose tipped anemones, and I want to someday own an ACTUAL rose bubble anemone which is breathtaking and something I want very very bad, but I realize that I need to wait until I know more because it's beyond my expertise. I try to be responsible. What they are doing is wrong.
So what do you think?? Did I stay silent??