Natural Reef?

[Proteus Meep]

I use Nutri-Seawater in my 6 uk gallon nano...the tank runs great on it, everything is vibrant and healthy ...not quite like collecting it yourself (not an option for me) but everything seems happier than when i was mixing my own synthetic salt up, i wouldn't want to go back to synthetic now

 

[RocketBunny]

RocketBunny, I don't see enough issues with using NSW in an aquarium if you want. I'm close enough to the water that I could do it. But having an RO/DI in the garage with a big storage tank is just so much easier!

However, I sure wouldn't think NSW would be much of an issue. I bring home live animals that I collect on the beach when I do beach walks out on Sanibel Island and Lovers Key (both near home) and even more when we go snorkeling in the Florida Keys (see the link in my signature). I used to quarantine everything I brought home. Eventually I set up a 65g shallow reef (4'x2'x14") and just put my wild collectioned critter right in, no quarantine. In 10 years I've never had an issue except with some live rock I got from Tampa Bay Saltwater.

Hello Ron. I live in florida too, and I am going down to the keys next monday for a chance to get reef water and maybe even some invertebrates (corals, anemones, softies, etc.) You said that you did collect creatures for your aquarium... what did you collect? Straight up corals and things like anemones, fish? Or just crabs.... Because I heard that you need a license for some creatures, and then you are able to collect all the others for recreation... That matters to me because I really want to handcollect some specimens (I was thinking about some mushroom corals or anemones)... so did you have any issues with regulations while collecting them?

I'll stick with seawater for as long as possible... down here where I live ( I grab my water at Boca Grande), the salinity is readily at 1.027, so I don't have a lot of issues with it... also the chemistry is good... and only once when I did collect it, it had a trace of ammonia... otherwise it is very clean.

 

[RocketBunny]

I have run tanks using natural seawater when I lived in Panama City Beach. It was terrible. I had no equipment other than filters and aquariums and wanted to keep some of the sea life I was finding. Had to rely on water changes to get rid of ammonia as I had no sumps built. The tanks always smelled terrible, looked terrible and never would I have subjected any more sensitive creatures like polyps to the conditions that I had in those tanks. So much crap in the water that it was never clear grew alge instantly sea foam was a terrible Brown and yellow. Other than filter media and carbon had nothing to really clean the water though and in my experience was never enough to keep up with specimens ammonia production. I would always end up releasing any specimens I caught eventually and think if they weren't already acclimated to all the crap in the water feel they wouldn't have made it as long as they did. Not saying anyone should or should not try this but in my experience it was not good at all.

That is sad... maybe it is because of the wrong equipment? But then, equipment won't help out in contaminated water. I don't use a big sump either on my experimental NSW 20 gallon tank... I just plug in my skimmer at night to help out with my heavy bioload (5 fish and one poopy feather duster). The skimmer and a tiny power filter is all I use... because I have lots of macro algae that I collected... mostly sponge seaweed (search them to see what they look like, if you find those, keep them... apart from others they don't die quickly and last A LONG TIME and filter good) and then a couple other types of red seaweed...

Overall. hope your aquariums will thrive more

 

[Ron Reefman]

Hello Ron. I live in florida too, and I am going down to the keys next monday for a chance to get reef water and maybe even some invertebrates (corals, anemones, softies, etc.) You said that you did collect creatures for your aquarium... what did you collect? Straight up corals and things like anemones, fish? Or just crabs.... Because I heard that you need a license for some creatures, and then you are able to collect all the others for recreation... That matters to me because I really want to handcollect some specimens (I was thinking about some mushroom corals or anemones)... so did you have any issues with regulations while collecting them?

I'll stick with seawater for as long as possible... down here where I live ( I grab my water at Boca Grande), the salinity is readily at 1.027, so I don't have a lot of issues with it... also the chemistry is good... and only once when I did collect it, it had a trace of ammonia... otherwise it is very clean.

Look at my signature, there is a link to my snorkeling and collecting thread here. And there is a lot of good info there including a few good sites to snorkel off the beach.

Unless you are over 65 years old (hey, some of us are!) you need a saltwater fishing license to collect. Florida FWC has VERY strict regs on what you can and can not collect and limits even on the items that you can collect. You'd be extremely lucky to find any mushrooms or even ricordia while snorkeling. You do understand that ALL stony coral (SPS & LPS) are completely illegal to collect. Live rock is also illegal. Condy anemones are illegal. There are some zoas, and the limit is 5 polyps per licensed collector per day! Gorgonian corals are 8 colonies per day (which I think is crazy as I've seen a few colonies that wouldn't fit in my 50g tank if I stuffed it in with a trash compactor!). Snails, hermit crabs, mithrax crabs, porcelain crabs, serpent stars, brittle stars, ordinary stars, sea cucumbers, rock flower anemones, curly-Q anemones, spaghetti worms, feather dusters are all allowed. Most fish are allowed, but then most fish are really difficult to catch, even with a good net. HOWEVER, there is a 20 animal per day limit. So 5 zoa polyps, a couple small gorgonians, a few serpent stars, 10 turbo snails and you are at your limit.

And DO NOT get caught with anything illegal or over the limit. The fines are substantial. I asked an FWC ranger what the fine would be for a single stony coral and he said it could be jail time and/or up to a $2000 fine! And I've been checked by FWC rangers while I was snorkeling in the water (they were on jet skis), while in our zodiac (they were in a boat) and at the boat ramp (they were in an SUV). Take this advice very seriously.

 

[Will Milberger]

I hope you mean human FECAL material. I don't think they are doing abortions on cruise ships.

 

[samnaz]

RO, do you get Red Tide where you are located. We do and it is nasty, lots of fish kill and it seems to get worse year by year. Fortunately it is does not usually last very long.

check out the red tide at night, you won't find it nasty once you see the sea lit up and sparkling blue with bioluminescent plankton!

 

[leicaguy]

So I collected natural sea water from palm beach, in Florida, and Jupiter inlet, I was younger fitter and containers of water were easy to carry, I also lived steps from the ocean! Now in my 60's I am not so agile to collect it and live miles from the ocean! BUT I had good success, in the day. It was however a pain I would filter the water aerate it and then pass it through UV. There was a guy in Broward from Israel told me how he collected the water and how he would treat it. I followed his routine as described.
His name was Jack on Sterling Road! he was a true master aquarist Today I use RO/DI 8 stage, and then Tropic Marine salt. If I could I would use natural sea water It needed buffering but I always felt the corals and fish did well. Good luck too you I hope this hobby brings as many hours of happiness

 

[leicaguy]

Oh and I never collected any corals fish etc form the ocean and yes in Florida you need to be very careful !

 

[Shooter6]

I collected a small amount of sea floor sand while in the keys, and will say i have seen some very interesting critters in my refugeum where i added that sand. The rest of my set up was dry sand & dry rock so i think it was beneficial. I would have collected water too but tsa frowns on careying water onboard.

 

[RocketBunny]

Look at my signature, there is a link to my snorkeling and collecting thread here. And there is a lot of good info there including a few good sites to snorkel off the beach.

Unless you are over 65 years old (hey, some of us are!) you need a saltwater fishing license to collect. Florida FWC has VERY strict regs on what you can and can not collect and limits even on the items that you can collect. You'd be extremely lucky to find any mushrooms or even ricordia while snorkeling. You do understand that ALL stony coral (SPS & LPS) are completely illegal to collect. Live rock is also illegal. Condy anemones are illegal. There are some zoas, and the limit is 5 polyps per licensed collector per day! Gorgonian corals are 8 colonies per day (which I think is crazy as I've seen a few colonies that wouldn't fit in my 50g tank if I stuffed it in with a trash compactor!). Snails, hermit crabs, mithrax crabs, porcelain crabs, serpent stars, brittle stars, ordinary stars, sea cucumbers, rock flower anemones, curly-Q anemones, spaghetti worms, feather dusters are all allowed. Most fish are allowed, but then most fish are really difficult to catch, even with a good net. HOWEVER, there is a 20 animal per day limit. So 5 zoa polyps, a couple small gorgonians, a few serpent stars, 10 turbo snails and you are at your limit.

And DO NOT get caught with anything illegal or over the limit. The fines are substantial. I asked an FWC ranger what the fine would be for a single stony coral and he said it could be jail time and/or up to a $2000 fine! And I've been checked by FWC rangers while I was snorkeling in the water (they were on jet skis), while in our zodiac (they were in a boat) and at the boat ramp (they were in an SUV). Take this advice very seriously.

Thanks for the useful info... I do have a saltwater fishing license and an adequate, aerated container for storage... ill probably just take water and maybe substrate or macro algae...

Good luck sir! I wish you a long life and lots of snorkeling

 

[RocketBunny]

So I collected natural sea water from palm beach, in Florida, and Jupiter inlet, I was younger fitter and containers of water were easy to carry, I also lived steps from the ocean! Now in my 60's I am not so agile to collect it and live miles from the ocean! BUT I had good success, in the day. It was however a pain I would filter the water aerate it and then pass it through UV. There was a guy in Broward from Israel told me how he collected the water and how he would treat it. I followed his routine as described.
His name was Jack on Sterling Road! he was a true master aquarist Today I use RO/DI 8 stage, and then Tropic Marine salt. If I could I would use natural sea water It needed buffering but I always felt the corals and fish did well. Good luck too you I hope this hobby brings as many hours of happiness

Thank you very much I do enjoy the hobby... Incase of critters, I did see lots of interesting things... the ocean substrate is a gold mine when it comes to filtering animals... I don't filter my water, I just test for ammonia/nit/nat and salinity to make sure it matches mine (most of the time it does), and then I just dump it in...

Good luck to you sir, and wish you a long life

 

[RocketBunny]

check out the red tide at night, you won't find it nasty once you see the sea lit up and sparkling blue with bioluminescent plankton!

I did collect that plankton, corals love it, but it doesn't continue to glow once I put it into my aquarium.

 

[madweazl]

I used the Scripps water that was mentioned earlier for years and collected water off the coast of Okinawa for almost two years as well. I wish I still had access to NSW.

 

[Ron Reefman]

check out the red tide at night, you won't find it nasty once you see the sea lit up and sparkling blue with bioluminescent plankton!

samnaz, are you saying that red tide is bioluminescent? I don't think that's right. There is bioluminescent plankton in sea water, but red tide is an algae bloom that discolors the water and in some cases, maybe most cases, releases toxins into the water that kill fish and many other animals that live in the water.

 

[Wh00pS32]

There's a large facebook community here in the UK for natural seawater users (over 4500 members)
I don't use it myself as i'm too far from the coast but there are a lot of people running very succesfull tanks here in the UK on NSW.

 

[Proteus Meep]

There's a large facebook community here in the UK for natural seawater users (over 4500 members)
I don't use it myself as i'm too far from the coast but there are a lot of people running very succesfull tanks here in the UK on NSW.

What is the group called

 

[Wh00pS32]

What is the group called

Natural sea water users uk [marine tanks]

 

[Paul B]

I collected some today and hopefully this week I can wash my gravel in the sea as it is full of mud. I moved it from my old house and it is still in buckets.

 

[PranK]

I collected a small amount of sea floor sand while in the keys, and will say i have seen some very interesting critters in my refugeum where i added that sand. The rest of my set up was dry sand & dry rock so i think it was beneficial. I would have collected water too but tsa frowns on careying water onboard.

That's funny. In Sydney you can take all the water you want but sand is a no-no.

 

[Wen]

I used NSW for 7+ years with no major problems.

We live on a canal in south Florida, and my husband loves to boat. Almost every weekend we would motor out 2 miles, drop a submersible pump down 5 feet, pump up 30 gallons into a Brute bin, once home we would siphon out from the display tank into canal 30 gal, then pump in the 30 gal of fresh salt water. Of course, if there was a red tide or bad weather, we didn’t go out.
(Nowadays, you can find a red tide report on the internet.)

Pros for me:
Fish really perked up, LPS corals very happy (full and great color), serpent stars would travel to highest part of tank and spawn, BTAs would do mass spawning night after water change, beautiful white feather dusters appeared throughout the sandbed and multiplied, saved money and hassle of mixing salt water, excuse to go boating every weekend...

Cons for me:
Over the years found 2 small stone crabs (which were returned to the gulf), I was not dosing at this time - so alk and cal would drop quickly..., I had a hard time keeping SPS corals happy (I did not understand the importance of parameter stability at this time.).

Pic of red tide report:

A few years ago I stopped using nsw and now use Red Sea coral pro (and use dosers and strive for stability), but I miss the affect nsw had on the livestock. I’ve begun “supplementing” with NSW once a month about 20 gallons.

Hope this adds insight to your thread.