Snorkeling & Collecting Discussion Group

[The Night Driving Avenger]

North Scotland... man I bet the water is cold. Did you take any photos? Do you have a tank for local stuff that needs cooler water?

The only place I ever saw in Scotland was Loch Lomond. Back in 1972 a friend an I bought Triumph Bikes in London, went to the TT Races on the Isle of Man and then ferried over to Scotland. We wanted to go to Loch Ness, but it was raining and we stopped way short. Then we put the bikes on a train back to London and toured around the south of England. We stayed in a tiny caravan out behind a castle that was a bed& breakfast. They were full, but the owner offered us the caravan and we jumped at the chance. We did spend a wonderful evening in the local pub with the owner, his dad and a few friends. Everybody was so nice... at least I think they were as I could only understand about 1/3 of what they said! Too much beer and not enough concentration!

na, the local wildlife lives in my reef tank, very careful with what i put in and i dont collect anything i cant i.d. lights out and drip acclimate for 3 hours. i get my critters from the same place i get my water so its really only a temperature adjustment for the beasties. only got a photo of one of the hermits so far, just attached it! ach you didn't miss much, loch ness is dull as hell!

 

[Ron Reefman]

I had to get out of the house, it's driving me crazy! So we just got back from an other beach walk at Bunche Beach. I love doing the net dragging through the sea grass.

This is the north end of Ft Myers Beach and maybe the gambling boat or the Key West ferry coming in to port.



I tried to save this sea hare that was at the water's edge, but it was dead.



Elaine found a good size hermit crab in a Crown Conch shell.



I found the star up on a sandbar that was quite dry. We don't see many stars in this bay. I thought for sure it was toast. But I'm always willing to try. So I took it to the water and SURPRISE! It was still alive. I almost decided to collect it, but it's very plain looking. There's a very good chance I'll find a couple better looking ones in the Keys next month.



A Redish Egret fishing along the first sand bar and me searching the shallows out by the second sand bar. BTW, I'm probably close to a 1/4 mile off the beach in this pic!



Here is a view of almost everything I brought home. Lots of shrimp and some sea grass and a couple of small sea hares.



All the shrimp and a few small pipe fish get put in a ziplock bag and go in the freezer and tank food.



A purple sponge (we never see sponges in this bay), a few live pipefish, a lot of stomatella snails, the sea hares and a small sea cucumber that filter feeds (it's the round off white thing at the bottom of the photo.



I put the hare in the tank and went straight for the glass.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Today's sunset shot from a 3 story tower in a city park at the south end of Cape Coral. The colors are totally real!

 

[Mark Novack]

When I visited the Maldives I needed a double villa as we were 6. Right on the beach, the inner reef was 100 meters from the villa. While eye popping corals were sparce, it's the place for all of the young fish to grow before leaving for the outer reef. It's so shallow it takes lots of attention to not break off growth with the flippers and it's best navigated by just pulling on the larger rocks. The beauty was incredible. Also the occasional shark would pass through. One must freeze and be calm or the shark will frighten and flee. I packed our visit with almost daily boat outings to premium sites but every evening took advantage to explore that nursery. There were also permanent residents such as morays and rugby ball sized puffers. Some of the shallow open water reefs had been swept clean by the 2004 tsunami but new growth was popping up everywhere. Even on those barren areas there were turtles, sharks, huge angels and morays. I'm addicted to snorkeling and look into every rock and crevice. I spent 6 to 8 hours per day in the water. I wait with excitement for my next tropical voyage.

Mark

 

[Ron Reefman]

Mark, snorkeling in the Maldives is one of my bigger 'Bucket Lists' adventures.

How were the 'premium' reef sites for snorkeling? Here in the Florida Keys I consider the big reefs to be worth seeing, but they are all protected and a bit deeper than I like. They are also a less colorful than I like.

We do most of our snorkeling at shallow patch reefs where the water is 2 to 6 feet deep! And most of those are interesting because of all the critters and the fact that you can really get 'up close and personal' with them.

 

[Ron Reefman]

So Elaine wanted to go to the beach this morning. Lovers Key State Park which is a nice beach, but no collecting and shelling there is marginal. So we both took our good cameras (big zoom lens) and hoped we'd see some birds. Elaine knows them all, she is a nature lover first and a bird lover second. I maybe know a handful of birds on sight. So these photos even took me by surprise!

Great Blue Heron taking flight.


A pelican taking off out of the water. Notice the hole in the water under him.


I consider the Ibis to be a bird crated for the Far Side cartoon series!


BTW, I was this far away from the Ibis for the above shot. The Ibis is near the middle of the pic!


A black skimmer. I had never seen one do this before and now I even have a photo! He flew like this, with his beak in the water for a good 100 yards or more!


A Willet in non-mating plumage.


And my favorite. Elaine taking a photo of me taking a photo of an Osprey at the top of the dead tree trunk. He sat up there for an hour. We passed him walking down the beach and again on our way back!


This is one of the photos I took while standing there. Does it look like he's not completely thrilled at having me near the base of his tree? His eyes look squinty and it appears he is looking down his nose at me... I mean down his beak!


This was taken hand held with a 2000mm lens. And I'll admit that it's cropped in post processing about 50%. But I love the shot! Even Elaine was surprised when I showed this one to her! It's a bit fuzzy, but how often do you see a portrait of an osprey's head? ;Wideyed

 

[SMSREEF]

Just went down to the keys this weekend and collected some macro algae and a few hermit crabs with my FL saltwater fishing license.

Found some great macro algae and on one of the mermaid fans looks to be some baby anemones of some kind. They do not look like aiptasia or majanos to me but I'm not 100% sure.

Does anyone know what these are? Or if they will spread like wildfire like our little aiptasia friend? Right now they are in my quarantine tank.


Pic of the tank with new macros

 

[Ron Reefman]

Just went down to the keys this weekend and collected some macro algae and a few hermit crabs with my FL saltwater fishing license.

Found some great macro algae and on one of the mermaid fans looks to be some baby anemones of some kind. They do not look like aiptasia or majanos to me but I'm not 100% sure.

Does anyone know what these are? Or if they will spread like wildfire like our little aiptasia friend? Right now they are in my quarantine tank.


Pic of the tank with new macros

I think those may be colonial hydroids rather than anemones. But that's a relatively uneducated guess. I'd have that in quarantine until you are sure.

Just a warning. In the shot of your tank, the algae 2nd from the right is one I have also collected and put in my tank. In my holding tank (I don't really quarantine) this one started slowly but once it got acclimated it grew like crazy and clings to rocks quite well. I now keep in in a 16 oz deli cup with some sand in the bottom and placed in my refugium with several other macro algae and some sea grasses.

If you don't mind me asking, were you snorkeling, scuba diving or just at the beach? And I'd love to know where in the Keys? And if anybody is interested, I'm always willing to share my snorkel locations to anybody who asks!

 

[SMSREEF]

I think those may be colonial hydroids rather than anemones. But that's a relatively uneducated guess. I'd have that in quarantine until you are sure.

Just a warning. In the shot of your tank, the algae 2nd from the right is one I have also collected and put in my tank. In my holding tank (I don't really quarantine) this one started slowly but once it got acclimated it grew like crazy and clings to rocks quite well. I now keep in in a 16 oz deli cup with some sand in the bottom and placed in my refugium with several other macro algae and some sea grasses.

If you don't mind me asking, were you snorkeling, scuba diving or just at the beach? And I'd love to know where in the Keys? And if anybody is interested, I'm always willing to share my snorkel locations to anybody who asks!

I was just snorkeling off the beach. We stayed at Glunz Ocean Beach Hotel in Marathon.

The visibility was not great, but I saw a lot of cool stuff. Stingrays, cool fish, conch.

The coolest fish I saw was this crazy thing! I guess it is a batfish. I thought it was venomous, but I guess they are not. It walks along the bottom.https://www.floridagofishing.com/species/batfish.html


The grassbeds were cool and I had no idea there would be so many different macros with the grass.

 

[tnc112105]

I am looking forward to collecting/seining season in the northeast when the Gulfstream current sends some of those fellas our way in July/August/September. My favorites are the butterflyfish, but we get all sorts of cool fish up north. I've even seen squirrelfish, scorpionfish and surgeonfish. I have been collecting now for 10+ years and every year is different with some years better than others. I will post some pictures when we start up in another 3 weeks or so.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

Is there a flashlight that can be used to get the true color of the coral for photo's? Thanks in advance

 

[JoeIII]

Flashlight I don't know, but you can get gels for your camera for various depths

 

[Ron Reefman]

Is there a flashlight that can be used to get the true color of the coral for photo's? Thanks in advance

Do you mean a flashlight for diving? True color as in with white light? There are a lot of waterproof white flashlights. If you mean fluoresced color, I'm pretty sure there are a couple of underwater flashlights with either blue leds or a blue lens.

As a snorkeler, all I really need is the sun! ;Woot

 

[Ron Reefman]

We got back from a 3 day snorkel trip to the Keys. We drove down Wednesday morning and snorkeled for 2 hour in the afternoon. Then almost 4 hours on Thursday at a great little off shore island and finally another 3 hours on Friday at the Horseshoe.

The water was warm, the sun was shining most of the time, there were no afternoon thunderstorms and the wind was blowing, but light enough that visibility was really good. Elaine, my wife, got some good photos, I got some on Friday. I collected close to my limit and everybody made it home safe and sound. Astraea snails, some really tiny cerith snails, lots of nerite snails, some green headed chitons, a limpet, a couple sea stars, a purple gorgonian, some green zoas, a few rock flower anemones, a few small curly-Q anemones, a couple small sponges, 1 green and 1 ruby mithrax crabs, 1 bright red feather duster, 1 tiny white flame scallop and 2 urchins (1 very small and one a bit smaller than a golf ball. Oh, and a small clump of calcareous algae. They are all in a 5 gallon holding tank for now. As I sort things out and move them to the other tanks, I'll take photos.

So lets talk snorkeling first. The first day we went out to a tiny island about 1/4 mile out from our motel. It has no official name, but we call it Nem Key because the vertical wall of the island under the water has a lot of rock flower anemones (the not so colorful ones from shallow water). You can see the sandy bottom extends out about 3 feet from the island and then the bottom becomes mostly algae and grass. The rocky island actually has some overhang as the waters have eroded the rock below the surface. And a lot of the rock is quite sharp. So you have to be careful so that a wave doesn't push you into the rocks overhanging your head as you look under the overhang at nems, sponges and feather dusters!



There are thousands of curly-Q anemones. Most tiny, some good size ones and some rocks are just covered with them



And some nice patterns on ordinary color rock flower anemones. Notice the shade/shadow of the overhanging rock in this photo.



We also saw chitons that are so well attached to the rocks they are nearly impossible to remove. Some lobsters, some mollusks like queen conch and horse conch and a big hermit crab.

More photos to follow later.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

Thanks Ron, what I mean is, I watch video's of coral reefs but the coral all look like they are filmed in black and white, I saw one video wherever the light showed the true color of the reef.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Thanks Ron, what I mean is, I watch video's of coral reefs but the coral all look like they are filmed in black and white, I saw one video wherever the light showed the true color of the reef.

Yup! For divers, once you get down about 15 to 20 feet deep the colors of light available to be reflected back to your eye become very limited. Reds look black, yellows look grey, greens look light grey... it's very similar to going outside on a dark night or watching a B&W TV. Here is a chart that shows how far various colors (spectrum) can penetrate into saltwater.



At about 30' deep almost everything is in shades of black and white because the only spectrum of light available to be reflected back to your eye is blue.

Any normal white light, a flashlight, a camera flash, video spotlights will add in all those missing spectrum so your eye can see all the true colors. The crazy part is, use a strong blue light down that deep and 'normal' colors still appear dark, like B&W TV. But anything that has pigments that fluoresce, like some corals, anemones, some fish and inverts and even some minerals will take in the short wave length blue light and 'fluoresce' everything from green to red (no blues). So the scene will look like a 1960's hippy poster under a black-light.

That's why a lot of reefers like the blue leds. They make some pigments fluoresce and seem brighter. In other words, they make the colors 'pop'.

 

[Ron Reefman]

OK, so more snorkeling photos of things I didn't collect:

A medium size Horse Conch. Well, I think I got a tiny, baby horse conch along with some algae I collected! You gotta love the bright orange flesh!

How about getting up close and personal with mangrove roots? They tend to be habitat for a lot of juvenile animals.


The overhead rooks near the water surface are home to a lot of oysters and chitons.


These prehistoric looking guys attach to the rocks so well, I couldn't get one off without doing real damage... so I didn't even try. Did you know that all chitons have 8 segments to their shell?


How about a big hermit crab. This guy has blue eyes to die for!


Of course there are a lot of these light weight feather dusters. They also attach their tube to the rocks so well they are very, very difficult to remove.


And maybe it's only fair that you should see me doing my thing. And trust me, the doo rag is a great way to protect a bald head from the sun... a lesson I only learned about last year (the doo rag not the sun burn). Just like wearing a 0.5 mil wet suit or dive skin. It's 80% for sun protection and 20% for warmth.


So ends day 1. More to follow.

 

[hubcap]

Ron,
Wifey and I just moved to the Holiday area and I was wondering if you knew of any good snorkeling spots up in our area. We've been to honeymoon island (Dunedin) a lot and that seems like a good place but its pretty busy. Especially on weekends....
Any leads in my area?

Thanks man. GREAT thread......

 

[Peace River]

Awesome Ron! It looks like you had a great time - so much to enjoy! Thanks for sharing!!! It looks like it may be 2021, but we look forward to joining you two on one of these trips!

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

Thanks Ron. That was very helpful.