Mexico Sand Collecting

[JoshF]

sand collecting in Mexico
Is anyone aware of the regulations pertaining to collection of sand in Mexico? I will be in Zihuatenejo in a week and a half for some nice snorkling and would like to seed my young tank with some real life. I would rather not violate any CITES or any other pertaining treaties or regulations.

Any comments are appreciated!

JoshF

 

[jamesw]

If the sand is originally from crushed coral skeletons then YES, it is CITES App II. If it is silica sand then no.

You should also know that the sand from the pacific side of Mexico comes from pretty cold water and it is not a "reef environment" like it is on the carribean side. Sorry.

Cheers
James

 

[JoshF]

Thanks for the detailed info... As much as I want my DSB to actually get some life in it, I don't want to break any laws to do it. I'm having a hard time finding any local sources for biodiversity. Very few people use a DSB, and those who have any bristleworms in their tank try to get rid of them. I made the mistake of adding my detrivore kit from IPSF too early and all of the bristleworms died in the ammonia soup that my tank was. Now I'm in a catch 22 situation. I am trying to set up a small tank to see how much of a bioload a good thriving DSB can support without anything besides a small amount of _Caulerpa_ export. However it seems I need some sort of external filtration to "get the tank going" in order to even have a thriving DSB. I'm simply trying to avoid all the usual ways of cycling a tank with live rock, etc., and just using live sand, and algae. The tank is about 5 months old, and has never had a fish in it, or any live rock, or a filter, and only recently _Caulerpa_ which underwent gametogenesis in about two days so now I have a tank full of phytoplankton and some very happy spaghetti worms and string algae... Maybe I'll just add a small fish to help stabilize the nutrient input. Nothing like a continuous source of fish waste to keep algae alive!

Josh