Experiences with Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean fish

G

gbundersea

AC Members
Dec 31, 2002
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New Orleans, LA
www.gbundersea.com
I'm interested to hear from others who keep fish species from the Gulf of Mexico and/or Caribbean. We exclusively keep fish which we collect ourselves from the Gulf of Mexico, and have had pretty good success with them. I'd like to know what other species are being kept, their longevity, problems, successes, etc. The more information we share, the better for all of us.

Currently, we have a 29-gallon with a 10-gallon DIY sump, and a separate 5-gallon species tank. Our 120-gallon awaits the time and money to finish it. :-(

Our current residents include:

1 sharpnose puffer Canthigaster rostrata
1 bandtail puffer Sphoeroides spengleri
1 tessellated blenny Hypsoblennius invemar
1 painted wrasse Halichoeres caudalis
1 twospot cardinalfish Apogon Pseudomaculatus
1 cubbyu Pareques umbrosus
1 bluehead wrasse Thalassoma bifasciatum
1 yellowtail reeffish Chromis enchrysura

We also have 3 slate-pencil urchins, a small limpet snail, a clam, a tulip snail, and a murex.

I look forward to hearing from you.
 
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Well for that big 120 or larger there is the Queen Trigger and High Hat. I just recently purchased a book on fishes of the Caribbean. Very informative. You should look into that. I will find it and tell you author etc, if you want it.
 
I keep Caribbean/Gulf fish almost exclusively, and I have caught all of them myself, some in the Caribbean, some in Fla., and some here in NJ, where the Gulf Stream brings billions of larval fish up from the Gulf. The list of tropicals we get up here in NJ during the summer and early fall is amazing. I have a nice Blue Angel I caught in south Jersey this past September. We get lots of butterfly fish, groupers, lookdowns, puffers, boxfish, trunkfish, seahorses, damsels, etc., etc.

From your list, the first thing I would say is to watch out for the puffers. They are nasty, and are real Ich magnets. They have very fast metabolisms, meaning that they consume beaucoup food, and excrete mucho waste.

I've dived a few times on the offshore oil rigs in the gulf, off Louisiana and Alabama. They are covered with tropicals. I wish we had something like them up here. How is the inshore diving and snorkeling where you are? Do you collect that way, or with seines, or, like me, with both?

I love collecting and maintaining my own fish. There is nothing else like it, I think.

The second thing I would observe is that it is best to stock lightly. When you collect your own stuff, there is a temptation to keep too many fish. I have had experience with most of the species you list, and I agree that sharing information is a good thing.
 
Collecting, etc.

Thanks for the reply! That's really incredible about the Gulf species you're seeing up there! Just another example of the many wonders the sea holds...

I was surprised to read your concerns about the puffers. We caught both of ours on the same day, maybe even the same dive, back in October 2000. We've had them 2 years, 2 months, and they have proven to be perhaps our hardiest and most interesting fish. The bandtail (Sphoeroides spengleri) grew from about 3/4" to 5", and should get a lot bigger when we get the 120-gallon tank going and move him. Thankfully, we've not had any disease problems. Lacking a quarantine tank, we freshwater dip all our new arrivals, and have had great results on that front.

Some of the more problematic fish we've had:
1. Planehead filefish (Monacanthus hispidus) Small but very aggressive. One bit the bandtail puffer's tail so badly that it is permanently "stubby."
2. Seaweed blennies (Parablennius marmoreus) Though found together in the wild in great abundance, they fight constantly in captivity! In our tank, they slowly dwindled from four to one, who lived a long time.
3. Cocoa damselfish (Stegastes variabilis) Extremely aggressive and territorial. A small one took over the entire 29-gallon tank! We found him a new home.
4. Twospot cardinalfish (Apogon pseudomaculatus) We still have one, and love him. However, these seemingly docile fish have a huge mouth, and are voracious! We lost 2-3 reeffish which we thought were surely big enough to be considered safe. Much to our dismay, we were wrong. We've since been careful to the point of paranoia about observing size compatibility.

The closest diving to my home (just outside New Orleans) is either Pensacola, Florida or the platforms (rigs) off our Louisiana coast. I've done quite a lot of La. platform diving, but there are very few charters these days, so it's been awhile. We do our collections either off Pensacola, or on research trips to bluewater platforms over towards Texas. We're both staff divers at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas here, and are fortunate that we are often asked to take part in research projects.

We primarily collect using nets and ziplock bags. It is by no means easy! I have yet to use a slurp gun; I kinda want to try it just for comparison purposes. We built a collection box using a regular Igloo ice chest, and bring along battery-powered aerators, mesh for separating incompatible species if necessary, food, and other stuff to handle almost any contingency. It works very well, and is compact. I once caught a small sargassumfish (Histrio histrio) on a Monday, kept him healthy on the boat until Friday, then drove 400 miles home Saturday after spending the night in a hotel. Naturally, I did constant water changes during the week, but it made me feel good that our system worked so well. Cheap, too - mostly Wal-Mart!

I agree with you about overstocking, though I must confess to being guilty. Part of the problem is lack of time and $$ to finish the 120-gallon setup. At least 3 of the 29-gallon tank's residents will move up to the 120 when it's finally done. However, overall I think we've done pretty well in terms of survival. We've had few "mystery deaths," and most losses happened long ago due to predation (see earlier comment about size-related paranoia.) Our fish have retained their color wonderfully, and seem very healthy. Most have grown like weeds!

I'd like to hear more of your experiences in terms of species, longevity, etc. Share them when you have a chance!
 
I envy you your job. I am an administrator in higher ed, and my academic pursuits have no connection with the marine sciences. On the other hand, I have been a diver and amateur collector since the 1960s. I have been an aquarist since I was 6 years old. On a trip to Miami and the Keys after my freshman year in college I met the late, great Bob Straughan, who really got me interested in collecting.

I collect fish these days with hand nets that I construct myself. I think slurp guns are useless. Ziplock bags are something I'll have to try. I have always kept captured fish in ordinary plastic bags that can fit over the rim of the net, making transfer easy and safe. I have collected in Jamaica and a few other islands, mostly while snorkeling. Small angels, Spotted Drums, Royal Grammas, and other favorites of mine are easy to find in shallow water if you know where to look and are a good skindiver. Collecting while scuba diving is problematic these days, because most tourist dive operations will not permit it.

I use boxbags and an airpump to keep captured fish alive while traveling. I usually buy locally available cheap plastic laundry tubs to support the boxbags. These setups easily will hold up to 6 or 7 gallons of water, and I have kept fish alive in my room as long as two weeks, with daily 1/3 water changes. Food is live rock for some, and tiny live shrimp available in abundance near pin cushion urchins for others. Naturally, I don't feed for two or three days before packing. I have brought some fish home in carry-on luggage, and others I have shipped in cooler chests enclosed by soft-sided canvas luggage. My reef tank is filled with live rock and associated life that I have brought back, small piece by piece, from the Caribbean over the past 25 years. I have a moon coral head that was the size of a golf ball in 1990, and is now bigger than a baseball. I've kept seafans as long as 4 years, with alternating currents from powerheads. I have a feeling that 9/11 may adversely affect my little hobby.

Fish I collect here in NJ are caught snorkeling around dock pileings and rocky inlets, or by seining in eelgrass. A plastic bucket and battery powered air pump are adequate to get them home, a two hour drive. I keep only a few, for my own small collection, or for friends. Butterflys are abundant in the summer. Rarely, I find an angel or two, or a Short Bigeye, my personal favorite.

In my experience, Tetraodonts are more vulnerable to Ich than most other fish. Unless you get them very small, they tend to swim monotonously up and down the glass. I have a Spiny Boxfish (C. schoepfi) that I collected when it was only 3/4 of an inch. Two years later it is very tame, and swims normally.

Planehead filefish (M. hispidus) are nasty brutes, but tough as nails. Some blennies are very combative over hiding spaces, in my experience. I don't think they can be kept in close proximity.

A ll damsels are fiercely territorial. Some are really unreasonable. I'm sure you have been attacked by little Dusky Damsels while diving, if you get within 5 feet of their coral head.

I have never kept Two- spot Cardinals, only A. maculatus. They are night predators on small fish.

I enjoyed your posts very much, and would love to hear more. Since this is a message board, I'll give you my email address if you would like to go into any more detail.

It is: < jmarcins@yahoo.com > .
 
Very interesting thread...unfortunately, I'm land-locked for now, so I can't contribute. :) However, I would suggest getting that 120g up and running ASAP. Both wrasses and the cubbyu are going to need some growing room in the near future, and the cubbyu is particularly prone to going downhill quick if conditions aren't to its liking.

FWIW, I'm a basslet fan, particularly those from the Gulf/Caribbean. Chalk, tobacco, and harlequin bass are all great options if you have the space, although tobaccos and harlequins get big enough to prey on small fish.
 
Hey Boogie, we have had two Harlequins come into the fish store that I work at and both were around 2 inches and white with a little bit of green and the typical black markings. Is this a basslet that will color up as it ages or are they always more of the duller white color?
 
Harlequin basslets are pretty dull when they are small. Really big ones, about 4 inches, usually have very vivid contrasting black/white, with sulphur yellow accents. They are almost always found in mated pairs, and what I assume is the male usually is bigger and more vivid. These fish are more aggresive predators than most basslets, though the Tobacco Basslet is also a dedicated and stealthy hunter.

The Tobacco and Harlequin are found in shallower water, usually well concealed. The Chalk Basslet is a wonderful fish, very beautiful in a subdued way. They are found VERY deep, down with the Blackcaps, 100 feet plus. I have been told that a lot of good deepwater fish are coming out of Haiti these days.
 
Basslets in the Gulf of Mexico

I've seen a number of interesting basslets on remote pinnacles in the Gulf of Mexico while on research trips. These were located in sanctuary areas, where collecting is not allowed. Species I've encountered include the harlequin bass, which is indeed a neat fish, tattler bass, wrasse basslet, and (drool) peppermint basslet. I also once saw a small golden-phase coney, and have seen larger ones in other phases on several occasions. Belted sandfish and bank seabass are very common off the Florida panhandle. One time we saw a belted sandfish with a seaweed blenny sticking out of his mouth, so we knew immediately the predatory capabilities of that particular bass species! There are a couple of species I'd love to have, but as with all the seabasses, their tankmates would have to be chosen carefully indeed!
 
I assume the remote offshore pinnacles you mention that are protected as sanctuaries are the Flower Garden reefs. If I remember correctly, they are close to Texas in the Gulf. I remember when they were first described and explored. I never got to see them, but I know they are unique and spectacular, submerged peaks covered with corals, rising to within 70 or 80 feet of the surface from deep abyssal waters. Have other similar seamounts been discovered in the Gulf?

I assume that the distribution of fish types on them is partly determined through random recruitment from the zooplankton carried on Gulf currents (like our NJ tropical strays) and partly through isolated breeding populations. The lack of adjacent shallow areas also must have some interesting consequences, affecting available food items, life cycles, and all sorts of other things. What an interesting wealth of possibilities for research.
 
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