My First Temperate/Sub Tropical Tank

[PasoFish89]

Hey all. I'm excited to share my first Temperate/Sub Tropical tank! It's been on my to do list for years and years and I finally stumbled across a tank and a few other things lined up so I made it happen. I got an Innovative-Marine 15 AIO on FB marketplace brand new for 85 bucks, got a chiller off vevor for $275ish, and used existing equipment to finish it out. I already had an AI Prime 16HD and some spare plumbings bits and pieces. I am born and raised in California and have spent a lot of time in the ocean between diving, sailing or fishing and I have always been amazed at how beautiful all the native habitat is here. So because of that, I decided to keep it California native species only.

I spent a considerable amount of time combing through the California F&W regulations and I will summarize what I came up with.
-Invert collection with a sport fishing license is a go, HOWEVER, you are very limited on species and locations allowed.
-Algae collection, good to do under 10lbs per day, however certain algae and certain locations are no go.
-Fin fish capture for home aquaria use, it's all just a hard no. I found someone semi locally with their marine aquaria collection permit for fish.
-Live sand, maybe some gray area here. From what I could gather, as long as there is no bycatch with the live sand collection, there is nothing in the regulations that explicitly bars live sand collection.
-Live rock, no go. Regulations specifically say no live rock.

So for my tank, I was able to grab about 20lbs of live sand which instantly cycled the 15 gallon tank. Never once detected ammonia while ghost feeding the tank. The rock I was able to get some rock native to the central coast where I am. I just happen to be working on some landscaping projects so I had about 10 yards of rock delivered from a local quarry. I used some big chunks of that rock.

Current inhabitants are some Turban Snails I gathered myself along with some hermit crabs. For fish it is just the Catalina Goby.

I have the tank running at 64 degrees and very white lights.

Anyone else got temperate/cold water tanks going? Any biotopes?

 

[lapin]

Nice idea

 

[Fish Fan]

Very interesting project, we don't see a lot of temperate tank builds!

 

[Tahoe61]

Catalina Gobies are a favorite of mine. I would have many if I ran a chiller.
I am from S. Cal as well. Many a snorkle trips were to just watch the Catalina Gobies in the shallow areas and Garibaldi
in the Kelp.
You have access to a ton of great marine algaes.
Awesome start.

 

[ACNaturalHistory]

This is a really cool tank, I am excited to see its progress!

 

[PasoFish89]

Catalina Gobies are a favorite of mine. I would have many if I ran a chiller.
I am from S. Cal as well. Many a snorkle trips were to just watch the Catalina Gobies in the shallow areas and Garibaldi
in the Kelp.
You have access to a ton of great marine algaes.
Awesome start.

Have you ever snorkeled the Laguna MPA? It’s incredible, much like Catalina.

 

[Tahoe61]

Have you ever snorkeled the Laguna MPA? It’s incredible, much like Catalina.

I believe I got certified at Divers Cove in LB. I used to volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center on Laguna Canyon Road.

I have dived some fantastic locations, California's Channel Islands are at the top of the list.

The only thing keeping me from a temperate tank is a chiller and Arizona, the little things.

 

[PasoFish89]

Have you ever snorkeled the Laguna MPA? It’s incredible, much like Catalina.

I believe I got certified at Divers Cove in LB. I used to volunteer at the Marine Mammal Center on Laguna Canyon Road.

I have dived some fantastic locations, California's Channel Islands are at the top of the list.

The only thing keeping me from a temperate tank is a chiller and Arizona, the little things.

Yeah I hear ya. Vevor has some chillers for pretty good prices, I think they have a 1/4 HP for under 300 on sale. I got the extended warranty being vevor and all, so we’ll see how long this thing lasts. If I didn’t have solar, I wouldn’t be running one with the 54 cent per kWh rates here.