Right from the Ocean

Yorto · Nov 21, 2015

I have a question. How would it be possible for one to take a few animals from the shoreline and put them into your tank?

A friend of mine has an oceanfront beach house. His property sits right on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Near his dock he has a number of very nice rocks near a small shelf that has some nice life on them. I have seen hundreds if not thousands of hermit crabs. Also in the sand area I have seen the small burrowing clams. I would like to bring just a few rocks in about 50 hermit crabs in some of these clams and put them in my saltwater tank in Ohio. Sand sifting, we have found sand fleas and I'd like to grab some of those too.

The beauty of it all, he's an ocean conservationist and is totally in support of me taking a few of these critters home for my aquarium. However, I need help with the transport. It will take approximately two days for me to drive home from his location to northern Ohio. Suggestions?

Yorto

AlexG · Nov 21, 2015

Before considering any wild collecting consult the local laws to see if if permits are required or if it is allowed. Also consider the temperature of the water these animals would be coming from. If legal collecting is allowed and the temperature of the water is close to the temp of the aquarium a cooler with some battery operated air pumps should be enough for transport. Temperature control will also be needed during the transport.

brandon429 · Nov 21, 2015

Sure it isn't hard just match your temps to where they are adapted

Transport in buckets with air pumps used for bait fish run on d batteries

Put them in a cycled tank right temp, easy switch. Your main goal will be ammonia monitoring in the new tank with high quality not API ammonia kit

If dieoff occurs change the volume of water needed to make it zero or use ammonia correcting media