Snorkeling & Collecting Discussion Group

[Ron Reefman]

Awesome pics Ron! Our trip is this weekend and we should be down in Marathon on Monday.
I can't wait.

@LArifleMAN Thanks, my wife took all the first day photos, she's become a pretty good underwater photographer! The photos from the next 2 days were by both of us. Since I'm down to a small 40g cube I don't have room to collect much anymore.

I hope you have great weather like we had, very light winds. We snorkeled Bahia Honda State Park on the 2nd day. We had WAY more luck snorkeling the shallows just to the right of the channel out of the marina out on the bay side and right of the swimming area on the bay side. The conditions out on the ocean side were lower viability (even with light winds and small waves) and the bottom had a lot of 'crappy' soft algae. I assume this is still an aftermath of Hurricane Irma and all the work they have done to rebuild the ocean side beach.

Great pictures Ron! How do you remove the RFA's? I can see it being pretty easy if diving but it would take me longer than I can hold my breath if snorkeling!

@saltyhog Thanks! There will be lots more over the next week.

So I collected 2 at this island. The first one was on the vertical wall and only a foot under the surface of the water. Si I could just sit there and work at the base and take all the time I needed since my snorkel was in the air!

The 2nd one was on the bottom in 2+ feet of water, but it was attached to a big rock that I could tip up so the RFA was again near the surface.

The other 2 extremely small RFA's were collected at Little Money Key on the 3rd day and they were attached to small dead shards of finger coral that litters the bottom there. And that was in an area of about 2 acres in size that is all less than 2 feet deep!



This is one of the advantages of snorkeling in the shallows. In fact all 3 days we were snorkeling in water that was only 2 or 3 feet deep except at Bahia Honda State Park where it was 4 to 6 feet deep. But we were snorkeling pretty far off shore, like 100+ yard. Rather than going in off the beach, we got there in the Zodiac as we had done a tour completely around the island just to see conditions after Hurricane Irma. And they had to do a LOT of rebuilding along the beach. Now they have marker buoys out that far to keep boats (and their wakes) further away from shore.

In 15+ years of snorkeling at this beach, this was about as bad as we have seen it. Maybe some years ago after the Keys had a really bad cold snap in the winter (like close to freezing) the conditions were this bad as well. That winter there was a significant fish kill and soft, scummy algae virtually covered the ocean floor. It wasn't as bed this time and the other spots we snorkeled were in better condition. But there is still a lot of algae covering areas where we usually find corals, sponges and lots of wildlife. I'm sure over the next year or 2 things will get better as the nutrient load washed into the water from the runoff from the islands by the Hurricane Irma goes down.

 

[Brittany Marie]

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[Brittany Marie]

This is a good size Curly-Q anemone. There are thousands of very, very small ones at other locations, but big ones are a bit uncommon. I have a few small ones in my tank. They almost look like aiptasia but they don't grow very fast and in my tank they don't seem to spread much at all (that's a good thing for them!).

Cool looking clear/blue anemone shrimp at 7 o’clock!

Elaine also saw this cow fish which I didn't even see. But this is how she got the nickname Eagle Eye Elaine!

That’s a yellow stingray! You can see the barb towards the end of the tail. Super cool!

 

[Ron Reefman]

Cool looking clear/blue anemone shrimp at 7 o’clock!

That’s a yellow stingray! You can see the barb towards the end of the tail. Super cool!

You are absolutely right on both counts! Neither Elaine or I saw the shrimp in the curly-Q. I claim bad eyes and I almost never see anemone shrimp unless Elaine points them out. And she was the only one of us taking pictures on this day. I'm not even sure I saw this anemone! ;Snaphappy

As for the ray, I didn't see it live. Elaine told me she saw it while I was busy collecting a RFA. I saw the photo and didn't even look at it close enough to see it was a ray. Elaine loves cowfish and is always taking pictures of them... so without looking closely enough, I made a bad call.

Thank you for paying closer attention to our photos than I do! I seriously do appreciate your input.

 

[Brittany Marie]

You are absolutely right on both counts! Neither Elaine or I saw the shrimp in the curly-Q. I claim bad eyes and I almost never see anemone shrimp unless Elaine points them out. And she was the only one of us taking pictures on this day. I'm not even sure I saw this anemone! ;Snaphappy

As for the ray, I didn't see it live. Elaine told me she saw it while I was busy collecting a RFA. I saw the photo and didn't even look at it close enough to see it was a ray. Elaine loves cowfish and is always taking pictures of them... so without looking closely enough, I made a bad call.

Thank you for paying closer attention to our photos than I do! I seriously do appreciate your input.

No problem! And I’m with Elaine, I LOVE cowfish and similar families. Their little kissy lips are adorable!

She’ll probably like this trunkfish

I believe it to be a smooth trunkfish

Then there was this very social porcupine fish.

 

[Brittany Marie]

A fairly large, about 10 inches long, red fish. Not to sure exactly what he is. If only he was smaller, I would love to have on in my tank.

Glasseye snapper! ;Woot

 

[Ron Reefman]

@Brittany Marie, how is it you are so well versed in fish ID? My wife is pretty good at knowing most things we see, and researching stuff we see that she doesn't know. But I'm ready to make you my 3rd level of help with 'what is this? questions!

 

[Brittany Marie]

My recent snorkeling trip in Belize was for a marine biology course. Our class project was to photograph and identify 100 organisms. I’m also a nerd and look through my field guides for fun!

 

[Ron Reefman]

So on to day two of our snorkel trip in the Florida Keys.

We put in at Bahia Honda State Park and motored around the back side of the island (from the southwest end around on the bay side to the northeast end). The water was quite clear and we could see the bottom as we stayed in close to shore where the water was only 2 to 6 feet deep most of the time. We crossed through to the ocean side at the channel between Bahia Honda and Ohio Key. We stopped out on the ocean side of a small unnamed island just off the south west side of Ohio Key. In the map below, the white line is the route we covered in the Zodiac. The area in the blue ring is where we snorkeled and the red lines indicate the shoreline of the unnamed island and Ohio Keys southern shore. The water here was very shallow (1' to 3') and solid rock with a covering of sand.



This is the view from the Zodiac looking northwest between the unnamed island and Ohio Key back towards the Ohio Channel and the bridge is US1, the only route in and out of the Keys by car. A nice sunny day and tell me that water doesn't look inviting!



The bottom being all hard made it very much like the area off the northeast side of Little Bahia Honda Key. And like that area, there were literally many hundreds of rock boring urchins making holes in the rock in which to live.



Here is one that wasn't tucked in a hole yet. The red color of the test is really quite striking. The spines aren't too pointy or sharp, but in places the ocean floor is literally covered with them, so you need to pay attention to anyplace you put your hand or knee if you decide to get your head up out of the water to look around.



This area was also littered with dead juvenile queen conch. Here in a small depression in the rock we found 5 empty shells, all about the same size, 2/3rds to 3/4ths of a full grown queen conch. It's just a guess on our part, but we assume these were killed either during Hurricane Irma or by the runoff pollution into the water after the hurricane. The other side of Ohio Key had a huge mobile home park with hundreds of trailers and they were all destroyed. I can't begin to imagine how much gas, oil, household chemicals ended up in the water.



On the other side of that discussion is the fact that these empty conch shells make good homes for lots of other animals. One of the shells above is also pictured below and the bright yellow sea cucumber in side was quite small (between 2" and 3") and ended up coming home with me. I had recently given away the yellow cucumber I had, as after 4 years with me it was getting a bit big for a 40g cube. I'm happy to say that this guy made it home safe and sound and is currently living in our 10g holding tank and will move to the 40g cube soon. After we get to the end of the trip and get home, I'll have some photos of the animals and algae we collected and you'll get to see the cucumber.



There weren't many anemones at all out here. however I did see one little Curly-Q who had a good foothold in a hole in the rock. Being close to the channel and in shallow water, the tidal flows here are fairly extreme and at super low tide (new moon and full moon) much of the area around where we were snorkeling is very exposed to the air.



We snorkeled here for about 45 minutes and decided there just wasn't much life to see. So we moved on southwest to the ocean side beach of Bahia Honda where we anchored about 150 yards off shore. (to be continued)

 

[Island Reef 242]

Glasseye snapper! ;Woot

Thanks for the ID Brittany.

 

[Ron Reefman]

OK, so after our experience off Ohio Key we traveled southwest along the ocean side of Bahia Honda Key and stopped off shore just out beyond the new marked 'NO BOATS' zone that's about 100 to 150 yards out. The water was 6' deep and I was surprised how murky it was given fairly light winds and only mildly choppy waves. On the map below the area we are at is the one off the big beach and furthest away from the bridge.



This area was severely hit by Hurricane Irma and the ocean side beach has only just recently reopened after nearly 18 months of repair. We quickly noticed that although the ball sponges seem to have survived OK, there were almost no vase sponges anymore and they used to be almost as common as the ball sponges. We assume the wave action from the hurricane tore them out. And where there used to be some 3 and 4 foot tall gorgonians, now there are mostly 1' and 2' gorgonians, and that's after a winter season to survive, a long summer to grow and another winter to survive. We spent about an hour surveying a fairly large area looking for the things we were used to seeing off this beach. It used to be the best 'off the beach' snorkel site in the entire Keys. And even though it has been significantly beaten up by the hurricane and beach rebuilding, it may still be the best, but just not as good right now as it was before. The lousy visibility didn't help and was somewhat depressing as well.

Elaine took this from the water after we has snorkeled in close to shore. The stone wall is all new as a lot of land just behind the beach had been washed away.


This is the view from up above the beach and just behind the rock wall just about directly in from where we had been snorkeling.



A nice gorgonian with it's polyps out on full display. But you can see how much lower the visibility was here compared to back at Ohio Key. But the we were looking through 2 to 3 feet of water there compared to 5 to 8 feet of water here.


I can't say for sure, but I think this is the bottom of a vase sponge that is starting to grow back. But that ID is about a 50:50 chance of being right! It was attached to a small rock that was just lying on the bottom.



This was one of only a few feathery style gorgonians we saw. It was out in 8 feet of water and I had to dive to get close enough to get a half good photo. And even then I had to do some tricky Photoshop work to get an accurate image due to the low visibility.



From here we moved around to a spot we discovered a few years ago. It's available right off the beach from out in front of the Bahia Honda marina. (to be continued)

 

[TroutWithLegs]

Has anyone on this thread ever collected wild shrimp? Had a couple really little white shrimp, and some bigger ones left over in my bait bucket today. Rather than freeze them as bait, I'm considering them a potential addition to my CuC. Anyone ever done this? Think it's a stupid idea?

So far I've done a water change from wild to RO+SALT, and am gonna do one more from RO+SALT to my display water. Right now they're just getting acclimated to temperature. I'd like to put them through a proper QT but I'm limited with one fish QT tank, which currently has copper in it.

 

[soflmuddin]

Has anyone on this thread ever collected wild shrimp? Had a couple really little white shrimp, and some bigger ones left over in my bait bucket today. Rather than freeze them as bait, I'm considering them a potential addition to my CuC. Anyone ever done this? Think it's a stupid idea?

So far I've done a water change from wild to RO+SALT, and am gonna do one more from RO+SALT to my display water. Right now they're just getting acclimated to temperature. I'd like to put them through a proper QT but I'm limited with one fish QT tank, which currently has copper in it.

With the 2 large porcupine puffers I keep I put a couple dozen shrimp in the tank every month. They bury themself during the day and come out at night. Some make it to the sump now and then and seem to survive on what they find down there so I would guess they would work good for cuc. They are a better choice than a lobster. I had a 1" spotted lobster that wreaked havoc on every living thing it could catch. Amazing that even with no claws it could kill a fish twice it's size.

Sent from my H1611 using REEF2REEF mobile app

 

[Peace River]

Has anyone on this thread ever collected wild shrimp? Had a couple really little white shrimp, and some bigger ones left over in my bait bucket today. Rather than freeze them as bait, I'm considering them a potential addition to my CuC. Anyone ever done this? Think it's a stupid idea?

So far I've done a water change from wild to RO+SALT, and am gonna do one more from RO+SALT to my display water. Right now they're just getting acclimated to temperature. I'd like to put them through a proper QT but I'm limited with one fish QT tank, which currently has copper in it.

The blue lighting is throwing me off a little bit but they look like clear saltwater grass shrimp. If so, yes I sometimes use them for CUC and they have been known to double as a snack depending on their tank mates. Obviously copper is an issue. You can always set up a cooler, plastic container, or some other type of temporary container for a couple of weeks as a QT and just add an air stone or sponge filter and do water changes every few days. They don't have to be fed much so the bio load will be small and they are pretty hardy so they should be able to deal with that type of temporary setup.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I collect pistol shrimp and the rare occasional peppermint shrimp as very young juveniles from inside sponges that get washed up on the beaches of Sanibel Island durring storms and winter cold fronts. They do just fine in my tanks. We also drag a swimming pool net with a good hard plastic leading edge through the grass flats at a couple of spots in the back bays. We catch a couple of different shrimp, but they are small and don't tend to survive long term in the tank. I'm more likely to net them out of the bucket, put them in a zip lock bag and freeze them to be chopped up and fed to the tank at a later time. Some do go in the tank live, but they disappear into the rocks and I never see them again. My assumption is they get eaten by the wrasse, the anemones or some other inhabitant of the tank.

Once I tried adding a few big shrimp that a local bate store sells. I got them from a neighbor who had them left over after going fishing. I acclimated them and added them to my tank and in a matter of 24 hours they had all jumped ship and died while tile surfing.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Finally on Friday (Day #2) we moved from out off the beach to out in front of the Bahia Honda Marine just north east of the bay side swimming area (see map below).



Here are a couple of views from the Zodiac, Elaine and the beach behind her and me with the Overseas Highway bridge from Bahia Honda Key to Spanish Harbor Key behind me.




The area up close to shore is shallow and hard bottom. There is actually quite a mix of things to see there if you take your time and keep your eye open. We saw a lot of these Damsel fish at Ohio Key and here. They can be pretty aggressive defending their home. This blue and yellow juvenile kept getting right up in Elaine's face. The older one was in the process of becoming an adult and changing from blue & yellow to mostly brown.




You usually have to turn over or pick up rocks to find sea cucumbers. The small pair of black and yellow ones were under one rock. They are both sand sifters. The big one was out between rocks in the open. We see these big guys every once and a while, but the little ones are quite commonly found.



Other than some Gorgonian corals, we never find any zoas here, but occasionally we do find a nice bright yellow sps coral firmly attached to the rocks. We think it's pretty cool to find an SPS coral this pretty and this big in less than 2 feet of water only 30 feet off the beach!



Very young Sargent Majors seemed to be even more common than the Damsel fish in these shallows. I've tried collecting fish a few times and it takes great patience, the right net and some skill. Both 1 and 3 count me out, thus I've never caught a classy fish. The best I've ever done is catch a couple bait fish when they swim by in great big schools.



Elaine also found this beautiful sea star. If it had been a much smaller juvenile I might have collected it, but this one is way too big for my tank. And this species isn't known for being very successful in aquariums. Some people do keep them successfully, but IMHO 5 to 10 time more people kill them in less than 6 months.




And that's the end of day#2. We spent 4+ hours on the water including travel and lunch (in the Zodiac) and almost 3 hours in the water snorkeling. Probably close to one of longest days in the water. And we both were happy to admit that our faces were hurting while we had snorkel masks on at the end. It's funny that almost the minute you take it off your face feels fine. But put the mask back on and get in the water and the pressure against your face can be quite uncomfortable!

Next is Day#3 which is at Little Money Key. We had intended to meet up with our aquarium club friends at the Horseshoe in the afternoon (they went out to Looe Key on a snorkel boat in the morning). But we were having such a good time and finding lots of cool stuff at Little Money Key that we stayed all day. Besides, we were the only boat in the area so it was very quiet, peaceful and relaxing! (to be continued)

 

[dbraun15]

I just returned from Ambergris Caye in Belize...my wife and I stayed at Tuto’s(largest coconut plantation on the island) thru Airbnb...highly recommend it and the hosts were awesome. It’s 8 miles North of San Pedro so we rented a golf cart for the week. We also snorkeled with Amigos Del Mar, who I would also highly recommend. We snorkeled Hol Chan/Shark Ray Alley, Coral Gardens, Mexico Rocks, got to hand feed Tarpon out of the boat at Caye Caulker, and got to see a Manatee at Caye Caulker. Left my darn camera on accident in our room, so no reef pics. Our place was a short 1/2 mile by kayak to the reef so had an opportunity to snorkel lots. If you haven’t been to Belize, it’s a special place and relatively inexpensive. Hope you enjoy the pics!
Our home for the week

View from our Casita...some of the most beautiful water I’ve ever seen!

Fresh coconut daily.

Shells found walking the beach...Ron, what kind of conch are the bigger ones? There about the size of my hand.
Area near Secret Beach that I snorkeled and saw barracuda, needlefish, snapper, lobster, damsels, wrasses and much more!

Can’t wait to go back and bring the kids!

 

[saltyhog]

Finally on Friday (Day #2) we moved from out off the beach to out in front of the Bahia Honda Marine just north east of the bay side swimming area (see map below).



Here are a couple of views from the Zodiac, Elaine and the beach behind her and me with the Overseas Highway bridge from Bahia Honda Key to Spanish Harbor Key behind me.




The area up close to shore is shallow and hard bottom. There is actually quite a mix of things to see there if you take your time and keep your eye open. We saw a lot of these Damsel fish at Ohio Key and here. They can be pretty aggressive defending their home. This blue and yellow juvenile kept getting right up in Elaine's face. The older one was in the process of becoming an adult and changing from blue & yellow to mostly brown.




You usually have to turn over or pick up rocks to find sea cucumbers. The small pair of black and yellow ones were under one rock. They are both sand sifters. The big one was out between rocks in the open. We see these big guys every once and a while, but the little ones are quite commonly found.



Other than some Gorgonian corals, we never find any zoas here, but occasionally we do find a nice bright yellow sps coral firmly attached to the rocks. We think it's pretty cool to find an SPS coral this pretty and this big in less than 2 feet of water only 30 feet off the beach!



Very young Sargent Majors seemed to be even more common than the Damsel fish in these shallows. I've tried collecting fish a few times and it takes great patience, the right net and some skill. Both 1 and 3 count me out, thus I've never caught a classy fish. The best I've ever done is catch a couple bait fish when they swim by in great big schools.



Elaine also found this beautiful sea star. If it had been a much smaller juvenile I might have collected it, but this one is way too big for my tank. And this species isn't known for being very successful in aquariums. Some people do keep them successfully, but IMHO 5 to 10 time more people kill them in less than 6 months.




And that's the end of day#2. We spent 4+ hours on the water including travel and lunch (in the Zodiac) and almost 3 hours in the water snorkeling. Probably close to one of longest days in the water. And we both were happy to admit that our faces were hurting while we had snorkel masks on at the end. It's funny that almost the minute you take it off your face feels fine. But put the mask back on and get in the water and the pressure against your face can be quite uncomfortable!

Next is Day#3 which is at Little Money Key. We had intended to meet up with our aquarium club friends at the Horseshoe in the afternoon (they went out to Looe Key on a snorkel boat in the morning). But we were having such a good time and finding lots of cool stuff at Little Money Key that we stayed all day. Besides, we were the only boat in the area so it was very quiet, peaceful and relaxing! (to be continued)

Great pictures Ron!

Was that juvie damsel the same species as this one? This little devil bit me twice protecting his little patch of algae!



I think this is the same yellow SPS...cool to see them so shallow!

 

[saltyhog]

Love the big cucumber. We see them pretty often in deeper water. This one was a couple of months ago.....I'm pretty sure that hole is what you think it is. It was well over a foot long.

 

[Ron Reefman]

@dbraun15, my wife and I both think those are Crown Conch, but are not 100% sure. We see them here in SW Florida in some of the back estuary areas and they don't get quite that big.

@saltyhog, I think that is yet a different species of Damsel. And yes, some of them get crazy aggressive at protecting their home.