Sea of Cortez Project PICS!

[seansx]

Just thought i'd post and upload pics and information on how my Tank of the Sea of Cortez is progressing. To let you all know i ditched school alot this week to get this tank up and go diving! All corals and LR will be collected via scuba diving/ snorkling or w/e. Local fish as well! Planning on buying a clown fish because i have not seen or heard of any clown fish in this sea. But anyways enough talk and more pics..



this will be the tank i'll be working on for my house...well untill i go to college. My told my dad what we needed and what i wanted and he was the brains in designing it ofcourse i helped. Never hurts when you have a designing engineer on your side. Those are the legs of my dad's employee i made him come over and give me a hand






This is our RR Tank 150 gallons 48X24X30 we constructed using 1/2 inch acrylic. This is the first aquarium we had built and the first attempt busted through the seems. THe second attempt we drove 1" screws in the side of the acrlyic renforcing the whole tank. Filled it up and was good to go.
2 X96watt PCs
mag 12 for return and a mag9.5 powering the skimmer. will be putting one viaqua pump rated for 500gph in the tank for a total of about 1600 g turn over (all elbows and tubing gph flow reduction) I built this tank with my dad before i go off to college. When i get money $$$ ill build my own system and have a closed looped system and hide all tubing.





the return from the sumps is drilled in the canopy.




Some sand i got from the beach. It's nice and clean and white!

[seansx]

This is just a sample of some LR from our sea...it weighed 43 lbs i kid you not. I held on to this rock while holding the bc regulator valve to get me out of the water!!! It had some cool critters on it including, feather dusters, crabs, a sea nemy and some anoying Mantis shrimp i'd like to get out of there.






some more LR



water!





some more water!





filled up with the pumps running and the PCs....just to let you all know i grabbed all the water from the ocean. I know alot of you think thats the most horrible idea ever. But the tank has been running for almost a month now and it's fine and more of the tank inhabitants will be from here. The sea of Cortez is a very salty sea. My salinity meter couldn't even read it. I am going to add some fresh water next week and bring it down to 1.024.





Cloudy water settling down, thats a blurry pic of a seargant fish. I was in a tide pool the other day and i had placed a bucket in the water just to SEE what i could catch, i was aiming for some wrasses but this little guy just can into to it and i said what the heck i'll take you home. Along with this guy i caught a blenny a nice one too i get some pics of him later.




There he is




This guy is the funniest thing ever, after one day in captivity from the sea, both were eating and the seargant follows my finger around the tank and is already eating flake food.




I went diving yesterday to get some more LR and some of the corals i picked up on the rock I was ganna go diving again today to get some more but my girl friend had to go to art class! Everyone knows the rule, no diving without a buddy. stupid rule. These are some polyps alot of them are still closed up, waiting for all of them to open up! how much would this be worth at a LFS?






can anyone tell me what the heck this is? I thought it was a urchin but it has some sort of polyps that open and close and tentacles and push it around the tank and it has spines!.



side view of the tank...i love those polyps...anyone know what kind they are? I'm a newbie to reefing and i'm already addicted!




a blurry picture of a red feather duster





Just to let all you guys know...i dived off my seadoo speedster it has a capacity of 4 persons, dual jet ski engines and it handled the rock/water weight perfectly.





PLEASE POST ANY ADVICE OR QUESTIONS! I HAVE NOTHING BETTER ELSE TO DO

[seansx]

[seansx]

[seansx]

like i said i'll be going diving again and filling the tank to the rim! hopefully LOL im' planning on making a big cave on the right side of the tank, drillling holes into the LR and ziptying them together.

[seansx]

[seansx]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by seansx
[B]Justthis will be the tank i'll be working on for my house...well untill i go to college. My told my dad what we needed and what i wanted and he was the brains in designing it ofcourse i helped.




" I told my dad" not my dad told my dad...my bad

[Lordhelmet]

are you located in tucson or in mexico. I thought it was a few hours drive from rocky point to tucson.

BTW i thought of this last year when it looked like i was moving down that way but decided against it since i would have to bring things across the border and thats a big no-no

[technoshaman]

That urchin looks like a flower urchin in the Toxopneustes genus. Do not touch! They have a painful sting and a few deaths have been attributed to their very potent venom which causes a hemolytic effect if I'm not mistaken.

Just did a few google pic searches and you definitely have a flower urchin or a very close relative - please take appropriate precautions.

http://images.google.com/images?sour...=1&sa=N&tab=wi

[seansx]

Originally posted by Lordhelmet
are you located in tucson or in mexico. I thought it was a few hours drive from rocky point to tucson.

BTW i thought of this last year when it looked like i was moving down that way but decided against it since i would have to bring things across the border and thats a big no-no

i live in san carlos sonora...little town near guaymas. why didn't you move down? it's awesome!

[seansx]

Originally posted by technoshaman
That urchin looks like a flower urchin in the Toxopneustes genus. Do not touch! They have a painful sting and a few deaths have been attributed to their very potent venom which causes a hemolytic effect if I'm not mistaken.

Just did a few google pic searches and you definitely have a flower urchin or a very close relative - please take appropriate precautions.

http://images.google.com/images?sour...=1&sa=N&tab=wi

wow, i picked this guy up with my bare hands! =/ thats to sketchy for me im going to throw this one back, dont want to take any chances=]

[Devtech]

very cool! uhhhhh ummm can u grab one of those zoa infested rocks for me? LOL

[seansx]

Originally posted by Devtech
very cool! uhhhhh ummm can u grab one of those zoa infested rocks for me? LOL

i would if i could...there are huge boulders of these guys where i snorkel just chizzle them off and i'd mail it to you at a price how much are these guys worth at a LCF?

[Matt Paul]

Dude,
You have all that money into that nice tank right. I think I would of spent the few extra dollars to do it right with premixed water. To me it sounds like you can afford it right now NOT .

[lastdrummist]

Why should he pay more for premixed water when what he is using is working? Paying more doesn't necessarily make it better.

[justinpsmith]

Looking good. My fiance is from Trinidad in the Caribbean and her family does the same thing...Dive for their LR, fish, corals, ect. They also use natural seawater. Their tank is incredible. Well its a pond really. I think 1000G if I remember right. Its outside in a gazebo with sunroof for lighting. Its really all natural except a closed loop for circulation. No skimmer or anything.

Sorry really has nothing to do with your thread but this just reminded me of being down there last year and catching a porcupine puffer for their tank! Well I did not actually catch it but her dad did. It was cool and also sad to see a fish you saw in the ocean now in a tank...

Nice looking start though!

[seansx]

well i decided to use seawater in the beggining, i mena minus well. It's local rock, fish, inverts, they dont need water mixed for them. the tank is doing just fine. Do you remember how they caught the puffer justin? I'm trying to figure out some ways to catch the wrasse here...so far i came up with a huge need fishermen throw out here from a boat..it looks like it works if you guys have any better ideas..plz share! i'll be posting up some more pics as i go

[dascharisma]

Originally posted by seansx
The sea of Cortez is a very salty sea. My salinity meter couldn't even read it. I am going to add some fresh water next week and bring it down to 1.024.

This doesn't make any sense to me at all. If you are going to use water and livestock from a particular area, why in the world would you choose to change the salinity of the natural water? What makes you think that your new tank inhabitants, which are accustomed to the salinity you found them in, would prefer your adjusted level?



Brad

[dastratt]

Don't sweat the natural seawater. Paul B's been using it for 35 years

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=727454

[GreshamH]

Originally posted by seansx
well i decided to use seawater in the beggining, i mena minus well. It's local rock, fish, inverts, they dont need water mixed for them. the tank is doing just fine. Do you remember how they caught the puffer justin? I'm trying to figure out some ways to catch the wrasse here...so far i came up with a huge need fishermen throw out here from a boat..it looks like it works if you guys have any better ideas..plz share! i'll be posting up some more pics as i go

Find a urchin, break it open near rock wrasses (rainbow wrasse - endemic to Sea of Cortez) and go from above the school and swoop downwards. They tend to shoot up when scared.

That's bascily how the collectors do it in Baja

[GreshamH]

Just to warn anyone that thinks it's OK for anyone to collect in Baja, you can find yourself in a world of hurt if the federalies catch you with MO in Baja. If your a not a citizen, jail is a place you will find yourself in. If you make it past them, ICE at the boarder can do the same thing.

Our station holds permits from many different Mexican agencies. Unlike other countries just Fisheries alone can not permit the catch/export of MO alone.

Live Rock is a huge no no in Baja, but I'm not sure about for local consumption, just export

[justinpsmith]

Originally posted by seansx
well i decided to use seawater in the beggining, i mena minus well. It's local rock, fish, inverts, they dont need water mixed for them. the tank is doing just fine. Do you remember how they caught the puffer justin? I'm trying to figure out some ways to catch the wrasse here...so far i came up with a huge need fishermen throw out here from a boat..it looks like it works if you guys have any better ideas..plz share! i'll be posting up some more pics as i go

My father in law just picked it up with his hands. LOL. But of course that would never work with a wrasse. We were free diving with nets. The puffers are super friendly or at least curious. One or two kept coming up to us and did not even seem too bothered by being caught. I mean I am sure he was upset but he did not panic or puff or anything. They still have him, hes a great fish!

[seansx]

Originally posted by dascharisma
This doesn't make any sense to me at all. If you are going to use water and livestock from a particular area, why in the world would you choose to change the salinity of the natural water? What makes you think that your new tank inhabitants, which are accustomed to the salinity you found them in, would prefer your adjusted level?



Brad

im lowering it because i have plans in the future to get a pair of clown fish and an exotic nemy....it won't hurt the local fish. Sometimes at your LFS you'll see tons of stuff from this sea, hermits, turbos, wrasse, etc, My water is at 1.025 ATM and they are doing fine and i know they'll be fine.

I just caught a blue damsel today...i'll get a pic of him once he comes out of hiding hes kinda skidish. I was thinking on buying a net the local fishermen use here. it's about 10 feet in diameter (there are larger ones too) It's pratically a HUGE circel net that has weights at the end and they throw it out and it opens up and sinks to the floor. it's perfect for what i want to catch. I'm tired of chasing wrasse around with my fishy nets and using a fish hook and some shrimp in my snorkel gear waiting for them to bite, first of all i dont want a fish with a messed up mouth in my tank and second alot of them are to smart to bite.

[seansx]

Yea i was told by many people here that thought my ideas were to sketchy...usually the canadians LOL, but it's a small town. My mom is mexican also...woohoo! i've been in trouble with the coast gaurd before due to jet skis and stuff like that but this town is just to small to slow down and nick pick at me. They already know what im doing. So far i've been mentioned to by many people and my tank rumors has gone around town and some people also have there own and want to dive with me and show me some secret spots were the amazing things are. But untill this city of sonora explodes with tourism, where fine and humble and the people dont mind that we take fish and corals from the beach. Just give the federales a beer or two haha jk

[seansx]

But no worries guys, i dont cross what i catch across the boarder. they live and mexico and will stay here in mexico. Its just a way to look at the sea without going to it!