Florida Residents

[trottman]

Can anyone give me the names/ locations of where there are wild ricordea/mushrooms in the waters surrounding Florida.

Reef names, city names, beach names would be helpful.


i am trying to get an idea of where they are located.

thanks

 

[drummereef]

Glad to see you are taking up mushroom fragging instead! J/K. Glad to have you back little buddy. :thumbsup:

 

[trottman]

Hehe.....

Preferably looking for legal collection sites. (with the correct permits and such of course)


also looking for any sps corals that florida has to offer.

 

[CMcNeil]

the keys has ricordia but you cant take them.

 

[Dwarfpufferfish]

Florida does not allow collection of any type of hard coral. You can collect soft corals in certain spots but alot of it is restricted. The Florida keys does have shrooms and you can collect them in certain areas, but you better be sure of what areas are allowed. As far as permits go, all you need is a Florida Salt Water Fishing Licence. Also, there are bag limits of 6 colonies of soft corals.

If you do a search you can find all the laws on collecting in Florida, but those are the basic rules.

 

[trottman]

I did a search, and i cannot really find out what the wild corals are down there except elkhorn coral and "soft coral". i can also not find out where the locations for wild collection are allowed.

 

[chrisstie]

There's a guy at sealifeflorida.com who is also old.diver on ebay. i think he has a way to collect locally perhaps you could find and get ahold of him?

 

[Dwarfpufferfish]

Mostly what you will find are zoanthids and mushrooms... Just about everything else is off limits. I do not know what areas are legal to collect in, as I do not collect myself, but there are a few of them!

 

[trottman]

zoanthids and muchrooms is exactly what i am looking for.

thanks chrisstie. i will look into him.

 

[bitis316]

Stay away from any of the upper keys....Especially Key Largo, Down through tavenier.......After upper matacumba you can find special collection sites with the approved temp permits of coarse,,,Contact Department of wildlife and fisheries in islamorada...They can let you know what you need to do to get these...

 

[chrisstie]

bitis do you know if those areas would require SCUBA or just snorkeling? it sounds like it'd be something fun to do for a vacation and then drive everything (or ship hah) back home to Orlando.. I dont know how to SCUBA or the best way to get certified since my city is sorta landlocked

Maybe i'tll be worth a drive out to the coast for some lessons!

 

[bitis316]

Scuba mostly.......But make sure you have permits.....These waters are monitored very closely by the authorities....But even more by the people like my family who have the permits......They require alot of work to get.....And the locals don't want their area screwed up....I know from reading your replies, that you would never harm the reefs....Just beware...Locals as well as authorities do not take well to intruders of protected waters.......By the way I love you attitude on all of this....You sound like you really have a passion for this.....Keep it up....What are you in school for.....Maybee a job in the future..From a fellow geek to another, I just thought I'd say You have a great attitude on this......

 

[chrisstie]

Thanks bitis

I grew up on a barrier island in SW florida and unfortunately there isn't a lot of great looking stuff there. The closest "reefs" we had were manmade ones out of boxcares ~15 miles or so off the coast.

My friend and his family would go diving\spearfishing while I would fish from above. . . I always had my saltwater liscense until I moved to Orlando to study Computer Engineering.

The more and more and more I get into this hobby? The more and MORE i really am thinking about finding out how to get a good marine bio degree (i read about everything i can for fun, how coolw ould it be to get credit for doing it?) to do something with in the future.. I can pay for it when I graduate and get my job doing engineering stuff.

I need to start at hread over in the lounge about marine bio schools online ;p

If most of the things are at a depth where SCUBA would be involved I guess I should probably look into getting some certs. I think UCF has a scuba club I could probablyf ind out through them! Wetsuit anyone?! I hear its a lot cheaper to do it through there but my husband has been out of school for a while so he's sol ;p

I would definitely look into permitting - I'd need to find out if there is anything special for a temp pass like "tourists" can get or even if a saltwater type liscense covers that. I was reading a thread in another forum somewhere here on RC where they busted a guy bringing in rock and coral (not the recent 350lbs dude) and folks were talking about limits, sizes etc and it sounded pretty similar to fish. Mmmm I miss eating Snook! And I am so conflicted eating things related to my pets argh! haha

It is just really cool to get in touch I think with the real hardcore people in this hobby because more often than not they have a certain degree of passion and caring that you just can't find with common dried up folk ><

 

[bitis316]

I couldn't have said it better myself.......Good luck in the future....I don't know about temp permits...I can ask my father and get back to ya.......

 

[chrisstie]

Its okay - if he knows great, but don't wanna bug anyone. i can dig around on the state and what is it duval county down there or another? to see whats permitted. All my life spent in FL and never went down to the keys. I grew up just north of Boca Grande if you know where that is.

The closest I have gotten to a "reef" in FL besides fishing over one was on the east coast a long long long time ago at my mom's high school reunion. there were lots of rocks on the coast.. I think this summer i'm going to have one of those bugs where i gotta find out the ins and outs of doing something like this but i can't with school its sucha pain! haha

 

[bitis316]

Ya....Tarpon are my best friends...We have a family of them that lives at our dock...They come to eat every night.....Bonefish to...

 

[chrisstie]

haha that's too cool We had a small school of snook that lived at our dock. One I swear was about 4 ' long. They liked to eat leftover chicken, bones and all.

My mom still regrets not catching\eating our pet before moving here since you can't really get them commercially haha.

I was very surprised to see Sheephead at a local fish market.. they are so bony yet yummy i didnt think they were available foodwise or legally wise

 

[bitis316]

I miss home.....Islamorada I'm on the way......lol