When I was in school at Florida Tech we used to seine the IRLS a little further north than you are (Melbourne area), and I also used to go collecting down at Sebastian Inlet on my own. I had a 'native' full marine tank going while I was in there, mostly with local blennies and damsels and one awesome clingfish.
A friend had a tank in which we often kept other local fishes including Hogchokers. Depending on how close you are to an inlet, many of the fish you find may be able to go into full seawater (which allows you to use a protein skimmer, liverock\sand, etc).
Now that I'm back up north my native tanks are a bit colder, and when I go collecting I aim for the more warm-water tollerant local fishes (I don't run a chiller and keep the tank in a cool basement), but the basics in terms of collecting etc are pretty much the same.
Here's an article I wrote years ago for my local aquarium society, and posted on a native site a friend ran:
http://www.ichthyophilia.com/columns/gc2.html
(just ignore the parts about colder water
and the fact that its mostly written for full marine tanks... ok... I guess its not as useful as I remembered...)
One of the most productive methods I found for the Indian River lagoon was picking up bottles\cans from the water and pouring them into a dipnet - caught many interesting fishes including my clingfish that way.
I never had much luck keeping silversides for long - they seemed very fragile.
Back when I was in Florida my native tank used "classic" filtration - undergravel filter and HOB powerfilter. I also had some liverock, but not alot (10-20 lbs in a 55g) and a really lame DIY skilter that was still better than nothing.
Now I use sponge filters in some of my native tanks, and deep sand beds with biowheel filters in others.
Oh - I used to have a few tanks with gambusia and wild mollies, but since I caught them in a sulpher-loaded "fountain" in the schools "botanical garden", I kept them in similar fw conditions.
A friend had a tank in which we often kept other local fishes including Hogchokers. Depending on how close you are to an inlet, many of the fish you find may be able to go into full seawater (which allows you to use a protein skimmer, liverock\sand, etc).
Now that I'm back up north my native tanks are a bit colder, and when I go collecting I aim for the more warm-water tollerant local fishes (I don't run a chiller and keep the tank in a cool basement), but the basics in terms of collecting etc are pretty much the same.
Here's an article I wrote years ago for my local aquarium society, and posted on a native site a friend ran:
http://www.ichthyophilia.com/columns/gc2.html
(just ignore the parts about colder water
and the fact that its mostly written for full marine tanks... ok... I guess its not as useful as I remembered...)One of the most productive methods I found for the Indian River lagoon was picking up bottles\cans from the water and pouring them into a dipnet - caught many interesting fishes including my clingfish that way.
I never had much luck keeping silversides for long - they seemed very fragile.
Back when I was in Florida my native tank used "classic" filtration - undergravel filter and HOB powerfilter. I also had some liverock, but not alot (10-20 lbs in a 55g) and a really lame DIY skilter that was still better than nothing.
Now I use sponge filters in some of my native tanks, and deep sand beds with biowheel filters in others.
Oh - I used to have a few tanks with gambusia and wild mollies, but since I caught them in a sulpher-loaded "fountain" in the schools "botanical garden", I kept them in similar fw conditions.
