Sargassum, Sargassum Shrimp, and other critters...

[sharambil]

Hello,

I am a new member here. I could not find the appropriate place to post this, so I decided that this area might be the right place. If it is not, mods please move to the appropriate spot!

I watched an interesting video from Ivan Mikolji regarding Miami beach and his experiences growing up in that area. He specifically talked about sargassum and sargassum shrimp, other fish, etc.



I was wondering if there was any way I could legally get access to any of the fish in that video... I would love to try and create a similar biotope that would represent the habitat that the fish/inverts came from.

Thanks for the help,
Shane

 

[I'm a natural blue]

@Lucie

 

[vlangel]

KP Aquatics collect live rock, coral, inverts and fish from somewhere on the FL coast. Perhaps you could email them and ask.

I do know that the last big hurricane wreaked havok on the operations of a lot of FL marine companies, so they may be low on stock at the moment.

 

[Lucie]

OOOh good you tagged me in Lisa, thanks!
In Florida, you can collect yourself legally if you have a saltwater fishing permit.
I know all these critters very well and I belong to the people who get very exited when seeing a patch of sargassum...
I will post pictures later, from computer.
The file fishs in the video are super nasty, they are planehead filefish juveniles. Many other species can be found in sargassum, filefishs species, triggerfish, tripletail, Mahi, jacks and amberjacks, permits, flying fishes, damsels, frog fish, seahorses... mostly juveniles.
Also there are many variety of shrimps, amphipods, zooplankton, hydroids... that entirely rely on sargassum.
In Florida, it s mostly 2 species that can be found (pelagic) : s.fluitans and s. Natans
They are hard to keep because they need verybright lightning and very good water quality.
Also, many fish species like mahi, tripletail... have a minimum legal size to harvest, so be aware of the collecting rules

 

[Lucie]

natans

fluitans

 

[cracker]

I have collected critters from the sargasso. all very cool !

 

[Lucie]

A cool tozeuma.

Same specie, but living in seagrass

And some dead Latreutes (some have parasite if you look closely)

 

[vlangel]

natans

fluitans

Lucie, do you think T5HO enough light for sargassum? I have seen it on GCE and considered getting it. I really think my seahorse tank has better water quality than any tank I have ever had. It is full of healthy sponges.

 

[Lucie]

Lucie, do you think T5HO enough light for sargassum? I have seen it on GCE and considered getting it. I really think my seahorse tank has better water quality than any tank I have ever had. It is full of healthy sponges.

Might be ok, depending on the bulbs you choose and the distance between fixture and water surface (I m talking about pelagic species)