Collecting sand from the ocean

[carol3]

Like OrionN I also collect sand, rock and shell pieces in the water during low tide, it's worked fine for my tanks (so far) but, I don't have super expensive fish or corals so I'm willing to take on a bit of risk for the added biodiversity.

 

[wunderlong88]

Wunderlong, I posted a thread on this site about my idea of how to set up an immune tank. It's here:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/imo-how-to-set-up-a-tank-to-be-healthy-and-immune.1047355/

Thank you @Paul B for pointing me to this! I read the entire thread and found it very helpful!

I have come to the point where I think I will order a tank (170 gal) and start down the path. I wanted to research at least to the point I was fairly certain what method I would be trying to use and wouldn't run into any surprises I wasn't at least prepared to deal with. I plan on getting live rock from the ocean (still looking at mail order options) and I want to let my tank mature and add very slowly some critters and eventually fish and corals. Not sure what I will do about sand. If ordering live sand from the ocean is better than getting dead sand to go with my ocean live rock I am willing.

I may be able to bring a few handfuls of sand from South Padre or the Texas Coast and maybe a few inverts some day when I am set up for them. Hoping to make a diving trip to Belize in the next year or so. Not sure if I could get home with just a jar of sand (taken from underwater of course).

The only real concern I still have is obtaining fish (probably will have to mail order) that will hopefully not been over QT'd or medicated so I have a chance to use your methodology. I am about 3-4 hours round trip to the DFW area and may, if desperate, try LFS there if I can't find a good mail order option.

So LRS foods and Rods food are websites selling better food options for our fish, yes?

I have plenty of good garden dirt and earthworms as I garden a lot out in the country. Lots of organic matter around my place (llamas, chickens, cows, dairy cow and more to contribute to my gardening life). I also have a large creek that is deep and wide but has low shallow pools in places and these are full of bug larvae, tadpoles and other freshwater life. I don't know if this is a source of food I could use?

Thank you again everyone and @Paul B I will be ordering your asap!

 

[OrionN]

@wunderlong88
"A jar of sand" from Belize isn't going to do you much good. The sand will get hypoxic in transport. Everything will die and cause a nasty bump of nutrient to your tank, depends on how big of a tank, and how much sand. You got to keep it from getting hypoxic and ammonia spike form dead and injury fauna if you are going to do any good in collecting these sample to diverse your fauna.

 

[Louis Z]

I have been on another thread of op . I remembered about the time I bought live oysters from HEB . They had them on ice and sourced from Galveston bay . Smith point . I didn’t qt them thinking that most of the stuff would have died on ice and dry shipped . I got a really nasty looking Cyanobacteria purple black that I had not had before. I also tried to put in bait store shrimp into the system . They kept dying and polluting the tank. So now anything from the bay I will qt first

 

[jeff_mansfield]

I've collected from Corpus Christi and Galveston for years. I use sand, shells, and rocks for filtration. I collect peppermint shrimp, seargent majors, sargasso frogfish, pipefish, and the occasional sea cucumber. Every now and then a storm will wash in sea whips.

 

[Paul B]

I wouldn't put anything from your local beach in your tank.

I wouldn't put anything in my tank "not" from the local beach. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes: (OK I do put some things from an LFS in also)

Just an hour ago I was here collecting anything I could find under the rocks to put in my tank, including the algae and mud covered rocks.

55 years with my tank and still counting but I hear problems and diseases creep up at the 56 year mark. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

 

[Fish Fan]

I wouldn't put anything in my tank "not" from the local beach. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes: (OK I do put some things from an LFS in also)

Just an hour ago I was here collecting anything I could find under the rocks to put in my tank, including the algae and mud covered rocks.

55 years with my tank and still counting but I hear problems and diseases creep up at the 56 year mark. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes:

Yes, well clearly you're results speak for themselves sir :)

 

[Paul B]

They are still speaking and it is annoying. :rolleyes:

 

[Louis Z]

Bought some little neck clams this week from grocery store and are in Qt outside with mollies and cheatomorpha. Some have perished but others have stuck out their mouths and started filtering water . The ones that perished opened up and became food for the mollies . They were picked clean . Don’t know if they will survive but I would love to add them to Refugium . I want to attack the mulm that accumulates there . . I am hoping to go to the coast and search for ghost shrimp and the mosquitofish that are in salt Gambusia affinis . Like to add them to the refugium also again as clean up crew . But everything will have to go thru QT first . I don’t have enough bio filtering organisms . Would love to have sponges do the work . I am considering the common red ball or yellow sponges . I believe they are not photosynthetic cause i need to place them in the dark . I have a huge hair algae problem . It’s quite unsightly in the top tank but ok in the Refugium where I pull out gobs of it . I don’t want the hair algae smothering the sponges HA Does keep my water in good condition . And it provides food for the urchins . I don’t run socks because I fail miserably at the weekly. Chore of cleaning . I won’t spend cash on the roller mats Budget is of concern . This is a FOWLR tank we don’t have budget for maintaining coral or purchasing coral . So we target fish and inverts that are within reasonable price range . The skimmer pump went out and ouch the 200+ price tag . So I will read Paul’s and subsea notes to see what else I can do . But my advice is to qt everything . There is a lot of different strains of blue green algae that can make a mess . Also beware of the vibrio bacteria that are often found in the back bays and along the beaches where contaminated runoff can fuel their abundance if you have coral , vibrio would not be a great addition to your tank

 

[Louis Z]

I've collected from Corpus Christi and Galveston for years. I use sand, shells, and rocks for filtration. I collect peppermint shrimp, seargent majors, sargasso frogfish, pipefish, and the occasional sea cucumber. Every now and then a storm will wash in sea whips.

Tell me how to find peppermint shrimp . At night ? Best location ? I often go to port A and corpus . Fish there at least once a year . I am looking to find the purple sea urchin also . Ever caught any of those . .they are Arabacia punctulata . I easily caught them in S Padre but that is a long drive just for sea urchins for me ,I am north of Houston and the woodlands .

 

[Louis Z]

Anyone ever try barnacles ?

 

[robanister]

Do you mean sand from the beach? I wouldn’t put anything in the tank from the ocean because you don’t know what it contains or has absorbed over time. Plus beach sand is almost all silica and will cause diatom blooms in your tank. Your best bet is just to buy live rock or get it from a fellow reefer if you want it to seed your tanks Happy reefing!

I second this plus last time I took something from the ocean the microalgae had baby jellyfish....so there is that!

 

[Paul B]

Anyone ever try barnacles ?

Of course, clams, mussels and oysters also. None of them will live long in a tropical tank. They are all filter feeders and will starve in a short time, a few weeks.

Barnacles are also intertidal animals and depend on the tides to dry them occasionally.

 

[strich]

This is a great thread! @wunderlong88 how have you got on ? Have you made a tank thread to show your progress?

 

[wunderlong88]

This is a great thread! @wunderlong88 how have you got on ? Have you made a tank thread to show your progress?

Well I've been pretty slow and so I'm just about to order my aquarium. I should have it within a week or so once I do. I do have a refusium setup with some live rock and some things that we brought back from the coast some live sand out of the ocean and some virgin nerite snails. Also have some macro algae in the refugium.

 

[wunderlong88]

Tell me how to find peppermint shrimp . At night ? Best location ? I often go to port A and corpus . Fish there at least once a year . I am looking to find the purple sea urchin also . Ever caught any of those . .they are Arabacia punctulata . I easily caught them in S Padre but that is a long drive just for sea urchins for me ,I am north of Houston and the woodlands .

Where it how do you find the purple urchins at SA. Was just there and may go back soon.

I guess no one answered about Port A and Corpus. Going to Galveston next year and might go to Port A also. Would love to hear where to find peppermint shrimp and or urchins.

 

[Louis Z]

Aw Man . You were just there !!!! At the jetty inbetween the rocks close to the beginning of the jetty . You will laugh . Cause I did , just luck . My son and I were fishing . Or. I should say I was fishing , he was piddling around the rocks , he is very curios . I had the orange nylon string that builders use to mark boundaries or brick layers use to set the level of the bricks . I was using as string to haul in a crab trap . Well he had it. Balled up and accidentally dropped it in between the rocks . So when he pulled up the string , up come 3 urchins tangled within the string . their spines were caught up in the fibers of the nylon string

 

[Louis Z]

So I bought some little neck clams at HEB . They have them live in the seafood dept on ice . I put them in a 20gal outside with a batch of chaetomorpha and limestone rocks and a lava rock . Lava rock is for the cheato . . I also added 4 mollies . I had 3 perish and as they died the mollies picked the open shells clean . So I have about 8 of them still alive in there . I see them open up a bit and stick out their siphon . The water is brackish with low salinity . . They have been there for about a month . I am slowly increasing the salinity to add them to the Refugium of the main DT

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

@wunderlong88
"A jar of sand" from Belize isn't going to do you much good. The sand will get hypoxic in transport. Everything will die and cause a nasty bump of nutrient to your tank, depends on how big of a tank, and how much sand. You got to keep it from getting hypoxic and ammonia spike form dead and injury fauna if you are going to do any good in collecting these sample to diverse your fauna.

I have a friend who perhaps allegedly put 20 pounds of sand in a device that maintained its temp. This friend allegedly shipped this sand, which allegedly came out of an ocean. He shipped it overnight and was in his sump in less than 24 hours from coming out of the ocean. Allegedly he reports zero negative impact to anything. This person also has live gulf sand in their display. He would like to do an aqua biomics tests on his system, but what would one do with the results?!?

 

[Louis Z]

Knowledge ! But you can prove that bacteria from gulf shipped will stay active . Fear of shipping is when the product goes anoxic . The last thing you want is dead smelly sand that you will have to rehabilitate .