Does anyone here have any experience with collecting tropical fish?

[I Dive]

You are correct about the decompression method and it does take two or three hours. It also depends on species. Those that zip up and down the wall are not usually an issue those that hang at 60 feet and deeper can be and issue. I used a clear bucket that I could see through and brought them up very slowly, stopping every 5 to 10 feet for about twenty minutes. When you get them to 30 feet go down and look closely at the abdomen, if it is exended lower them down until it deflates. Start again Do this again at 15 feet. Remember Mr. Boyles. and remember some fish might not handle this well. One problem with purchasing fish that live deep from an aquarium shop is that some "collectors" are in it only for the money. These clowns will take a hyperdermic needle and stick it up the fishes anus and puncture the air bladder. The fish will usually live about 6 weeks and just wilt away from not eating or die from an internal infection.

And if you get them to the surface and see that expanded abdomen, immediately place them on pure oxygen! Granted, I haven't had a reason to think about it, but it honestly never ocurred to me that this could be an issue for fish! But you are absolutely right! If a fish spends it's whole life at 60 feet, if you take it straight to the surface it is going to have some issues! I wonder if any hard core collectors have developed a fish chamber?

 

[Salmonboy97]

I just found this on an old email:

New rules approved for harvest of aquarium species

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) on Thursday, Feb. 5, approved a series of rule amendments for the marine life (aquarium species) fishery. These rules are intended to enhance the FWC’s existing marine life regulations to help maintain the health of Florida’s important coral reef ecosystem.

Several species will be added to the marine life rule, which means that commercial harvesters of these species will need a marine life endorsement to collect them, and these species also will be included in the marine life recreational bag limit. The added species include porcupine fish, spotted burrfish, black brotula, key brotula, yellow stingray, blackbar soldierfish, red mithrax crab, emerald crab, red ridged clinging crab, the star snail lithopoma tectum, all hermit crabs (except land hermits), and nassarius snails.

The new rules will allow recreational harvesters to take no more than five of any one marine life species daily within the 20-organism aggregate bag limit and possess no more than a two-day bag limit (up to 40 marine life organisms).

In addition, the new rules will raise the maximum size limit for butterflyfish from 4 to 5 inches total length and establish maximum size limits of 9 inches total length for tangs and 12 inches total length for parrotfish for all marine life harvesters, change the daily commercial bag limit for butterflyfish from 75 per vessel to 50 per person or 100 per vessel (if two endorsement-holders are aboard), and establish a commercial daily vessel limit of 400 for dwarf seahorses.

The new rules also will lower the commercial daily bag limit for condylactis anemones from 400 per vessel to 200 per marine life endorsement holder on a vessel, and establish commercial daily bag limits of 400 per vessel for emerald crabs, 1 gallon per person and 2 gallons per vessel for lithopoma tectum (added to the current star snail bag limit), and 1 quart per person and 2 quarts per vessel for scarlet reef hermits.

Other new rules include specifying that all marine life harvesters must take ricordea (a soft coral) and all corallimorph polyps as a single polyp only and establishing a commercial daily bag limit for all corallimorph polyps of 100 polyps per person or 200 per vessel (if two endorsement-holders are aboard). A commercial daily bag limit will also be established for zoanthid polyps of 1 gallon of polyps per person or 2 gallons per vessel (if two endorsement-holders are aboard), and the only gear allowed to be used by all marine life harvesters for collecting zoanthid and all corallimorph polyps is a flexible blade no wider than 2 inches, such as a paint scraper, putty knife or razor blade.

The new rules also will allow the harvest of ornamental sponges north of Egmont Key in the Gulf of Mexico to be taken with a 1-inch amount of substrate beyond the holdfast and a 1-inch thick piece of substrate below the holdfast of the sponge. Taking ornamental sponges with substrate will not be allowed in waters south of Egmont Key.

Finally, the new rules will allow live rock harvest from an aquaculture lease site to count towards the requalification of the marine life transferable dive endorsement, restrict quinaldine use to marine life dive and non-transferable dive endorsement holders only, and apply other technical rule changes.

The rule amendments take effect July 1.

 

[sweetdreamfiji]

I have a small decompression chamber that I diy'ed. I can fit 3 or 4 small fish in it at one time. I get about 75-100% survival from 80 feet depending on the species and how much time I have for decompression. Some commercial collectors use decompression chambers but most that I have seen needle the fish. (It is the swim bladder that is the problem). It is possible to get high survival rates needling the fish, but you have to be good at it (I am not good at it). The decompression time varies a lot depending on the fish collected and the depth you collect at. Hobbyists like us are best off collecting shallow and trying to avoid decompression.

the 20 animal rule is usually not a problem for fish (it is hard to collect more than 20 nice fish, who has a tank that big?) but is a problem for snails where you might want 100 or more for a large tank and can easily find that many on a single dive in the Gulf. Go diving more and you solve the daily bag limit problem!!

If anyone is interested in going out collecting on the East Coast and knows a good shore dive I am interested. We could go boat diving if we can limit the depth to 40' (30' would be better).