PasoFish89
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2020
- Messages
- 112
- Reaction score
- 85
- Location
- Paso Robles
- What state or country do you live in
- California
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?
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?
