Hello,
If you are located near a body of saltwater you may be tempted to collect some things for use in your home reef aquarium. Collecting ornamental fish and live corals could have a negative impact on the environment and the future of the hobby and should be avoided. There may be some low risk items that make it into your reef tank however. I have collected interesting shells and shark’s teeth for my tank but that is about it.
Some people have reported collecting plankton or small invertebrates to be used as a natural food source for their tank livestock. Using a natural food source collected locally could have some positive benefits but not without the risk of introducing disease and or pests to the system.
It did cross my mind that some locally (NJ) collected snails could be used as part of my CUC but I had concerns about introducing a risk to the health of the tank. With this in mind I did some online searching found locally collected snails were successfully introduced and in some cases thrived in the captive systems we maintain.
What I did not expect to find was that there was at least one case of “swimmer's itch” experienced by a person who purchased snails from an unknown source. This person experienced extreme discomfort and pain which was linked to collected snails. This maybe a fairly isolated case but I never considered adding locally collected snails would introduce a risk to my own health.
So as we all know most of the things we put in our reef tanks originated from the ocean and it is not unreasonable to be tempted to collect things from nearby waters. As someone who is new to reef keeping I will stick to “safe” sources for now. Have you ever collected things for your reef tank and if so do you have any hard lessons learned or happy surprises to share?
If you are located near a body of saltwater you may be tempted to collect some things for use in your home reef aquarium. Collecting ornamental fish and live corals could have a negative impact on the environment and the future of the hobby and should be avoided. There may be some low risk items that make it into your reef tank however. I have collected interesting shells and shark’s teeth for my tank but that is about it.
Some people have reported collecting plankton or small invertebrates to be used as a natural food source for their tank livestock. Using a natural food source collected locally could have some positive benefits but not without the risk of introducing disease and or pests to the system.
It did cross my mind that some locally (NJ) collected snails could be used as part of my CUC but I had concerns about introducing a risk to the health of the tank. With this in mind I did some online searching found locally collected snails were successfully introduced and in some cases thrived in the captive systems we maintain.
What I did not expect to find was that there was at least one case of “swimmer's itch” experienced by a person who purchased snails from an unknown source. This person experienced extreme discomfort and pain which was linked to collected snails. This maybe a fairly isolated case but I never considered adding locally collected snails would introduce a risk to my own health.
So as we all know most of the things we put in our reef tanks originated from the ocean and it is not unreasonable to be tempted to collect things from nearby waters. As someone who is new to reef keeping I will stick to “safe” sources for now. Have you ever collected things for your reef tank and if so do you have any hard lessons learned or happy surprises to share?
