Trip to the GA Aquarium

Evie and I just had a Father-Daughter weekend.  This may sound a little off-topic, but the highlight was a visit to the Georgia Aquarium.  I was hoping she would enjoy it as much as she did last time, and her expression as we were waiting in line gave me some hope!

The first view we had was the Jack Crevalle exhibit, where the jacks swim around and around on either side of the aquarium entrance.

The next stop was the Pacific Sea Nettles (jellyfish).  This is the one display where the creatures swam slowly enough for me to photograph with my camera phone!  (No iPhone here...)

Evie seemed to enjoy watching the jellies float by (they were somehow floating in a loop from top to bottom) but was not overly impressed.
















The next stop was the highlight of the trip- the Pacific Reef Slope.  We spent a lot of time watching the reef fish (and a couple of blacktip sharks) swim by.  This display earned a good number of claps and excited yells!

Here is a video of Evie enjoying the fish swimming by:




Of course, we visited the famous Whale Shark exhibit on the way out.  It was interesting, but not too exciting- where did all of those colorful fish go?

At the end of the afternoon, there was one tired baby (and Daddy!)  We hope to come back soon.

New Coral

I picked up a bright pink Porites coral frag over the weekend.  It cost more than $5, but it didn't cost $20, but still... don't tell Dave Ramsey.

Here is a photo of the new coral:

 And a random photo of Big Girl and Little Boy swimming in formation.   :)

Coral growth update

As I mentioned earlier, the Acropora corals are looking especially good since we left them in Chris and Emily's care.  :)

Here are some recent photos of the yellow $5 frag, and green just-a-little-more-than $5 frag.  Looking back, the green coral has grown radially very visibly whereas the yellow one has only encrusted, but substantially, since July.  I think it is about to branch; look at the lower right side of the colony where the corallites are extending noticably from the face of the colony.  I still have no idea what the common or species names of these corals are, although I saw a similar yellow frag at a store in Orlando a couple months ago.  Please post a comment if you have an idea...

    

Here is the same area again from the side.  The area that is hopefully about to branch is more visible from this angle:

 

This is the same area in July.  You can barely notice the yellow Acropora, and its color is much more muted.

 

 

I don't think that  a photo of this Montipora digitata frag has been posted before.  It was such a pathetic little nub originally, stuck in the back of the aquarium, that I doubt I had any desire to publicize it...  It has encrusted on the rock pretty well now, is starting to form 4+ new branches.  I'll post another photo once it grows out some more.

 

Aquacultured Coral Spawning

The below link has a description and videos of aquacultured Staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) corals spawning at Molasses Reef in the Florida Keys.  These colonies were originally started by the Coral Restoration Foundation at their undersea nursery as small fragments in either the spring of 2005 or the spring  of 2006, and were transplanted to their current location at Molasses Reef in the summer of 2007.

http://www.coralrestoration.org/CRF/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12:articlespawningcorals&catid=4:categorynewsreefblog&Itemid=13

This is a great success story!

Thanks Chris!

... and Emily too of course!  Chris with Einstein Aquatics came by the house a couple of times while we were on vacation to check in on the aquarium.  This let us relax just a little bit more on vacation, and it seems like the corals are in better shape now than before we left...  :)

Coral Gardens, TCI

I snorkled the Coral Gardens inshore reef this afternoon. Visibility was mediocre due to the tide and time of day, but it was still fun. in a nutshell, I would suggest this site over Smith's reef since it is easier to access from most hotels on Grace Bay, and seems larger.


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Fish diversity and abundance was as good or better than Smith's Reef, and there was a greater diversity of stony coral species, including some good looking brain, Siderastrea and Montastrea coral colonies of various sizes, although as at Smith's there were Montastreas that appeared to be ill. There were some large Porites porites heads as well, that appear to be recovering from storm damage. This is a web image of a Siderastrea colony.

Macroalgae growth was much more controlled, maybe due to the greater number of parrotfish? This was a nice surprise, since the reef is off of Beaches resort, without a doubt the largest one on the island boasting 15 bars and restaurants! (We liken it to a beached cruise ship :-) )  I could clearly hear the Parrots munching on algae.

I did see at least four lionfish. Finding a submerged stick, I was as able to severely harrass a couple of them. It made me feel better, of nothing else...

Ray Ray and I plan to dive this area again in the morning.

Diving at Smith's Reef, TCI

This morning while the girls were asleep I went snorkeling at Smith's Reef, an inshore reef near Turtle Cove Marina.  (Here are the coordinates if you're interested: +21° 47' 15.73", -72° 13' 20.54")



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The islands were directly hit recently by a hurricane recently, so the coral was not in good shape, but it was still in better shape than the inshore reefs we saw in Anguilla.  The shore is developed with villas and homes, so that cannot help either.  There were a lot of fish to see, including a good number of small groupers, a small moray, and a juvenile blue angelfish, so fish watching was a lot of fun.  I saw no spiny lobsters at all, which was surprising, and no lionfish, which was a pleasant surprise.  I also noticed a large yellow octopus down in a cave, probably the biggest one I've seen while diving. 

The macroalgae had not overgrown the dead coral and rock here as badly as in Anguilla, but there was very little surviving brain coral and no Acropora corals at all. There were some isolated massive star corals (Montastrea sp.) however they seemed not to be growing back well, and a couple were visibly bleaching/receding.  There were surprisingly few parrotfish and Diadema sea urchins, so maybe that's why. Diadema urchins and parrotfish are important species in controlling algae that can otherwise overgrow and smother reef buildiung corals.

There was a great diversity of gorgonians, though few sea fans, and the Porites astreoides (mustard hill coral) seemed to be growing back very well. These colonies were all over the place, and were a vivid yellow color.

Apologies for the lack of photos.  Our underwater camera broke, so these pictures are similar photos linked from other web sites.

Here are a couple of relevant links if you are interested in coral reef recovery and conservation.  Hopefully we can dive at the Coral Gardens before we leave, and post a description of that dive as well.

Coral Restoration Foundation  in the Florida Keys

Write-up of a study of near shore coral habitats from the U of Miami, found by accident in looking for photos to link. :)  Near shore Coral and Epifauna Diversity

Lionfish!

I found a pair of lionfish lurking in an old tire in front of our hotel. It is sad that this invasive species has spread this far, and that the aquarium hobby is ultimately responsible.

Check out lionfishhunter.blogspot.com

Good news, maybe bad news?

The gray finger leather is looking better, here are some photos from yesterday:



























On another subject, the green Montipora capricornis that turned brown when the old light bulb went bad is looking... different. There is a patch of light green, but I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing...














This is a closeup of the weird area:

Yikes

I came home from work to see the gray leather coral looking like this:














Not sure what to make of it- it may be a natural phase but it's the first time since we got it, so I'm going to look into it...















Sorry for the long pause in posts, but I've been a little under the weather. :)

Coral growth

I thought it would be interesting to look back on how much a "mystery" Acropora frag has grown since we got it back in July. Here are some sequential photos- its footprint is about twice as large now. (Still no idea what species it is exactly!)

July:

























August:

























September:

Aquascaping

Too many $5 coral frags means not enough space to put them, so Ryan had the great idea of creating a new rock outcroping to attach some of them to. There were some extra pieces of dry rock from when we set up the tank this Spring, so with a little bit of epoxy and some artistic input from Ryan I created a new rock to set in the right rear corner of the tank. Since most of the frags are adhered to "plugs" which are kind of a pain to set into rock work, I drilled some 1/2" holes into the rocks that could receive the plugs before putting them into the tank. Here is the new rock ready to go.















Here are some photos of the rock in the tank, before and after the three frags were attached to it. It's kind of hard to see, but then again it went a long way toward cleaning up the frag junk yard in the front of the tank!

Before:















After:

Updated Tank Shots

We moved the new corals around, and here is how the aquarium looks today...


Front:













Left side:













Right side:













Ryan found a really good location for the new purple sea blade:













Gorgonians new and old:

Collecting Trip

After a business trip in Miami, I spent Thursday night at Nana and Papa's beautiful condo in Key Largo. After a very good night's sleep, I stopped by Harry Harris Park on the way back to the airport. For no particular reason other than where boats and fishermen were not, and the direction of the wind (from the SE) I decided to snorkel on the leeward side of the north boat ramp breakwater. Snorkeling is one of my favorite activities (I've done it in the Everglades, mangrove swamps, the Gulf Stream- pretty much anywhere there is something to see...) so I figured there would be no such thing as a bad place to go in- especially in Tavernier!



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I brought along a plastic bag and a $1 (i.e. disposable prior to boarding!) utility knife just in case I saw anything to bring home for the aquarium. The water in the area I dove was about 6-7' deep at most. The bottom was a combination of turtle grass beds, and "hard bottom" areas largely covered with macroalgae and scattered sponges and gorgonians but not much rubble. There was a good sprinkling of small stony corals such as rose, cup and star coral and branching Porites (I assume.) I had no idea what to expect, but did a lot of looking around and ended up finding a few interesting things.

There were a number of sponges, mostly large ones and "chicken liver" and black ball sponges. There were some pretty orange ball sponges, but they were all a little large except for this small and somewhat worse for wear specimen; I didn't feel like fragging one of the larger ones since I'm not sure how it would do. The branching sponge in this pic is a chicken liver sponge; this was cut off from a larger specimen.















There were a lot of purple sea blades, Pterogorgia sp., mostly kind of large. I found this smaller one a little further out, that is in very good condition as well. This is an entire specimen broken off from the base.















This is another gorgonian that is really cool, and looks even better under the tank lighting. I think/hope that it is a corky sea finger (Briareum asbestinum) since they are highly photosynthetic and easy to keep. Unlike others that I've seen in the past that are brown/yellow, this one is light purple with bright white polyps. It was cut from a larger colony, and an additional frag broke off in the bag.















This is an encrusting Briareum (caribaeorum?) gorgonian. The polyps are larger and cream colored, and it looks very cool- at first glance kind of like Pacific star polyps. There were quite a few of these colonies scattered around at the base of sponges and so forth; I used the knife to pry this section off the rock.















There were just a couple of what I think are purple sea plumes, Pseudopterogorgia bipinnata. I cut this off of a larger colony, and ended up with another bonus frag when a lower branch fell off. :) As you can see, this (left) has a distinct look from our existing purple gorgonian- Muriceopsis flavida (probably) (right). The branches and polyps of the P. bipinnata are smaller and more delicate looking, and the polyps are lined up on the stalks as opposed to being randomly arranged.















This little guy came home with me unintentionally. I was already out of the water when I found it in my pocket! I have no idea how it got there, but he did help me get through airport security a little easier. To make a long story short, TSA allows you to bring aquatic animals on board with you, but they need to be able to see that they are alive. I had to convince a couple of the agents that this actually was the case, but once they called a supervisor and spoke to him he was happy to help. After showing him all of the containers, I was able to get through to the gate at long last. He is still in the container, since we aren't sure what kind of crab he is... Any ideas?