Gathering live sand?

[dstipple]

I'm looking to start a 55g tank and wanted to know if it was legal/practical to gather live sand for a tank. If I were to do this i would be getting the sand about 6-8 miles off Marathon Key, FL.

 

[jeff@zina.com]

Why not? A lot of sand actually comes from there anyway.

Make sure you're not in a marine sanctuary, make sure the bag limit on whatever comes up with it isn't exceeded and make sure that you have a saltwater fishing license. I wouldn't do it during mini-lobster season either, lots of enforcement out there.

Jeff

 

[Paco]

I don't even know if you need to go that far offshore. The sandbar off Largo has some pretty nice sand. If I had a boat I wouldn't have paid the $1/lb that CaribSea receives.

 

[4deepwater8]

I got mine right off the beach in marathon and it is great.

 

[dstipple]

Awesome, thank you all for the replies!

 

[jdhuyvetter]

I can't find anything that says it's illegal. But, I know that FWC really frowns upon it. I do know that it is illegal from a commercial collecting perspective.

The only thing I could find in the marine ornamentals section of the FWC regulations was a reference to a 100 lb per day or 2 species limit for anything not previously listed.

Meaning, since sand was not specifically listed in the regulations, you could collect up to 100 pounds.

I personally have collected my own sand. But, the last two tanks I upgraded, I just used Caribsea live sand from the LFS.