To start:
Make sure that you do not need permits for areas you collect in!!!
The sand here is silicious and not suitable for most deep sand beds...they generally use calcareous sand. Using silicious sand may make you very unhappy. Same is true of non-carbonate rock. Keep in mind the the ocean temperature is now cooler and the animals are adapted to that. Suddenly putting them in warmer water may be fatal.
The large hermit crabs here are highly predatory and should not be collected unless you are doing a "local" biotope tank. Sand dollars are also inappropriate, as they require silicious sand and a very deep sand bed.
Do not collect anything, IMO, closer than at least a few miles offshore.
I do not recommend keeping many, if any, local fish. If you don't know exactly what they are, and exactly what they need, you should not collect them at all. It is, IMO, extremely bad to collect any fish with the idea that you can just release it again, unless it is specifically in a local biotope tank. Introducing these into a captive system with fish from other areas, especially the Pacific, exposes them to potential pathogens that could then be introduced through rerelease of fish.
