NC Specific Reef?

drcrook · Feb 8, 2019

Hey Folks,

Im moving out to OBX and bought a house on the water. I thought it would be cool to do my new 220 as a NC reef like the ones we have. Focusing on local rock structures, corals, fish, inerts etc that are found just off shore seems like a very neat thing to do.

There are lots of laws governing reefs, so I was wondering if there was any knowledge around how to safely and legally collect species for something like this? My initial thought was to drop a crab pod filled with dry rock off my dock for 3-6 months and then collect it again to seed the tank. There are also various pin fish traps etc which could be used for catching small fish species.

Also, are there any knowledge bases around nutrient composition ideal for these environments. I suppose i could simply collect some water and just test it.

Anybody done anything of this nature before?

Zohar78 · Feb 8, 2019

wow.. may could be interesting..
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/scienc...ef-discovered-south-carolina-coast-ncna904821

drcrook · Feb 8, 2019

Oh yeah, there are also tons of reefs off of the obx due to the massive number of ship wrecks. Lots of corals as well. We are near the intersection of a northern and a southern current; so, we get both sets of life.

I may end up starting a smaller tank for this one due to the unknowns. The objective is to recreate the natural reef environments of the “artificial” reefs created by the various shallow water ship wrecks.

Picard's Lionfish · Feb 8, 2019

I live in SE NC. I've often thought about a local species tank myself. I've lived here my whole life and never really seen what the refs look like. I have fished them for years. Once I caught a softball size mass about 3 miles off shore. It was teeming with odd colored sponges and tons of pods. I put it in my fugees, only to have it completely dissolve in a few days.

Also had a friend who set up a 180 and caught local specimens with a cast net. He kept a pin fish in that tank the size of a hippo tang. It would literally shred anything he tried to introduce.