Cold Water Reef and Collecting locally
 

I remember a post awhile back about the legalities of collecting from local BC waters for home aquarium purposes. I was toying with the idea of setting up such a tank and am still concidering it. I wrote to the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) inquiring about if this was legal. Here is a copy of their response.

Your inquiry regarding the collection of specimens for a home tide pool
aquarium has been brought to my attention.

You have indicated that you have a tidal water sport fishing licence and you
can certainly use it for this purpose. You may have received a sport
fishing guide at present with your licence. If not, I can mail you one. I
refer you to the species list and limits for finfish on pages 48/49, and for
shellfish on pages 60/62. For a tidal pool arrangement, I expect that most
of the finfish you are likely to collect will be species of sculpins or
eelpouts and blennies. As they are not specifically listed in the finfish
table, they come under the designation for all other species, which allows
for the daily catch limit of 20 specimens and a possession limit (in your
tank) of 40 specimens. Similar daily and possession limits apply to
shellfish species, with more generous limits listed individually for some
types of intertidal specimens such as limpets.

One word of caution about collecting bivalves - they may not be collected
from areas closed for bacteriological contamination or red tide
contamination. Check with the local DFO office for the area where you will
be collecting to find out where these restrictions are in effect. A partial
list of closures is also available in the back of the sports fish guide, and
on the web at:
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/ops/fm/...es/default_e.h
tm
<http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/ops/fm/...ures/default_e.
htm>

If you would like me to send you a copy of the sports fish guide, please
return your postal address by e-mail. Thank you,

Jim Morrison
Resource Management Biologist - Invertebrate Biologiste en Gestion des
Pêches, Invertebres
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, South Coast Area Pêches et Océans Canada,
Secteur de la Côte Sud
3225 Stephenson Pt. Rd. 3225 rue Stephenson Pt.
Nanaimo, B.C. V9T 1K3 Nanaimo, (C.-B.) V9T 1K3
Phone: (250) 756-7233 Téléphone (250) 756-7233
Fax: (250) 756-7162 Télécopieur: (250) 756-7162
Email: morrisonj@pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca Courriel:
morrisonj@pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca

It looks like it's full steam ahead for anyone interested in undertaking this type of project. Just remember to buy a fishing license first!

Cool stuff. After seeing the tidal pool display at Montreal's Biosphere, I think this type of project would be extremely rewarding.

Re: Cold Water Reef and Collecting locally
 

Sounds interesting AND legal :biggrin:

Considering the specimens in the area where you are will a need cold watter environment once in your tank, how will you provide such an environment? Can the VPA give you advice on setting up and maintaining such a tank, or is there other information out there that you have been perusing? If so, let us know your sources so others may have the chance to consider such a set up.

Re: Cold Water Reef and Collecting locally
 

Well I still don't have plans finalized, but so far my thoughts are temp control shouldn't be too much of an issue. In a tidal pool environment the temp swings drastically. from 55ish to 80 f in any given tidal change. (seasonal variances too of course.). As for water quality, I can collect locally at any given time as I fish all year long with my boat and can collect from offshore locations where the pollution factors are lessened.
I won't be collecting any high light requiring organisms (if there are any locally) as in a large number of areas the sunny days are few. I'm also pondering having a slowly draining tank with a sump on float switches that only activates the return pump when water reaches extreme low. Or I could easily make 2 dump tanks one of warm and one of cold to simulate tidal fluctuations. Hopefully the cycle will be around 6 hours (average tide flow). As for feeding and care, I have spent my life here on the coast and learned a bit about tidal life. I even took a school course in it. I believe with this knowledge and more that I may glean off internet and perhaps writing public aquariums with this type of display, I should be able to keep things rolling smooth.
Do note, I haven't committed to this project or finalized research yet, but will definitely keep all interested reefers apprised of my trials and successes during the process if I do.

Re: Cold Water Reef and Collecting locally
 

I am not interested in setting up my own tank, mostly because there's no ocean nearby, but I am definitely interested in how you do yours if you go ahead. Please keep us updated.

And don't tell boB that I spelled water incorrectly :eek: :mrgreen:

Re: Cold Water Reef and Collecting locally
 

My silence can be bought. Got any frags??? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Re: Cold Water Reef and Collecting locally
 

Oh, yeah...... I give you frags for your silence, but then I'd have to give everyone else reading this thread frags for their silence :crazyeye: I think I'd be better off with everyone PMing boB about my error :mrgreen:

After writing Jim of the DFO thanking him for his time, he offered this advise too. I think alot is common sense but deserves being posted in this thread.

You are most welcome. In terms of moving animals, if your collecting
location is not close to where you live, then please discharge any transport
water to ground rather than to a waterbody, storm drain or the sewer system.
Also, mortalities should be disposed of to ground rather than anything
leading back to marine water, and releasing animals back to the wild should
not be encouraged unless all animals in the tank came from the same
location, the animals are released back to their collecting location and
there was no signs of parasites or disease prior to release.

Good luck, Jim

tank or pool
 

Are you considering doing this in a large tank or building a large pool habitat? I too am from the island and would love to see someone make an attempt to do this. What kind of live inhabitants do you think you might keep?

If I had a way to cool my tank I would switch over in a second. I have my Advanced diving ticket and there is so mush cool stuff around here.

Re: tank or pool
 

If I deside to start, I'm going to start off setting up a 46 gallon standard aquarium. This will be my learning tank so to speak. That said, in 1.5 years when we buy a house, I'd love to consider a tidal pool pond in an enclosed atrium type setting with a viewing window at the deep end and ebbing and flowing tides over the rocks. I think that would be quite the display.

Got an old beer fridge and coils of flexible line???? If so, you got a chiller. Ummm....errr... well so I've read quite a bit online. :confused:

You let us know how the fridge thing works out, k? :razz:

I've been reading for years about how this doesn't work and fridges burn out. I've never seen one successfully built and used long term. The money you don't spend on lighting might be best put towards a real chiller if that's the type of tank you want. Although you'd need a decent chiller for any larger size tank.

I have a distant relitive whom had a Pacific Ocean tank many years ago. He lived in Pender Harbor on the Sunshine Coast and was an avid diver so colecting was just plain fun for him. The tank was full of bright green and Orange anenomies and many other amazing sea floor inhabitants. He bought an old chiller from a super market that they were using for there crab tanks. It kept the water nice and cold. I dont know any stats on it as it was a few years ago when I was a wee chap.

Rob

Actually chilling is the reason I am considering tidal and inter tidal species. They seem to thrive in many different temps. The only concern I have is whether or not they need those temps swings or if a steady middle temp will suffice. The mo....... Darn had to answer the door and forgot where I was going with this. :rolleyes:

I would rethink the temp swings.

The oxygen concentration will drop with higher temps, this might not be an issue in a sparsely populated tidepool but it might pose problems in an aquarium.

chiller
 

I'm not sure Brad but I think Jipartle (I doubt that's how you spell his name... Sorry Jipartle) has one in his store. He was the one who told me about using them for that purpose and pointed to one he had near his counter, behind his small display tank. It might be for frozen food however.

This sounds really interesting. It is interesting how something in your own backyard is "dull" and gets ignored. There sure is some weird stuff underwater here - which draws people from all over the world for diving. But, then I go to Cozumel to dive - and I have the Pacific 2 blocks to the south, or 3 blocks to the east, and hardly ever dive here. (too much gear).

But, it would certainly be interesting to look at them from a nice warm room.

I'm not sure how much you have to worry about supplying warm-up swings in temperature - here where I live the water gets up to about 8 or 9 degrees when it is really warm, and goes down to about 6 - but shallower areas like Brentwood Bay get pretty warm.

Some things should be easy to collect if you dive - it is interesting to see the rock cod just sitting there in front of you when you are diving - if you go off the breakwater in Victoria, you see all sorts of people fishing, with their lines all over the place being completely ignored by the cod. They are so docile you could just stick a fork into them and start eating. But maybe they know they are protected there (no spear fishing allowed but line and hook fishing is OK??? go figure)

How big a tank are you looking at?

John

Just wondering since reading this quote. Do you guys/gals think this sort of thing would apply to our change water? I used to use my dirty water from the tank as water for our flower garden, then thought the salt might harm them so I stopped (btw, never noticed a problem in fact the roses grew like crazy). Anyone have an idea on this?

Thanks

I asked a proffessor at uvic about a cold tank. She thought that anenomes and such could survive without a chiller, but the fish would not. They can take an increase in temp for a bit but not a steady diet, she felt a tropical tank would be easier to maintain. Rachel

I used to maintain the cold water tanks when I worked for the biology department at Camosun College years ago. The stuff was really cool, and surprisingly colourful. I found the only problem was working in the tank; the water was so cold my arm would hurt before it was in the tank a minute. That, and the octopus kept running away. :biggrin:

Re: chiller
 

Japarto will also tell you that unless you're around all day to watch it, it would be more trouble than it's worth.

the problem with using a fridge to make a cooler is that the compressors comenly used in fridges have around a 15% duity cycle. that means that they can only run 15% of the time so say 10 min every hour. if you run more than this it will burn out the compressor in no time at all.

Steve