Local New England Tank

[tigereye37]

Anyone on here set up and keep a tidal/local New England style reef? If so, i would love to see some pics as i would love to set one up myself. Also, what temps are you keeping it at year round? what live stock have you kept? Anything really interesting? Let's see them..........

 

[madisonrose05]

i konw there is someone around boston area that has a dedicated cold water tank because they bought some catalina gobies which are cold water fish. but i dont know who

 

[Beaun]

I live out on east end of Long Island so you could consider me "New England" I keep the tank at 70 degrees with no heater or chiller. If I had the foresight I would have kept the return pump out of the sump and it would be around 68 degrees. But 2 degrees is no big deal. I currently have a Northern Puffer and a Cunner in the tank along with several species of macro algaes. I get Margarita snails and red foot snails from the LFS because they are from cooler water in California and my puffer wont eat them. Probably because they are not familiar. He will eat local mud snails and periwinkles. All my water is locally collected along with the sand and the rocks. In the summer I plan on seining for tropical strays that get brought up here with the gulf stream. It is very possible to get Spotfin and 4-Spot Butterflys, Atlantic Blue Tangs, Queen/Grey Triggers and many others. I run a 65 gallon reef ready with an eshopps reef sump, AquaC Urchin Pro skimmer and a MagDrive 9.5 return pump. If you are interested in growing macro's I would tell you right away that Codium (Dead Mans Fingers), does not grow well in aquariums for some reason. Any other questions I would be very willing to help you with.

Here is a tank shot. Its a few weeks old, and the tank has gone through quite a few changes since then. (The Codium in the bottom left is gone now)

I would also read this article about local collecting.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/reefs-magazine/46421-local-collecting-tri-state-area.html

 

[billsreef]

The trick to codium is very bright lights and lots of nutrients, it's a bit of nutrient hog.

Rhode Island is going to have the same critters we find here on Long Island. There's even a local coral, Northern Star Coral. It's most common in areas of current and deep enough to be protected from direct pounding by the waves. The frilled plume anemone can be found in the same areas. Both need to be regularly fed with small sized meaty foods like brine shrimp nauplii. Plenty of starfish and purple urchins to be found, but don't expect to keep macros with the urchins With the fish, be aware of the local regulations, generally game/commercial fish species will have both size and season regulations. i.e. that cute little blackfish will have to go back, but the grubby's (small local sculpin species) will be fair game.

 

[Beaun]

Yeah, I would check your states DEC website for fish regulations. I can only speak to the NYDEC regs. All game fish will have regulations on them (Bluefish, Bass, Tautaug, Porgy, Flounder...)

But you can get a lot of cool stuff that has no regs. I was able to get my puffer with no size reg., and you can get schooling fish like killifish, mummichugs, silversides (although they die easily), sticklebacks (3, 4, and rarely 9 spine) and sheepshead minnows. Those are all very easy to get by simply seining near shore. I was also able to get my cunner with no regulations, its in the wrasse family and also closely related to blackfish (tautaug) while staying smaller. Everytime people come over and see that this is what exists in our local waters they are always amazed by it. It's very cool to know that we are blessed to have such beautiful stuff up here too.

 

[spamreefnew]

years ago i had a small tank with local crabs,hermits,and snails at room temp. the crabs from here grow like crazy! had one go from dime size to 6" in just over a month. i would love to try a "local" reef when money permits it

 

[tigereye37]

Awesome! Thanks for the responses! This is exactly what i was looking for..... Where did you manage to catch the puffer?

 

[Beaun]

I do trawling for data collection at my job with my local government. We caught it one day last summer in Napeague Bay in East Hampton (east end of long island).

 

[Beaun]

Updated with picture, very cool fish. Absolutely a must have with any local species tank. Lots of personality and very smart. Only issue is that he will eat any exposed local snail/invert. I put in a small crab and he was eaten within a few minutes, as well as the mud snail I put on the sand bed. The ones on the rocks are fine though. I solved this issue by getting margaruita snails and red foot snails. They are west coast snails so he dosnt bother them. Just dosnt recognize them as food I guess. Might get mexican turbos as well to clean tank. This is the temperature these snails are supposed to be in anyways. Its better for them then putting them into a reef tank.