Free stuff from the ocean

Gdbyrd

life's a beach
Tomorrow I'm going fishing/snorkeling...Not a huge fan of fishing, so I'll be spending my time on the other side of the boat.

My LFS has told me on several occasions that the ocean is a great place to get your clean up crew as they cannot carry harmful parasites to your tank like fish can. This makes absolutely NO sense to me(there examples were hermits and snails).

Just wanted to make sure I'm right with my thinking.

But on the same note, is there anything I can pickup that I could use at home too?
 
make shure you are not breaking the law by collecting alot of places you have to have permits to collect. and inverts do not carry parasites like ich but make shure you know what you are grabbing there are a lot of snails that are predators
 
make shure you are not breaking the law by collecting alot of places you have to have permits to collect. and inverts do not carry parasites like ich but make shure you know what you are grabbing there are a lot of snails that are predators

Wow...they were right. Pretty sure it's OK to collect. I see people doing it all the time and another LFS here that used to deal saltwater collected a lot of their stuff for their personal tanks. They advised me to do it and said that as long as I'm not harvesting game fish or corals it's not an issue.

I wish I knew more about IDing stuff. There are a lot of sea cucumbers, starfish, hermits, snails, urchins, the like out there in 20ft of water.

Thanks for the info Daugherty. Gotta get up in 4 hours so I'm hitting the sack. I'll snap some pictures if I find anything, see what you guys think before I consider bringing something home with me.
 
It'd be a good to check with your local fish and game officer before you actually try to collect anything,even snails and hermits.It'd be bad to loose your boat,fishing tackle,and license over a few snails.
 
Are there restrictions about taking home lots of shells from the beach? We're headed to VA beach and I was thinking about straining through the sands for seashells. I was hoping to bring a grocery bag full...hehehehe. I figured I'd take a strainer, scoop up sand, and just start a siftin'!!
 
i agree with yote, i would check first, united states is very strict on collection of things out of the ocean here.. as far as the saltwater hobby trade goes. i dont think its legal..again i would check.
 
i would rather check to know for myself than trust someone else and then be sitting in jail or have huge fines and all my things taken away by the fish and game
 
And if you do collect stuff, be sure you can ID them. A lot of harmful snails and crabs look very similar to reef-safe ones that we keep. For example, nassarius snails and predatory whelks can be very difficult to distinguish from each other.
 
be sure to check about everything you can collect, some places here in cali don't even want you to take SAND home with you... and around our area of monterey there are TONS of lil hermits and turbo snails but if you even touch a broken empty shell and are caught with it youre finned up the wazoo!! maybe get yourself a laminated picture of both a good snail and a bad snail and take em down with you :) thats what we do when we go diving
 
im in the heart of the central valley.. good old scott peterson town ;p lol. but i go to monterey at the AQ every other tuesday :) so i basically live up there... getting ready to transfer out next semester to CSUMB :)
 
theres some cool stuff out there. I just put a small arrow crab in my tank last week. found that little guy on a dive. My buddy found a monster arrow and took him home for his 125.
 
I tried calling my parks and wildlife but they were closed. I ran into a game warden near a boat ramp and asked him about it. He said it'd be OK to grab a few. He didn't say if it was legal or not, lol. But I picked up a snail and a crab. You guys tell me what you think.

I also ran into some neat looking shells with a bright orange meat on the inside of the shell. Not sure what they are, but they were very nice looking. Also found two anenomies, some sponge...nothing of which I have any idea of...so it all stayed there.

here's what came home with me, anyone care to ID? The claws on the crab are almost flat. The snail has a black meat, most of the shells were black, but this one was black/white patterened.
SU1HMDAyMDQuanBn.jpg

SU1HMDAyMDYuanBn.jpg
 
i'd put that crab back. There aren't too many crabs that I feel are reef safe that come from the gulf. Arrow crab I know is cool. But all crabs when hungry will help themselves to whatever is available. The claws on that crab apprear to be cutters.
 
the clam you saw... did it look like this?

if so its a scallop :) we have some around here and they are pretty neat but i'm not sure how to care for them... sorry for the bad photo quality, our lighting in our oceans edge gallery is really low and my camera doesn't have a flash
 

Attachments

  • Picture 9.jpg
    Picture 9.jpg
    50 KB · Views: 230
Last edited:
I don't buy that "clean-up crews can't carry harmful parasites" for an instant --bunk! One little egg or tomite floating in the droplet of water on the snail's back and all your fish are dead. Also, crabs are reef safe only when they are small. Emerald crabs have killed fish.

On the other hand, I have collected a huge amount of dead coral skeletons (i.e. rock) form the beach. I must have 40 lbs of it. I let it turn bone dry for a month or two and then cure it myself. I've found some awesome rock off the beach including big pieces of white branch coral as far north as NC.
 
Look at the tip of those pinchers on that crab.If there cup shaped,its more of an omnivore.If the tips are sharp,its pure predator.
 
Back
Top