Pic of fish or other hand collected by you.

[JasonK84]

Post a pic of something you collected from the source. Stories are great also!

I caught 3 molly miller blennies at the end of August this year and one of them has turned out to be very cool. He has almost doubled in size in the last two months and is the favorite of my 4 year old. I caught this cool pic a few minutes ago and thought it would be great to share and see what other people had collected and had living in their tanks.

This guy and 2 more like him were caught with a small net on Galveston beach. Also caught about 15 very large hermits and 5 large snails. We were on vacation with our 2 young girls and when I caught them I wanted to bring them home. I had brought a 5 gallon bucket with us as something to play on the beach with and it quickly became an "aquarium" in our hotel room for the next 3 days. First thing was I knew I needed O2 and heat for them to make it so it was a trip to wal-mart and bought an air pump and small heater. I had about 2 inches of sand in the bottom of the bucket and a clump of sargassum. The next trip to the beach I brought water back to change some out. On the last morning I packed them in the truck and plugged them in to the 110v plug of the truck and made the 12 hour trip home. Got home late and left them in the bucket until the next day. Upon emptying the bucket and putting things where they needed to go I was shocked that every single thing had lived!!

2 months later I have this gorgeous blenny and a cool story of hand collecting for my personal aquarium.

I know others will have even better stories and I can't wait to hear them and see the pics.

Here's my girls at the moody garden aquarium in Galveston Texas.

 

[Chris Baker]

Nice Blenny! I work for a marine science education organization in Southeastern Connecticut and we bring kids on “Creek Stomps” where we explore a local cove. We catch a lot of critters with nets and keep some of the more interesting ones in some Long Island Sound Biotope tanks in our classroom. I’ll post a sampling.

Hermit crab with Bryozoa colony on the shell. These guys started showing up everywhere for about two weeks in early June. I feed that tank baby brine shrimp every couple of days and the colony seems to come and go.

Little Sculpin aka a Grubby. A ton of 1/2” long juveniles showed up in our cove in early June and then disappeared. Unfortunately we lost all of our Little Sculpin to a green crab that found its way into the tank. One of the students recently caught a 4” longhorn sculpin who seems to be doing well.

I found this purple sea urchin on a bridge piling as the class kayaked beneath it.

I didn’t catch him but this is my favorite fish we keep. He’s a Tautog who has been in our tanks for at least 4 years. We have another smaller juvenile Tautog that I caught in a hand net but she prefers to hide and is rarely seen. He eats squid and live green crabs when we can catch them. They’re a common fish for anglers to target here and it is very interesting to watch how they attack crabs and stick to structures.

 

[JasonK84]

Nice Blenny! I work for a marine science education organization in Southeastern Connecticut and we bring kids on “Creek Stomps” where we explore a local cove. We catch a lot of critters with nets and keep some of the more interesting ones in some Long Island Sound Biotope tanks in our classroom. I’ll post a sampling.

Hermit crab with Bryozoa colony on the shell. These guys started showing up everywhere for about two weeks in early June. I feed that tank baby brine shrimp every couple of days and the colony seems to come and go.

Little Sculpin aka a Grubby. A ton of 1/2” long juveniles showed up in our cove in early June and then disappeared. Unfortunately we lost all of our Little Sculpin to a green crab that found its way into the tank. One of the students recently caught a 4” longhorn sculpin who seems to be doing well.

I found this purple sea urchin on a bridge piling as the class kayaked beneath it.

I didn’t catch him but this is my favorite fish we keep. He’s a Tautog who has been in our tanks for at least 4 years. We have another smaller juvenile Tautog that I caught in a hand net but she prefers to hide and is rarely seen. He eats squid and live green crabs when we can catch them. They’re a common fish for anglers to target here and it is very interesting to watch how they attack crabs and stick to structures.

That is awesome! I wish I lived closer to water to go searching more often.

 

[JasonK84]

Anyone else?

 

[JasonK84]

Nice Blenny! I work for a marine science education organization in Southeastern Connecticut and we bring kids on “Creek Stomps” where we explore a local cove. We catch a lot of critters with nets and keep some of the more interesting ones in some Long Island Sound Biotope tanks in our classroom. I’ll post a sampling.

Hermit crab with Bryozoa colony on the shell. These guys started showing up everywhere for about two weeks in early June. I feed that tank baby brine shrimp every couple of days and the colony seems to come and go.

Little Sculpin aka a Grubby. A ton of 1/2” long juveniles showed up in our cove in early June and then disappeared. Unfortunately we lost all of our Little Sculpin to a green crab that found its way into the tank. One of the students recently caught a 4” longhorn sculpin who seems to be doing well.

I found this purple sea urchin on a bridge piling as the class kayaked beneath it.

I didn’t catch him but this is my favorite fish we keep. He’s a Tautog who has been in our tanks for at least 4 years. We have another smaller juvenile Tautog that I caught in a hand net but she prefers to hide and is rarely seen. He eats squid and live green crabs when we can catch them. They’re a common fish for anglers to target here and it is very interesting to watch how they attack crabs and stick to structures.

This is what your hermit crab reminded me of when I saw it.

 

[cgonser9]

Caught this beautiful guy while diving/collecting in the keys. He’s still alive a couple years later and living in another home now

 

[JasonK84]

Caught this beautiful guy while diving/collecting in the keys. He’s still alive a couple years later and living in another home now

Nice!! Do you collect often or was this on a vacation?

 

[cgonser9]

Nice!! Do you collect often or was this on a vacation?

Yeah typically when I dive the keys a do some minor collecting. Usually ricordias and small tangs and angels.

 

[JasonK84]

Yeah typically when I dive the keys a do some minor collecting. Usually ricordias and small tangs and angels.

Cool, what spcies of tangs and angels do you find?

 

[JasonK84]

After moving the fish to the new 120g I was able to get some "decent" pics of the molly miller blennies that I brought home from vacation in Galveston.

Here is the little one. He/she was about a half inch when I caught it and could have easily fit through the holes of the net but caught sideways. It is 1.5" now

This is the middle sized one. It was around an inch when I caught it and is over 2" now.

This guy is the big boy. He is the one in the original pic of the post but this isn't as good of a pic. He is probably 4" now. All of them have about tripled in size since I caught them at the end of August.

If anyone can distinguish male from female it would be great. I've assumed since the beginning that the little one was female because it is much darker in color than the other 2. They seem to be okay with each other in the tank and I hope that stays cuz I don't want to part with any of them.

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

I live in Florida and enjoy going to the LFS to hand collect the bag with my fish in it!!!!

 

[JasonK84]

I live in Florida and enjoy going to the LFS to hand collect the bag with my fish in it!!!!

LOL! Love your sense of humor. How is your 150 going?

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

LOL! Love your sense of humor. How is your 150 going?

It’s finally cycling, I’m hoping to be ready for fish Jan 1 and maybe ready to transition my coral by March. I just want a stabilized tank for my reef.

 

[JasonK84]

It’s finally cycling, I’m hoping to be ready for fish Jan 1 and maybe ready to transition my coral by March. I just want a stabilized tank for my reef.

So living in Florida you've never thought about going to the beach and catching your own critters?

 

[Coralreefer1]

I get mangroves and purple sea urchins. Haven’t really seen anything else. Sheephead, Black Drum, Snook, and Mangrove Snapper are too big for my tank!

 

[JasonK84]

I get mangroves and purple sea urchins. Haven’t really seen anything else. Sheephead, Black Drum, Snook, and Mangrove Snapper are too big for my tank!

Share some pics. Do you have any urchins that you collected?

 

[Coralreefer1]

Unfortunately ately, I lost them a couple months ago...I will get back there since Daytona Beach is only 40 minutes down I-4. Hardest part is finding them small enough because I only have a 14 gallon Biocube and a 4 gallon cube. This is what they look like. The Black Diadema species, I can’t collect, due to the Florida Fish and Game regulations. My Red Mangrove do very well in my tanks. One of my trees is over 4 feet tall. Soon I will be living outside if it continues to grow. LOL

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

So living in Florida you've never thought about going to the beach and catching your own critters?

I drive a F250 with what it would cost in fuel, etc it’s cheaper to go buy what I want.

 

[Chasmodes]

I have a couple tanks that contain fish and invertebrate species that I've caught from the Chesapeake Bay. I'll share a few pics and a couple videos. I've had these fish in my tank for a year and a half now. Most of them were juveniles when I caught them.

Female striped blenny (Chasmodes bosquianus), about an inch long when collected, and one is about 3" now. I kept two of these. One of them jumped out of the tank and died though.

Male striped blenny (Chasmodes bosquianus), I collected five of these, all were between one and two inches long when collected. All are 4-5" long now.

Two male striped blennies sparring over their territorial boundary:

Naked gobies (Gobiosoma bosc), I collected five of these, each about an inch long when caught, are just over 3" now.

Skilletfish (Gobiesox strumosus), I collected 5 of these between 1.5" and 2", now range from 3-4" long:

This video was shot about 10 months ago, so the fish were quite a bit smaller than they are now, but, it shows all three species of fish active in the tank:


This video was shot last week, showing a male and female striped blenny spawning in an empty oyster shell:


I'll show one more video, because it is a cool one. In this video, three males spar over a female trying to convince her to spawn. You can see them flash at her, and try and herd her to their oyster shell. If successful, the female will enter the shell with the male and spawn. If she shuns one of them, then the male will chase her off:

 

[Chasmodes]

Here's a more recent video, as of two days ago, just cruising the tank, checking up on the fish... All of the fish are adults now. In the first video, they were subadults.