The Wave of Change: Buying the “Right” Fish

You can buy a Clownfish or Yellow Tang just about anywhere. Your local pet shop, internet providers, and the big box pet retailers all sell these animals. These retailers would like you believe that these animals are a commodity product to be bought strictly on price.

Oceans' Garden believes that you should look at the animals in your aquarium with a deeper vision.

The Clownfish that costs $20.00 in your local pet shop earns the local fisherman $.10. They cannot make a living at that wage so they often resort to cyanide to increase their catch. What happens then? The cyanide stuns the fish, causing organ damage and premature death. It also destroys the coral reef. The fish are harvested to extinction. The fishermen and families lose their livelihood… and globally we lose our coral reefs.

Suddenly, that Clownfish doesn't look quite so beautiful with the knowledge that aquarists are in some ways an unwitting catalyst for perpetuating the decline of our coral reefs.

Wouldn't you like to know that your marine life purchases are helping the indigenous people who collect the animals? That we can be part of the solution.

Oceans' Garden is a different type of company. We are founded on the principle of providing high quality marine animals to hobbyists, while assisting the plight of the local fishermen and their communities. We seek to bring the principles of "Fair Trade" to the aquarium livestock industry. Workers earn a fair wage in exchange for superior products and service.

Oceans' Garden will only sell animals that have been captured using sustainable collection techniques while paying the local workers a fair, living wage. Oceans' Garden also supports and promotes captive breeding whenever possible and reinvests 5% of our profits back into the local communities. Oceans' Garden is the responsible way to purchase marine animals.