First live rock trip and ID please

[Savage Henry]

As usual, your posts are gold Macca. Really great to see what conditions those corals are enduring in their natural habit. Would love to know parameter, for example, how hot are those pool with the Gonis getting too? You have to take some readings for us.

Also, those pesky scientists are probably making notes about those unexplainable disappearing corals. Don't worry, they'll probably blame it on Global Warming. They'll probably comment: "It was notable that the more colour corals have disappeared from this area, whereas the bland coloured corals have maintained a dominant presence".

In my local area they even stick little numbers on periwinkles. Which is something I may do with my turbos and Strombus. Turbo 1 and Turbo 2; Strombus 1.

[MaccaPopEye]

Thanks for the IDs funebris, after a google image search all three seem to be pretty spot on

Small polyp blasto, goniastrea and a sand goby!

You also asked to see the corals under actinic lighting and I have finally gotten the dodgy LEDs to work for the most part. I can’t get one white panel to light up and the timer functions don’t work so I need to have the lights plugged into the Chinese timer which is then plugged into a timer……… But I have put them over the tank and I have to say if all of the panels worked I would be very happy, wouldn’t even be too mad that the timer function doesn’t work. As it is the tank does look pretty good, just really mad about being screwed. I am at work now but I will post some comparison photos of some of the corals I took today on my meal break.

Unfortunately the green favia seems like it may be my first coral loss. It seems to have started RTN in the last 3-4 days . I don’t have any idea why yet, I will be doing some water tests tomorrow but last week cal, mag & alk were a little low but not too terrible (getting some sups this week), po4 0.2ppm and nitrate was only 10ppm. It’s a real shame because that one looks stunning under the blue lights. When I get levels stable I might try and collect another one.

Good idea Savage Henry, I am going out again early next week so I will take a thermometer and get a water sample to test.

The scientists seemed like nice blokes, they said that they run into hobbyist’s often. I think even if they run into hobbyist’s a lot there still isn’t enough in Darwin to create any danger to the coral population. The couple that I know of (have only actually met one in person) either don’t collect their own corals or don’t collect anymore due to the fact that there is now a supplier here who gets his corals from out at sea so they are much nicer. I can’t really afford to spend money on coral yet right now though and I like going out to the rock pools and looking anyway, so I will keep collecting for now if I see something that I like. Most of the corals I have collected were either upside down, hanging on by a thread or had been mostly buried with mud anyway.

I like the idea of putting numbers on the snails haha. I always seem to be able to see at least some strombus snails but my nassarius snails disappear for days at a time. Speaking of them I actually haven’t seen even one of them in over a week. Maybe the octopus or mantis shrimp got them

Cheers,

Macca

[MaccaPopEye]

Here is 3 comparison shots for now. Im only using my phone camera so the blue comes on alot stronger than in real life with the blue only photos. When both blue and white are on the lights also really highlight the greens and oranges in the corals more than it looks in the photos. My partner has a decent camera she rarely uses, I think its about time I learned about white balance and all that other stuff to get some good photos :P





Cheers,

Macca

[ozparagod]

would love to see an update on this tank

[MaccaPopEye]

It has been a while since I popped in here.

I'm on night shift now but I will post an update on my tank over the next couple of days. It's actually collecting season again haha. Went out at the start of the month but didnt take any photos. Which is actually a shame because there were some tomato clowns in their bubble tips and a few epaulette sharks. I'll be out there again soon so will try to remember to take photos if I see anything new.

Cheers,

Macca

[MaccaPopEye]

So it has been a while but I got out at the start of Nov again and tried to remember to take some photos. It was the lowest tide I have been out on and certainly saw some new things.

There was heliofungia everywhere at the lower tide! There was some huge ones too. The size of dinner plates.



There was also more slipper corals. It is a little hard to tell in this photo but this one was massive.


More blue sponge everywhere.


I had been told there was purple goni out there but had never seen any until now. At the lower tide it was everywhere.


Also saw lots of galaxea.


I am pretty sure this is a montipora. It was so huge.


The photo makes it look a bit dull but this dendro was a nice deep purple


A very weird shaped coral. I think it is turbinaria, at least it is similar. It stood about 30-40cm high


Saw one tomato clown fish but only got a terrible photo.


I have no idea what this is. I think it is a sponge of some sort.


A couple of very large leather corals



We call these mud skippers here, I don't know if they would go well in an aquarium as they seem to spend most of their time out of the water (like it is in this photo).


Every time I go out I see another piece of engine I didnt see before. I dont understand why, the tip is free here so there is no reason for it


I'm not sure what kind of brain coral these are but they were everywhere this trip.


And I was asked what the temps can get to out there so on a previous trip earlier this year I took a thermometer out and got some readings. It was quite a cool day as far as things go though so it can most certainly get hotter.

This reading was from a semi large pool in direct sun, the pool had quite a few green favia in there but I couldn't get them in the photo because of glare on the thermometer.


These pools were close to the bridge so they would have been in the shade an hour or two ago but were heating up.



And this was a pool directly under the bridge which would be in the shade for most of the day.


And lastly just a photo of the low tide


I will hopefully get around to updating my TJ and maybe posting some progress pics of some of the corals I have collected in a week or so, changing the image size so they aren't so large is the most time consuming thing that makes me procrastinate :P

I am going to really try and focus on getting my tank parameters stable for now so between that and work I doubt I will get out there any time soon. But if I do I will try and take some photos

Cheers,

Macca