Collecting for my personal aquarium

JPENDERGRAST · Mar 2, 2011

Hello everyone!

Can anyone give me any guidance or direction on how I could find out more about collecting from the ocean for my own, personal aquarium?

Is it legal?
Are any fish/coral species prohibited?
Is there a season?
Would it require anything more than a fishing license?

If it is legal, and someone in here is an ACTIVE collector, are there any acclimation precautions I need to consider?

Several Google searches didn't yield any relaible information sources.. :idk:

Thanks!!

GLENFWB · Mar 2, 2011

I will send you some information that I have. Florida is a little weird about collecting depending upon what part of the state you are collecting in. If you collect up on the Panhandle from Panama City to Pensacola, as long as you stay away from State Parks you are pretty safe. I will send you the regs that I have about locations and species to avoid. Of course some of the better fish are farther south in the state. I have collected on and off for my tanks for years. I am sure you already know this but just in case, do not mix wild caught fish with an established reef tank.

paulwall · Mar 2, 2011

Each state has its own regulations:

Florida's 2011 regs :

Marine life regulations
Current Requirements for
Recreational Marine Life Harvest:

Recreational saltwater fishing license

Organisms must be laned and kept alive

A continuously circulating live well, aeration, or oxygenation system of adequate size to maintain these organisms in a healthy condition

Allowable Gear: hand held net, drop net, rod, barrier net, slurp gun (use of quinaldine is prohibited)*

Bag Limit: 20 organisms per person per day; only 5 of any one species al lowed witin the 20-organism bag limit

Possession Limit: 2-day possession limit, 40 total organisms, no more than 10 of any one species allowed

Allowable substrate: see species speci- fications in table

Closed areas: Some closed areas exist**

Sale of recreationally caught marine life organisms is prohibited

* Some organisms have additional gear limitations, see chart.

** Various closed areas exist. See regulations for Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park, and Florida’s State Parks before collecting in these
areas.
Additional rules apply to the collection of shells containing live organisms in Lee or Manatee counties.
See MyFWC.com for FAQs about marine life harvest and information about collecting shells with live organisms.

http://myfwc.com/docs/RulesRegulations/2011_SaltwaterRegs_print.pdf page 5

JPENDERGRAST · Mar 2, 2011

Thank you both! Any tips you could provide would be greatly appreciated!

Glen, I knew I remembered seeing you post several times about collecting, but couldn't find the specific post.

Paul, thank you for the link!

I'm working with a 150 gal. tank and starting from scratch (but not new to aquariums). I do want to build a reef system, but I'm more interested in building a scaled ecosystem which is reflective of what I see when I'm diving. This is just as much of an educational project I'm working on for kids as it is a personal hobby.

PatW · Mar 2, 2011

Well, I don't think you can get a scaled ecosystem going. I have been away from the hobby for a long time.

But marine aquaria are challenging. The problem is that even large home aquariums can fluctuate quite a bit in temperature, salinity and metabolic waste levels (ammonia and so on). Fresh water fish and intertidal creatures can often take large swings in water conditions. However, marine organisms are just not evolved to take large environmental swings. By the way, the bigger the tank, the better your chance. So 150 gallons is a good idea.

Most displays I have seen go either for invertebrates or fish. I understand that it is not really feasible to produce a functioning coral reef in an aquarium (as attractive as the notion would seem).

But it helps to know what you are doing. You can have a lovely aquarium and one bad actor can take it over. I had a friend who had a fresh water community tank with a mix of nice little fresh water species and plants. He made the mistake of putting in one jewel chilid (about the most aggresive little monster anyone could hope to find). It quickly killed all the fish, snails and plants in the tank (even the plastic plants!). All that was left were rocks, gravel and a jewel chilid. My friend used to catch insects, drop them into the tank and hum the theme of JAWS.

So be REALLY careful about what you introduce into your tank.

The thing is to figure out a display of critters that will get along and go with them. A number of the small reef fish can make a nice display together.

smellzlikefish · Mar 2, 2011

I disagree that mimicing some aspects of an ecosystem won't be possible, but it certainly won't be impressive or easy. Your nitrogen cycle should be controlled by the live rock, tank walls, and any biological filter media you include, however the final step (nitrates) will build up over time. These are harmless to the fish, but will inhibit the growth of your corals. They can be slowly removed with either a deep sand bed (which will cause other kinds of problems) or by including plants such as mangroves in your design.

If you want trophic balance, your "apex" predator will be really small and you won't have a lot of trophic levels included in your setup. This is the ultimate dream of many hobbyists, but they don't realize that the maximum bioload of the system won't feed anything bigger than a small blenny. Fish naturally have large ranges to encompass the amount of territory that it takes to supply their food. Even wrasse travel more each day looking for food than the area of your living room.

Your system will have some balances if set up right. My advice is to keep asking and read some books cover to cover before you even make/get your saltwater. Piece the system together carefully and plan ahead with the end result in mind.

GLENFWB · Mar 2, 2011

I know this thread is about collecting native species and not setting up an aquarium. But having been involved with the aquarium hobby for 40 years I can say that many people would disagree with much of this post. It is very possible to mimic ecosystems today. Modern technology has improved every phase of fish keeping. Metal halide and now LED and even plasma lights allow corals to not only survive but thrive. Modern filtration, refugiums, protein skimmers, trace elements, live foods like phytoplankton, copepods, oyster eggs all make it possible to keep healthy reef tanks. I have a 175 gallon reef tank that I constantly frag to keep the corals from over growing each other.

Keeping a saltwater fish or invert tank is within most peoples grasp today if they choose the right species and get the right equipment. Keeping a native caught tank is really very simple. Maintaining salinity, ammonia, and nitrates is really very simple with regular care.

I could go on, but I will now return you back to your regular discussions.

PatW:
Well, I don't think you can get a scaled ecosystem going. I have been away from the hobby for a long time.

But marine aquaria are challenging. The problem is that even large home aquariums can fluctuate quite a bit in temperature, salinity and metabolic waste levels (ammonia and so on). Fresh water fish and intertidal creatures can often take large swings in water conditions. However, marine organisms are just not evolved to take large environmental swings. By the way, the bigger the tank, the better your chance. So 150 gallons is a good idea.

Most displays I have seen go either for invertebrates or fish. I understand that it is not really feasible to produce a functioning coral reef in an aquarium (as attractive as the notion would seem).

But it helps to know what you are doing. You can have a lovely aquarium and one bad actor can take it over. I had a friend who had a fresh water community tank with a mix of nice little fresh water species and plants. He made the mistake of putting in one jewel chilid (about the most aggresive little monster anyone could hope to find). It quickly killed all the fish, snails and plants in the tank (even the plastic plants!). All that was left were rocks, gravel and a jewel chilid. My friend used to catch insects, drop them into the tank and hum the theme of JAWS.

So be REALLY careful about what you introduce into your tank.

The thing is to figure out a display of critters that will get along and go with them. A number of the small reef fish can make a nice display together.

JPENDERGRAST · Mar 2, 2011

All the input is much appreciated and I've taken notes, but I guess I didn't explain well enough; this is not intended to be an aquarium with the beautiful coral heads like you would find in a restaurant.

Unfortunately, I live nine hours from my beloved gulf and don't get to dive there as frequently as I would like. In addition to that, my wife teaches an intro-level type biology class at her elementary school. Most of her students have only seen the beach in movies; last year she only had four students (out of 29) who had been to the ocean! Anyway, the schools plan field trips to the local parks and one per year to the MS river, but those become redundant and most of the time they find more living trash than fish. This aquarium would help her class tremendously, and would give me my little fix at the same time.

Also, I'm certainly aware that the proper balance of species will be a complicated equation to solve. That's why I asked for the advice of current collectors. As pretty as they are, I certainly don't plan on putting any Damsels in the tank!! Keep the tips coming!

barjam · Apr 11, 2011

Old thread but in case anyone else reads it I figured I would comment.

I can't imagine that there is anything (of reasonable size) in the panhandle area that would be very difficult to keep. I remember it being mostly fish and different types of sponges/gongarians. If you collect the sponges/gongarians don't let them touch air.

I remember seeing many small reef fishes that are popular in the reef aquarium trade on my dives off of PCB.

Puffer Fish · Apr 11, 2011

barjam:
Old thread but in case anyone else reads it I figured I would comment.

I can't imagine that there is anything (of reasonable size) in the panhandle area that would be very difficult to keep. I remember it being mostly fish and different types of sponges/gongarians. If you collect the sponges/gongarians don't let them touch air.

I remember seeing many small reef fishes that are popular in the reef aquarium trade on my dives off of PCB.

Not difficult, challenging. Many of the small fish out here will eat the other small fish out here...

These guys are fun to have in an aquarium:

So is this guy:

As is this completely harmless looking guy:

Collecting for my personal aquarium

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