Peace River's Found Parts Build

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Emarley said:
Interested to see how this goes, following along!!!
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Thanks! It is still a work in progress so I am also interested to see how it goes!!! ;Wideyed
 
Ecoscape Reef Rock
So I headed to the coast with a friend, a 20ft seine, a dipnet, buckets, water jugs, and a fishing license. We caught several different species of killifish that went with him and some puffers, SW grass shrimp, some sand, and about 15 gallons of water that came home with me. And this is when the second-guessing and mistakes started happening....
 
Although this pictures wasn’t taken on the same day described in the post above, this was taken in the same area along the coast.

3673A2DE-0A18-44B5-A77D-E26230F57725.jpeg
 
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Peace River said:
Although this pictures wasn’t taken on the same day described in the post above, this was taken in the same area along the coast.

3673A2DE-0A18-44B5-A77D-E26230F57725.jpeg
Click to expand...

I’m lost on this too. (But To put that in perspective I also lost my keys inside my car)

Did you drain too much in your bucket?
 
Tidal Gardens
So I got home with the fish, inverts, sand, and water and then started second guessing if I should use the sand from the coast. Was it safe? Would I be opening Pandora's box of reefing issues? Did I get it from far enough off shore? Should I have gotten dry sand? What about the water? I only got about 15 gallons - was that enough to mix with 40 gallons of new mixed SW? If I just added the sand, seawater, new saltwater to the tank and hooked up the prepped canister filter would that be enough?

I am used to following a far more traditional way of setting up a tank using cured and cycled rock, live sand from a bag, etc. and now I had some decisions and the pressure of what to do with the puffers and inverts....
 
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flchamp89 said:
May I ask why not just get all NSW ?
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By NSW, I assume you mean why not get non-saltwater? Good question!

I actually have collected, kept, and bred FW species many times and am still doing it with a range of FW and SW fishes. As far as Florida natives I have bred Gulf Killifish (Fundulus grandis), Banded Topminnow (Fundulis cingulatus), Bayou Top Minnow (Fundulus notti), Golden Topminnow (Fundulus chrysotus), Rainwater Killifish (Lucania Parva), Bluefin Killifish (Lucania Goodei), Flagfish (Jordanella floridae), Brown Bullhead (Ameiurus nebulous), Sailfin Molly (Poecilia latipinna) Least Livebearer (Heterandria formosa) as well as some inverts. Both of F. grandis and L. parva were breed in saltwater tanks and the rest in freshwater.

For this project I wanted to expand my comfort zone and not only work with SW Florida natives in a functional breeding setup, but wanted to setup something closer to a biotope tank.
 
Thank you @count krunk.

flchamp89 said:
May I ask why not just get all NSW ?
Click to expand...

The short version is poor prior planning on my part. I only took enough containers for 15g of sea water - part of the learning experience and lessons learned for the future.
 
So as I mentioned in a previous post, I was second guessing myself. Well, to make a long story short I chickened out and, in the moment, decided not to add the wet sand directly to the tank. After the drive home from the coast, the sand that was in a couple inches of water smelled like muck and I decided not to take the chance. Still wanting to using the sand, I decided to rinse it and then spread it out outside on a bunch of trays where it cycled between being dried by the sun and rinsed by the rain and then more sun and more rain, etc. I filled a spare 10g tank with the seawater and added a sponge filter, the puffers, and the inverts and went back to the proverbial drawing board about how best to transition from the temporary setup into the 55g.
 
So after a few weeks of letting the sand be washed by the rain and dried by the sun, the smell of muck had faded and I was about to set up the tank. Meanwhile, I hadn't been paying enough attention to the temporary tank. In spite of the fact that I knew better and although I had been doing some water changes, one evening I noticed that one of the puffers was looking a little off and then when I got home the next evening all of the puffers were gone. I was frustrated and mad at myself because I didn't stay focused on water quality of the temporary tank, I had not intended to leave the fish in the temporary tank so long, and I didn't act on that sense that told me to make a change and unfortunately the fish paid for it. After stepping back for a week or two to rethink my plan, I decided to move forward and I was able to find a day to head back to coast to see what I could find....
 
Peace River said:
So after a few weeks of letting the sand be washed by the rain and dried by the sun, the smell of muck had faded and I was about to set up the tank. Meanwhile, I hadn't been paying enough attention to the temporary tank. In spite of the fact that I knew better and although I had been doing some water changes, one evening I noticed that one of the puffers was looking a little off and then when I got home the next evening all of the puffers were gone. I was frustrated and mad at myself because I didn't stay focused on water quality of the temporary tank, I had not intended to leave the fish in the temporary tank so long, and I didn't act on that sense that told me to make a change and unfortunately the fish paid for it. After stepping back for a week or two to rethink my plan, I decided to move forward and I was able to find a day to head back to coast to see what I could find....
Click to expand...

Bummer and sorry about the puffers. If there were awards for not staying focused I would have the gold every year for sure

A trip to the coast sound like just the thing.. ;Woot
 
Tidal Gardens
I was able to find a day to head back to the same spot on the coast but this time I was alone and didn't have anyone to hold the other end of the seine, although it was probably just as well because it kept me on the conservative side. I was more prepared to transport water so I was able to get enough seawater to fill the 55g. Using a dip net I also collected a thin-striped hermit crab and more than a dozen saltwater grass shrimp. Once I got home I was able to fill the tank with the natural seawater, add the sand from the same collecting location that had been rinsed and dried, and add the cycled canister filter. After the sand had mostly settled later in the evening I added the new inhabitants to the tank. Using this approach, I didn't follow the usual setup process so the next step was to wait and see if the tank would cycle, have a mini cycle, get into the ugly phase, or what would happen next....
 
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IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

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    Votes: 32 45.7%

  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%

  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
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