First live rock trip and ID please

[funebris]

Yep turbins for most, think I saw a porites as well.

Currently my favourite thread on the marine forums I follow

You need to go back at night with a UV torch

[MaccaPopEye]

Cool thanks for the IDs. And glad you enjoy it, but I know that I still haven't found the really good stuff that's in the other thread. I'm trying though :p.

I'll be going out whenever I have a day off that coincides with a low tide (tomorrow is the last one for a while as I've got alot of OT coming up). Today I went to another spot that supposedly has a reef but aside from a couple of brain coral that were few and far between there was no reef as far as I could find. Did see heaps of fish trapped in rock pools but they were all too fast to get photos of.

Buuut I found heaps of LR! So I was finally able to fill my tank with some rock. It's not extremely live, but it's very porous, not covered in algae or grey muck and it was all from an area of ocean that is submerged 98% of the time, so it should have a good amount of bacteria on it. Hauling it back to the car was quite funny, it seems someone may have called the cops on me as I saw them waiting up near my car and watching me as I was coming back in, but they must have determined that they couldn't care what I was doing before I got back because they didn't hang around too long.

I would love to go out at night with a UV torch but these areas are all very notorious for crocs, I'm ridiculously on edge during the day as is Hahaha. There are some night photos on the other thread, but I don't think he had a UV torch with him.

Cheers,

Macca

[Mr Stretch]

Any updates mate?
This is interesting.

[MaccaPopEye]

I do actually have a small update. I posted in my TJ and forgot to add here too . As I said above for the last low tide I managed to get out to I went to a different spot and only got LR (not much out there but dead corals ). The day after that I was planning on going out but it hammered down with rain from 8am until after I went to sleep so no low tide trip. The day after that I was working. I did go out after work though as the tide was coming in (I had about 15 min before I had to climb back up the rocks or get stuck in some mangroves ) and I did actually collect my first small corals for my tank!

Because I didn't have long out there I didn't take any photos (not much to see anyway as the tide had covered the good stuff). But here are the corals I took in my tank.

My first find was a small leather that had been washed in on the tide. As I have had 0 ammonia for over a week and nitrite was 0.1 over a week ago and is now 0 I decided to rescue it out of the mud and see how it would fare in my tank.
Here it is two days later.


Since I had decided to add the leather, on the way back to the car I kept an eye out for any other small things that may have broken off in the massive storm on the 20th. I found 3 other corals I decided to take. The second was a goniopora that was upside down and had a dead looking patch in the middle I have read up on them and know they require feeding and generally don't last long in private aquariums however this breed seems to thrive in the dirty waters around Darwin and after two days the patch that I thought was dead is already staring to grow back. I will be feeding it this afternoon for the first time and hopefully I can get it to thrive
Here is the Goni after two days (you can see the patch starting to grow back on the top).


The third and forth corals I took I am not to sure what they are but I believe they are both types of brain coral.
Both photos after two days.



Apart from that there are 3 low tides I can get out to this month (at the end of the month) so if everything in my tank is still healthy then I will be on the look out for some things for my tank! Either way I will be trying to get out and explore more out to the sides of the bridge and see if I can find the really good places.

Cheers,

Macca

[stone01]

Man I love this thread. I am so jealous.

Keep up the pics.

[MaccaPopEye]

Thanks. I really enjoy going out at low tide, and I'm glad you all enjoy it but I also need you guys to help ID stuff so I know if it's safe to take or not haha

[funebris]

Any chance we can see these corals under actinic?
Who knows you may have some fancy scores!

Still think you should get one of these
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/3AA-Invisibl ... 1c45c9444e
And one of these,
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/The-M60-Mach ... 35e6b1388a
and just go at night.

[sabo]

Until you shine a torch across the water and see a pair of red eyes reflecting back at you.

[funebris]

And thats where the GPMG comes into play.
It was coming right for me!

[cooper666]