Catching specimens in san diego.

[suver569]

I'm just curious. Does anyone know the laws regarding catching your own specimens in the san diego area?
If your familiar with s.d., I've been looking around the La Jolla area on the cliffs. Lots of snails, hermits, and anen's. There are also what looks like some very small scooter blennies in some of the pools.
My kids have been bugging me to catch some so I thought it would be fun to set up a small 10 gallon and let them catch a few small crabs and snails and set it up for them, but I dont want to be breaking laws in the process.
I'm pretty sure "the cove" is a protected area and your not even supposed to take shells from there, but I'm not sure about other areas, namely south along sunset cliffs area.
Any help is much appreciated. Thx in advance.

 

[ophiura]

Most of the animals found there will not survive in a tropical tank, so I would not recommend taking them in general. I guess if you are setting up a small system.....a few crabs, well, who knows...but definitely do some checking into water temps, etc.
I am sure there are areas there that are protected, but otherwise I am not all that familiar with it.

 

[suver569]

I forgot to mention (I think) that this will be a separate tank. It will just be something for the kids to be able to interact with. They will be able to catch things and put them into the tank. I would never try to put anything from the S.D. coast directly into my tank...They'd probably die from the shock of the clean water in the tank.

 

[gobyinpeace]

In order to collect you will most likely need a fishing license. Contact your local fish and wildlife agency and ask them for collecting info, species lists and restrictions.
Sample the water you collect from for PH, salinity and temp. If you can duplicate these three paramaters in your aquarium you will have little problem supporting a wide variety of marine life. Also try to duplicate the habitat from which they were collected (plants, sand, rocks, etc....)
Try to identify what you collect before you put it in your tank so you don't encounter any problems.
There are a wide variety of native fish that are very hardy and content in the home aquarium. If you're only going to have 10G. you will only be able to keep 1 - 1" minnow and thats it. Several small hermit crabs will work as well. You may be able to keep one of those Blennies if they stay small enough. I would suggest at least a 20G. tank though.
Research as much as you can. Good luck!

 

[ophiura]

Originally posted by yeloek9
Oph is quite right! Any ocean water less than 200 miles from the coast, is grossly polluted! The water in your tank, is nearly PERFECT! So without all the "pollution" that your specimens are used to where they are coming from, they will surely die in your "perfect" tank. Correct me if I'm wrong anybody...
Justin

I am not sure how I implied this at all, and it is not true. The overwhelming majority of our tanks are far far far from anything close to natural conditions and concentrations of natural "pristine" seawater. As for pollution, well, in some areas there is a lot, but it is very different from what goes on in our tanks.
All I was saying was that the water in that area is rather chilly, and care needs to be taken to match that in captivity. Just do some testing of temperature, etc, as mentioned and try to match it up for best success. But most tidepool critters are pretty tough.

 

[dekim28]

i'm new to this forum but i do collect fish,anenomes,crabs etc. from local beach (recreational fishing liscense) and they do fine in one of my tanks.but i live in florida so that may make a difference?