Collecting in the NE FLorida area.

[ronald_mauldin]

I am in Brunswick, GA for training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. I will have this weekend off and would like to collect some local stuff for my reef tank back home in Texas. I was planning on going to Jacksonville for the weekend to go exploring for snails, crabs, etc.. I am from Texas and have some rock anenomes from Corpus Christi and some sargum(marsh) shrimp from Galveston in my tank. I had heard there were some good mud snails that could be found that were great at keeping the sand clean and eat brown algea from the glass and rock. It is neat to point to things in my tank and tell people how I collected them myself.

I am a memeber of MARSH a Houston Reef club. I was also wondering if this weekends meeting was open to visitors. I would love to see what people are doing here in Florida and talk about the hobby.

My email is r.mauldin@gmail.com it would be great if someone could help me out.

Thanks again. Scott

 

[mecold]

You are in my neck of the woods. To see as many of the mud snails as you might want to see, as well as ulva lettuce, got to the pier on st. simons at low tide. Get on the beach by carefully walking down the rocks, and go to the right. A few hundred yards down, you will start seeing mud snails (illynasa obsoleta) by the hundred thousands. You can also find ulva lettuce on the rocks and tide pools in the middle of the beach down there. Just be careful as the tide comes in pretty quick on that side of the island.

 

[mecold]

Also, if you get there before the birds, you can find a ton of tiny shrimp in the tide pools as well.

 

[PelagicMagic]

Welcome to our forum

You will want to goto black rock beach on talbot Island. A google search will give you a good idea of its location and what the St. park offers. I will help you get to black rock which is somewhat hard to find since there are no signs to show its location. You will find lots of snails, crabs, pipe fish etc.

 

[PelagicMagic]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=781847

 

[ronald_mauldin]

You guys are awsome. You just made my trip. I have a friend tank sitting for me and its funy how I call him everyday to check on my tank.

If someone wants to go out with me I will buy him or her dinner for coming out. I wont be leaving until next saturday on the 26th. But I figure I could just use a air pump and a cheap rubbermaid or ice chest to keep things ok until I leave.

I only have a three hour flight home and I am sure things will be ok in double ziplock bags in my carry-ons for the trip home.

Once again thanks for the quick reply.
Scott

 

[mecold]

Ronald,

If you come to the meeting, I will make sure you don't leave empty handed. Or, if you are flying out of brunswick, I will see you have a frag or two waiting at the airport. Just pm me, and I will see what we can do.

Paul

 

[PelagicMagic]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=785609

 

[ronald_mauldin]

I made it to the beach here in Georgia and found alot of stuff. I was actualy caught by suprize. I only brought a little bucket and had to stop and run to Walmart to improvise a temp setup to keep my new live stock alive for a week untill I go home to Texas.

Any help ID'ing what I collected would be a great help. I will try and take more pics once the dust settles and the filter takes out some of the green from the beach water I collected. I purchased a regular light bulb 25watt power compact sunlight 6500k bulb from Walmart. It was crack so I will have to take it back. It should be plenty of light untill I get home and I plan to throw it in my sump for extra light when I get home.

Here are the pics. I have never seen a blenny like the one I found. I also found three anemones, a few porcelin crabs, emerald crabs, white leg hermit crabs and a ton a mud snails. I also found floating in the water a red branching sponge/gorgonians and alot of bright yellow sea whips.

 

[LadyReefNeck]

Wow! Nice finds! I think I need to get to the beach!

 

[ronald_mauldin]

The water is clearing up nicely since last night. It gives me an idea of starting up a Nano stocked with collected live stock. The polyps on the seawhip are about 90% open. The only ones that dont seem to be open are just under the overflow in the high flow area. All the others minus about 10% look great and are filtering the beach water. The three anemones look god and are open. I found a second blenny this morning in there. I think they hitchhiked in off of a rock or algea. ANyone know if they are reef safe.

If anyone at the meeting interested in trading for seawhip pm me asap and I will bring one to the meeting. They are very yellow and should look great under MH lighting.