Alter40's 10g Native tank

[brian1973]

looking good eric. To bad you had to give the cray away.

[Cichlid-Man]

Originally Posted by alter40

Matt, I'm working on moving down around Charlotte, NC right now so maybe later this summer I can take a trip down your way and go collecting with you and see what we can find down that way.

Sounds good to me! I believe there are even places up towards Charlotte to go as well, local club up there does it....or used to do it a good bit. I'll have to look into it.

[Airborneguy]

If I had about 400 extra years of life, I could not possibly make a dent in the snail population off of just one little beach I frequent on the little island I call home. By walking along the shore at low-tide, you could easily kill thousands of them without even stopping to look at what it was crunching under your feet. Not to mention, the only laws I came across when researching this involved endangered and protected species, not invasive species of snails which come from another part of the world.

[alter40]

I don't think the issue here is you making a dent in the snail population, but instead an issue of transporting a disease that could wreak havoc in an ecosystem elsewhere. The snails in your area may not be affected by something but if you ship them somewhere and that person puts them in their local waters then your pretty much helping them spread that disease to an area previously unaffected by it.

VHS, viral hemorrhagic septicemia, is a disease that is spreading right now and needs to be stopped, and is also known to exist in New York. This is killing fish in large numbers and spreading partly from people transporting fish from one body of water to another. It initially came here from Europe from boats carrying water in their ballasts across the ocean and then releasing that water once they came into the great lakes region.

This may not kill these snails but that doesn't mean that they are unable to carry VHS. What I'm doing with my tank is not aiding in the spread of VHS, because I'm not releasing fish back into the wild after I put them in my tank and I'm not shipping these fish to areas that are not having these issues with VHS. I'm keeping these for my own enjoyment and thats it.

I'm not necessarily saying that you would be spreading VHS, but I'm just using this as an example to show why doing something like this isn't really a great idea. I don't think anyone would have a problem with you collecting fish and snails from your own waters for a native saltwater tank, but taking these fish, snails, etc. from these waters and trying to sell them for a quick buck isn't a great idea.

I'm done with my rant on this.

[Airborneguy]

Okay, now I understand the point a little better, but the same risk would be there from most wildlife collected by poeple in Florida, Hawaii, etc, and then sold in LFS's.

[AlyKat]

A native tank...that's such a cool idea! Great journal!

I don't know how much freshwater I have here...since I'm surrounded by salt...but I love the idea!

[Cichlid-Man]

Speaking of, how about an update?

[Mercury]

That's a great tank! Why don't you stick a salamander in there once the fish get bigger?

I tried a native tank from my pond... But it smelled too bad, so I eventually removed it, though I really did enjoy it. Actually, I've done a couple of pond tanks. In the first tank all the fish were wiped out by carnivorous insects (Sweet!) but in the second I focused much more on microscopic and teenie organisms rather than fish.