The marine aquarium trade collects millions of reef fish annually using methods including cyanide stunning that cause significant welfare harm and reef ecosystem damage.
The marine aquarium trade inflicts welfare harms at multiple stages: collection using cyanide causes acute tissue damage and chronic organ failure; transport in small bags causes stress, oxygen depletion, and ammonia accumulation; retail holding in standard aquarium conditions fails to replicate the complex ecological requirements of reef species; and captivity itself denies highly mobile, territorial fish the space and environmental complexity their behaviour and physiology require. The mortality rate in the trade is enormous — most fish die before reaching a customer aquarium, and most of those that do reach customers die within a year. The welfare case for substantially reducing wild collection and expanding captive breeding is strong, though the complexity and cost of captive breeding for many reef species makes rapid transition difficult.