Thinking about collecting some wild sand today?

[randy4083]

I gotcha. Actually I ended up looking it up on Google maps because it did sound familiar. A buddy of mine lives up in that area off Ft Smallwood near that Mc Donald's and CVS

Yeah that's where I live by the McDonald's and back by the school

 

[cracker]

I'm a little too far from the ocean to collect a larger amount of water. Now next time I go offshore fishing I could bring fill one of my barrels. You can get free seawater from Marine land also but that's a good long ride south for me. Long ago I put a 5 gallons of natural sea water in my tank. for a couple of nights the water sparkle/glowed with fluorescing plankton. Pretty cool. They didn't last long. These days now I'm older it's just a lot easier to make my own.

 

[leicaguy]

I do not collect rock but do collect sea shells, and a small bag of sand that is it I live close to the ocean so it is super fresh, about 30 years ago I would also collect fresh sea water, filter it and use it but not today, When I collect it zi mean to is about a cup, I do have a fishing license for Florida as well

 

[Rockit]

Would anyone collect sand/mud from a cold water environment (Sonoma/Mendo area of northern California ) for a mixed reef tank?

 

[michael giordano]

I cured my rock 8 miles offshore in 90ft of water outside Stuart. It was simple I bought a crab trap and filled it full of rock And it sat in ocean for over two months. Man that rock was awesome full of spunges and corals, Good stuff and made for a great established reef.

 

[OrionN]

I always set up my aquariums with rock leave in Corpus Christi Bay for several months, and sand from the surf of Mustang Island and Padre Island. You wouldn't believe the amount of live on these rock. I have the rock out of the bay and into my tank in 1/2 hr. I even have live fish as hitch hiker in my tank.
I am setting up my 320 right now, I use natural sea water collect at high tide and put directly into my tank. Right now I am trying to aquascape and get my whole tank clean up prior to introduce corals and fish. My tank did not even cycle as I set it up.
The first picture is a picture of some of the live on the rock at the back corner of my tank, and the second picture is a layer of poop from the animals on the rock above it, (pictured in the first picture). I have not have my circulation going yet. Just light and rock pile up in the tank.
These rocks were put into the bay about 3 months ago.
On of the problem with these rock is that they are full of aptasia also. I will need to get biological control. I have used peppermints and
CBB in the past and it works quite well to control the aptasia.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

Awesome thread, I wish I lived close enough to do this, next time I go to a clean beach I'm going to try to get some sand (and sand fleas) to add to my fuge

 

[fishybizzness]

Paul, how do you add the mud to your tank? Do you just dump it in or do you put it in a container like a Tupperware and just rest it on the substrate? I would like to try this but am not sure how to go about it. Thanks

 

[Paul B]

Would anyone collect sand/mud from a cold water environment (Sonoma/Mendo area of northern California ) for a mixed reef tank?

I take it from New York, it is probably 35 degrees now.

I add mud by putting it in a container in the tank then I also shoot some around the rocks and under my UG filter. It is very fine and disappears.. After a while I can remove the container of mud but I also just dump some in

 

[jisc]

Anyone collect water or other stuff in Charleston SC to add to reef tank? Results?

Never considered it but could hang some rocks in water at my boat slip then add to tank

 

[klp]

I live in fort Myers and when I set up my mangrove tank I just picked up a few rocks from the gulf and shook them off real good in a bucket and dumped the contents in the tank. There's so much life in there you wouldn't believe it, worms, pods, shrimp, tinys clams, crabs, tunicates and more. Just be careful getting sand that it isn't full of little clams, as this can cause a big die off in the sand bed.

What do you mean by die off in the sand bed? The clams die? I have seen tiny clams in some beaches in Florida and often wondered why they were never sold. Do they stay tiny if you know?

 

[MnFish1]

I started my tank with this water and you can see the bottom if you put it in a shot glass and mixed half of it with RO water and boiled it for 20 minutes. But the "dark" water is alive with life, tropical waters are basically dead.
If you look at a glass of tropical waters you will see nothing except maybe a pair of sunglasses or an empty tube of Coppertone. If you look through a glass of northern water you will see all sorts of life. (along with other things) In NY and other Northern places the water isn't dark because it's dirty. Well,,,, some of it is, But that darkness comes from mud. That mud is full of organics that feed bacteria, which become pods, fish fry and eventually sushi.
It is also dark because the tides here, in New York vary by as much as 8' every 6 hours. That means that water is moving very fast back and forth stirring up the bottom. The closer you get to the equator the less tidal movement there is.

All of the worlds great fisheries are in northern waters, guess why!

If I take NY water and let it sit for an hour, it becomes crystal clear and all you see is life swimming around trying to get out so they can go to Times Square on New Years day.

I don't worry about oil because that floats and you can see it. The hypodermic needles sink and you can pick them out.
This picture in the East River is called Hells Gate. Most of the water in the Long Island Sound go through here making it very rough and many times oil tankers crash here. I dove here and that was a big mistake. Before I went to the bottom I was hurtling and rolling around many times and emerged 100 yards from my boat. And the visability is zero.

Someone has to explain the benefit of putting cold or cool water bacteria etc into a tropical reef tank. It probably doesn’t hurt but I don’t see the benefit.

Secondly. Every tank after 6 months is colonized with bacteria that has adapted to it. There is lots of data that suggest that new bacteria added can’t out compete the established bacteria.

JMHO. It seems to me that at best doing this won’t hurt. At worst it could wipe out your tank. Why would someone take that risk?

 

[cracker]

Mn fish, We do it for the adventure & learning experience.
Anyway, I don't think I got a meaningful amount. When I returned home the amount looked wimpy ! I will do this again. Maybe bring home some of that mud !

 

[ReefSlice]

What do you mean by die off in the sand bed? The clams die? I have seen tiny clams in some beaches in Florida and often wondered why they were never sold. Do they stay tiny if you know?

What I mean is they probably won't survive long term in our tanks, especially considering the quantity of them depending on where you collect the sand. Right in the surf, there are tons of tiny clams being washed up with every wave, I would collect from a little deeper or calmer water and just mind what you're getting.
There are many different species of clam around here, but most stay relatively small.

 

[MnFish1]

Mn fish, We do it for the adventure & learning experience.
Anyway, I don't think I got a meaningful amount. When I returned home the amount looked wimpy ! I will do this again. Maybe bring home some of that mud !

What are you learning? How are you sure that what you're doing is beneficial? Adventure is always fun.

 

[cracker]

Ya gotta wait & see what happens ! Always striving to improve.

 

[MnFish1]

Ya gotta wait & see what happens ! Always striving to improve.

Agreed I was meaning from those that have done it before

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

Been lurking on this thread just watching what everyone says.

 

[cracker]

Ok , I'm about to head to head East for more sand. As for the tanks, I haven't seen any changes at all . However this all about increasing the biodiversity of benny's in my tanks. I did have an small out break of this light green slimy algae,but Iv'e been fiddling with nutrient levels also. What caused the algae ? No tellin.
This time I'll be better prepared & try 3 different places. Ist a fish camp on the Inter coastal Waterway ,bought live bait but never walked down to the water to see if there were any rock & such to shake & worthy sand.
The 2nd is Guanna Lake state park.. It's an old salt marsh that for some reason they built a spillway across it. The north lake side, 8 miles long Has a good population of redfish ,seatrout & black drum. They say flounder also but Iv'e never caught one there. . Now I can get good sand & hermits if I want but no rock to shake Also here the salinity is very low like 1.010 low. Now on the south side of the spillway is good & salty there may some rock there . Never really looked . 3rd will be at the north end of st Augustine. I know there is rock there that can be shook & sand looked pretty good.
I will take more containers, The tub & more buckets. Uh ya & a pair of gloves !
Any OP's on sand& critters that's been in low salinity?

 

[OrionN]

Below is my tank on 4/30/2018 after sand in and prior to sand about 6 weeks ago on 3/18/2018. I put in several hundred pounds of Live Sand from the gulf of Mexico on 4/14/2018. I strained them to remove some of the larger clams and a few ghost shrimp. I know these were in there and don't want to have to worry about them dying in my tank. I took them back out and put them back to the ocean.
What I did was wait for a calm day and use a shovel and get the sand right at the edge of the waves come up. I would love to get more sans that always submerged but it is more difficult to do this. I settle with about 1/5 of the sand was under water all the time while the rest was right at the edge. I fill the 5-6 gal salt buckets 1/2 full and added enough water to keep the sand under water. Drove home, sheave the sand, to remove the "sand fleas"(Shrimp with huge head and minute body), ghost shrimp (white burrowed shrimp) and a large number of bivalves. I just turn of the PE and dumped the sand in. The water clear up in a few 1/2 hr.

The sand was all blown away in the middle because my two wrasse, a Sailfin and a Labouti Fairy wrasse, were having WWIII in my tank so I turned the 4 MP60 to full blast trying to break up the fight. At least it was successful, and the wrasse stop fighting.

I am happy with the sand. It was absolutely full of small animals. There were track all over the sand, and I can see explosion of tiny crustacean on sand, rock and the glass. The wrasse gorge themselves of these tiny animals during the day, but at night with a flash light there are many thousand of these tiny animals.