Do reefers in Florida pay for supplies?

[sixty_reefer]

Just been to Miami for a couple weeks, Best holidays ever, this is my new favourite place, the reefer in me couldn’t not stop noticing the amount of things on the beach that I’d love to have in my tank. The sand on the beach looked really good as a substrate not to mention full of live and beneficial bacteria, rocks looked good and the beach was full of mangroves, sea grass and other cool marine algaes. The water was also Cristal clear definitely something I would love to use for WC. Is there any particular reason people not using this for they’re reef tank? Or doing Florida inspired native tanks?

 

[Phil D.]

I believe it's illegal to take stuff from beach and water.

 

[CuzzA]

Taking rock is illegal as well as mangroves. Sand has the potential for human pollution. Water can be taken, but may or may not be fine. There's no telling what kind of pollutants or run off are in the water. If I were using NSW, something I've consider here in Florida, I would collect it offshore and in the middle of the water column. Then I would UV sterilize it before putting into my tank.

 

[ScottR]

@Ron Reefman may have some insight into this.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Taking rock is illegal as well as mangroves. Sand has the potential for human pollution. Water can be taken, but may or may not be fine. There's no telling what kind of pollutants or run off are in the water. If I were using NSW, something I've consider here in Florida, I would collect it offshore and in the middle of the water column. Then I would UV sterilize it before putting into my tank.

Is it illegal in all Florida beaches or just in the protected areas? In another thread I’ve seen someone mention that you couldn’t collect it in the ocean but from the beach was fine. It seems surprisingly as there was literally hundreds of mangroves in Miami Beach I assume someone cleans the beach every now and den and ends up in the local tip.

 

[Ron Reefman]

@CuzzA is right on the money.

I do a fair amount of collecting in the Florida Keys. But it's snails, crabs, stars, cucumbers, anemones, shrimp... legal wildlife.

Rocks are illegal (in the water or on the beach), in many counties even taking sand is illegal, mangroves are illegal (but not the propagules you find on the beach which will grow). Some area are far more strict.

Sand and near shore water are questionable at the very least. Have you read about Red Tide? It killed a whale shark here, what do you think it would do in your tank?

 

[SunshineNinja]

Part of it is that you don't want to disturb those places. As a Floridian I feel partially responsible for protecting our natural areas. It might seem like a small thing for one person to take, but if everyone started just taking things the natural places wouldn't exist.

Specific to this hobby though, you don't know what you are introducing to your tank. We've had some bad algae and red tide blooms in the last few years. Best not to risk it...

 

[ScottR]

@CuzzA is right on the money.

I do a fair amount of collecting in the Florida Keys. But it's snails, crabs, stars, cucumbers, anemones, shrimp... legal wildlife.

Rocks are illegal (in the water or on the beach), in many counties even taking sand is illegal, mangroves are illegal (but not the propagules you find on the beach which will grow). Some area are far more strict.

Sand and near shore water are questionable at the very least. Have you read about Red Tide? It killed a whale shark here, what do you think it would do in your tank?

You have documented your grabs a great deal here. Always lots of great stuff at the beach!

 

[ZoWhat]

Read This.... Florida Fish and Wildlife Officers are badasses... and that's no joke

Messing with Florida's protected list of organisms.... you might as well assault an elderly retired person. Lol

Woman on vacation gets 15 days in jail for taking live conch shells

Harvesting empty seashells is allowed in Florida, but taking a living queen conch is illegal.

www.wthr.com

 

[Florida Sunshine]

Yes, I pay for everything that goes into my tank. I do have some locally collected sea shells I picked up at the beach but those are not in my tank, they are used as decoration outside of the tank. I think I did put some small shells in once when I was keeping blue spot jawfish. I washed them in bleach first though.

 

[TheHarold]

Florida is (rightfully) pretty hardcore about protecting certain environments. There are regulations regarding what percentage (and to what height) you can trim a mangrove tree annually, even in your own property!! (Need a very difficult permit to even cut one- and yes, they enforce this via overhead imagery).

just like for fishing, you need a permit for most collection or face huge fines and potential jail time. Even for rock.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Read This.... Florida Fish and Wildlife Officers are badasses... and that's no joke

Messing with Florida's protected list of organisms.... you might as well assault an elderly retired person. Lol

Woman on vacation gets 15 days in jail for taking live conch shells

Harvesting empty seashells is allowed in Florida, but taking a living queen conch is illegal.

www.wthr.com

I wouldn’t mess with them myself lol, unfortunately in the Bahamas things were different I’ve seen a lot of these queen conches shells being sold on the beach, hopefully they didn’t kill them for profit. I did notice that there was signage almost every were about not messing with wildlife but wasn’t sure on what was protected hence the question on here the only flora I’ve seen that you could buy as a souvenir was a baby palm three.

 

[EmilyXLC]

I can’t say I would ever put any sand, water or rock into my tank from the beaches nearby. I feel sorry for our ocean in it’s current state; I’m afraid of what kind of things I would introduce into my systems by doing that.

 

[Ron Reefman]

You have documented your grabs a great deal here. Always lots of great stuff at the beach!

Yup. The state has some laws and limits on some things like live rock, mangroves and a lot of sea creatures (mostly limits but some limits are zero). But some counties and some cities have laws that are even more strict. So even just picking things up off the beach requires you to know the local laws. On Sanibel Island, a VERY popular tourist spot, all live mollusks and echinoderms are illegal. One live horse conch can cost you a $1000 fine on one beach here and nothing on another beach in a different county.

And for what it's worth, to those who say they wouldn't put live stuff from the ocean into there tank; I've been collecting small livestock like clean up crew, anemones, shrimp, fish, sponges and algae for nearly 15 years and none of it has ever caused me any issues. The only invaders I've had in my tanks have been aiptasia and flat worms and those came from frags I got from local friends! I even saved 2 anemones found on the beach during a red tide outbreak and they survived and did no harm. Of course they spent 6 weeks in a holding container before I put them in my tank.

 

[ReefReadyYouTube]

I feel like it would be best to just use guaranteed clean water and live rock.

 

[jheidenthal]

For my freshwater tanks I take driftwood I find on the beach, but that's it.

 

[LOVEROCK]

Part of it is that you don't want to disturb those places. As a Floridian I feel partially responsible for protecting our natural areas. It might seem like a small thing for one person to take, but if everyone started just taking things the natural places wouldn't exist.

Specific to this hobby though, you don't know what you are introducing to your tank. We've had some bad algae and red tide blooms in the last few years. Best not to risk it...

is tampa bay live rock safe from the red tide ?

 

[sixty_reefer]

I feel like it would be best to just use guaranteed clean water and live rock.

I have noticed that a lot of members here do like the live rock from tampa bay. They all full of life

 

[SunshineNinja]

is tampa bay live rock safe from the red tide ?

I'm not sure... Red tide is caused by a dinoflagellate called Karenia brevis. We get dinoflagellate algae in our tanks but I'm not sure the exact species. I follow the FWC red tide status but I haven't collected live rock locally for my tank. Not sure if Karenia brevis can even survive in a closed environment.. I'm just thinking with all the other algae types we have to battle I don't want to risk another haha.

 

[stanleo]

I used to keep tarantulas and I would feed them crickets from the pet store. One summer I found a bunch in the front yard under a piece of plywood and it was about feeding time so I got a handful and fed them to my 3 spiders. They all died a few days later. Since then I will never put anything from outside in any animal habitat I have.