Corpusfishing.com

[BirdHunter]

Ok group,

I just picked up a 46 gallon bowfront tank and stand.
My son is the saltwater aquarium guy so I am deferring to him regarding hardware, setup and maintenance.

My question is about native species that will look good, live together etc.

The kids want to grab the tiny pomps /jacks that are in the surf during the summer. I agree it would be cool but how fast will they grow?

I remember Prof Salt had a Mahi for a while and that was awesome but we all saw how fast she outgrew her tank.

Pin perch are hardy enough but pretty dirty and I don't know how fast they grow either.

Without any good input I will be stuck doing the Caribbean coral reef thing

Thanks in advance.
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[Central Scrutinizer]

Pomps and jacks may look cool, but given their diet/lifestyle, it might be tough to move them to flake/mealworm/'normal' fish food. If you can raise them (or buy them...Aquarium place by the old Zero's on McArdle), full grown brine shrimp will serve them well.

In the spring/early summer, your options for local fish are great. Small spadefish are great additions; there are a number of damselfish that invade the jetties; and there are a couple of drums that are quite colorful (highhat and cubbyu). There are also angelfish galore, but I would shy away from the butterflyfish. There are typically bad news. There are also some Labrids that work well, like a 'slippery Richard' - hey, I don't make up the names!

More local and more abundant, blennies are some of the best specimens to add. Easy to catch and they are hardy. Don't be tempted to add a "brown floating plant material'-fish, unless you want to sacrifice the tank to it! Believe it or not, spotted seatrout make a good aquarium candidate.

Always have a hermit crab or two (stone crabs also) for 'garbage patrol', but blue crabs tend to grow really fast and are destructive. If you happen to secure a local octopus, make sure you have a good LOCKING lid, they are quite curious.

Be sure to condition the tank well before you start adding fish. A shrimp will provide sufficient nitrogen waste to get the nitrification process started. (Peppermint shrimp from the jetties [especially common during winter work well too], and they are very colorful). The jetties / beach will also yield a number of inverts also (calico crabs, decorator crabs, arrow crabs).

Good luck with your new setup. (Did you happen to transport it home yesterday? I passed a truck with a large aquarium and 'stuff' on SPID headed towards the Bluff). ??

[bucknplastic]

I used to keep mud minnows, killifish, gobies and pipefish successfully in small aquaria when I was a young marine biologist. They were fairly low maintenance. The killifish will take on some nice color when breeding. Taking kids into a salt marsh with a minnow seine is more than half the fun!

[BirdHunter]

It was yesterday but that wasn't me..... I'm all the way up in Abilene.
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The entertainment is cheap, . . . It's the price of admission that gets you.

[BirdHunter]

I used to be amazed at the variety of fish we would pull from our cast nets in the bays. Shrimp, crabs, puffers, rays etc etc etc. I never see that much variety anymore.

A small speck would be awesome for sure.
I saw tons of spadefish in he surf back in June.
Didn't get to make our July/August trip like we planned. May get back down in Dec before Christmas.
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The entertainment is cheap, . . . It's the price of admission that gets you.

[Blast-n-Cast]

I used to have several salt water tanks as a kid and always stocked them with native fish because the price was right . I got most of my fish at the Port Aransas jetties (Packery was not open at that time). Sergeant Major's were plentiful at the jetties and hearty in the tank. There were a few other brightly colored Damsels that I cought out there that did fine in my tanks as well.. Blennies were abundant andl also did well in the tanks. I collected most of my fish snorkeling the jetties with a slurp gun or by catching them in traps made from 3 liter soda bottles. Inverts could be collected by running a fine mesh net along the surface of the large rocks. As mentioned above at night I caught lots of peppermint shrimp like that, although they usually ended up as food for the other tank members at some point. I also got some pretty cool stuff from shaking out sargassum. Lots of cool invertabrates and I had a few of the elusive Sargassum fish. Those guys will eat fish 3 times their size though. Good luck. Its a lot of fun and something I have been thinking about doing again with my kiddos

[67 Shellback]

I had a 90 gal high saltwater tank for several years. A neighbor owned a pet store so I paid 10% over his cost. I kept yellow, powder blue, and blue tangs, pterra batfish, lionfish, brown spotted moray, sailfin tang. With herbovores try to get a healthy growth of green algae growing for them (tangs, butteflies, etc. The herbivores must be fed 3 to 4 times every day. Lionfish was fed once a week with 3 to 4 black molly freshwater fish. The lion fish ate them in a heartbeat so they didn't live long. The moray eel was hand fed frozen shrimp that was peeled. Thawed them out before feeding. Feeding the critters can be a challenge especially with locals needing their regular diet. The omnivores were fed brine shrimp. Put them in a glass of salt water from the tank and pour them in so the go to the bottom of the tank.

A marine aquarium is a fun hobby, but, a lot of work Have fun and do a lot of reading. They can get diseases from new tank mates and it can spread quickly.

[Oil Field Trash II]

I've been doing this for about a year now and come to the conclusion that small saltwater fish are total A holes.

mud minnows kill anything that's their size or smaller, including hermit crabs. I have had lizard fish, pin perch, croaker, piggy perch, mangrove snapper, shrimp, snails, different types of crabs, and sea lice.

the sea lice and piggy perch never made it more than a week. I had some really cool leopard crabs and the mud minnows killed them all.

right now I have a mangrove snapper and pin perch getting along OK, but the pin perch has grown about 3 times faster than the snapper so I need to get rid of him. I had about 7 hermit crabs, and they've all died for whatever reason. I think the pin perch killed them. they did a pretty good job of keeping the bottom clean while they were still alive though.

one thing I'll say is buy a filter/pump system that's rated for at least 2-3 times the water you have.

[lagunarat1975]

this is an interesting thread would like to hear some more about collection methods for the jetties fish traps shrimp catchers etc also octopus capture have caught a few on hook and line around the fina docks over the years but never trapped one
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[captjameswheeler]

The tiny groupers from the jetties look great and live pretty well...

[Blast-n-Cast]

[Blast-n-Cast]

[ltorna1]

[BirdHunter]

Well at this point the tank is has cycled. We put two damsels in it just for grins and they are doing fine.
So whenever I get a chance I'm going to try and run down and see what I can bring home. I think the best bet will be wait till June/July and see what we score.

How long do you have to soak those soda bottle traps ?
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The entertainment is cheap, . . . It's the price of admission that gets you.

[Prof. Salt]

Here is a link to an album of my native tank on FB. It's got a pretty good assortment of what can be found locally. That little flat on the West side of the Packery channel bridge is a gold mine if you pull a sein net around at low tide.

https://www.facebook.com/profsaltoutdoors/photos/?tab=album&album_id=801213260016436