wild SPS corals, Marshall Islands

[r-balljunkie]

a few more...gotta go to work, make da money...its 0730!!

[Allmost]

WOW man ! beautiful !

look at that black clam !! you tried to take it right ? right ?? lol

this is just too amazing !one day, one day

[nolanrob123]

Wow! Always such a visual treat. I love how established the clams are. How old do you think they are?

[r-balljunkie]

[ziyaadb]

amazing

[markie mark]

What happened? This thread has died off!!! Hope the camera isn't broke...I remember something about vacation..Hope thats why theres no pics...

[ziyaadb]

update please

[Raggamuffin]

I notice your zoos have about quadrupled since you put them in... must be doing something right!

[r-balljunkie]

Originally Posted by ziyaadb

update please

ask, and you shall receive.


My sincerest apologies. I presumed interests had waned off. the never ever landia of follow the shiny ball on reefcentral, on to the next thread. Of course I've been keeping busy here, diving most every weekend. My newest fetish has been collecting fish. Fashioning my own nets on my off time, I'm in 'training' mode, following the zen master, jedi collector. He said he doesn't mind if I drop his name, but I won't. FWIW he is a true marine biologist, and an absolute diving freak. Us mere recreational divers can't hold his diving bag when it comes to living under the sea and his experiences. pretty down to earth guy, salt of the earth..err ocean.

He has been credited with some species discoveries to boot.

Kind of hard to correct someone on a fish id or aquarium keeping ideology when talking to someone who really is an expert and not some aquarium wannabe hack like myself. He's has been nice enough to drag me along fish collecting. The locale is usally on the fringe of recreational diving limits and of course at top secret locations. after chickening out about going so deep and wimpily flailing away at 20-30 feet on the reef the first couple of times, I decided to 'man up' follow him to the depths. whoa, wow. much easier to collect at these depths. granted, not the same success as he, but better than chasing crafty fish that just disappear into the coral reef in the shallower depths. this is the main reason for lack of pictures collecting at depths. you really don't have a big window of time to wrangle fish in the net, much less time to document via a bulky underwater camera. I had my eye on some blue throat triggers when I was down on a dive....they just non-chalantly mosey into a hole in the reef as you get closer. I asked, how do you get those....reply was stick your hand in there, unlock the fins and there you go. I guess I have to put my big boy pants on next time, and go noodling for blue throats.

I had relative success last trip, some johnsoni juvenille wrasses, and a juevenille scorpionfish. I had to clear out half my tank to get a rogue crab out (2nd one???) to prevent eating of my newly collected tiny fish. the tank is in a bit of disarray. I think I'm just going to do a couple of walk in dives this weekend, verses the awesome boat dives I've been doing the last few weeks. kind of a break as 3 tank boat dives are usually an all day ordeal. hopefully, get a couple of corals to round out the display, do some housekeeping on the tank....follow up with some tank shots

we are slated to leave for our vacation in October, booked and paid for.

itinerary is Bangkok, Saigon, Phuket. Ching Tai has been gracious enough to extend an invitation to see his showpiece display tank, so that's on the agenda in Bangkok. I'm going to bring my dive regulator with me, so diving in Phuket should be nice, too. I love subsidized vacations. I would normally not be able to afford such an extravagant trip, but I'm really blessed to get a generous annual travel allowance. enough about my fabulousness LOL

Originally Posted by Allmost

WOW man ! beautiful !

look at that black clam !! you tried to take it right ? right ?? lol

this is just too amazing !one day, one day

nah, if it's on the reef (clams) I will leave it be. I'm ok with collecting clams at low tide at places you cannot access diving. this way, I don't take away from the beauty of the reef for the next diver. trust me, it's very very tempting, but I have to maintain some type of standard being out here, you gotta respect the reef.

Originally Posted by nolanrob123

Wow! Always such a visual treat. I love how established the clams are. How old do you think they are?

Wow, hard to say. you lose the scale of how grandeur in size some of these clams you're seeing. I would surmise some are 50+ years old. I hope I'm not speaking out of the side of my neck with nonsense, non-scientific guess on my part. the giant ones are every bit of 3-4 feet long.

Originally Posted by Raggamuffin

I notice your zoos have about quadrupled since you put them in... must be doing something right!

the tank is well established, SPS are keeping their colors, nice PE extension. might be a bit exaggerated in 4x growth. when you look at other hobbyist tanks, frags are grown out into colonies, systems are designed from scratch. I feel like I'm cheating here....granted I'm keeping mindful of responsible husbandry and it's still an incurred cost for me to keep a tank here, purchasing salt from stateside, food, GFO, equipment purchases etc BUT there's many equal or better reef keepers out there.

here's some pics from collecting...some pretty rare stuff in there.











if thought I would throw up some old full tank shots from the years past....just so no one thinks I'm a total hack....perhaps just a hack.

[r-balljunkie]

[frctlimg]

Nice bucket of fish you've got there.

[sreefs]

Man you could send me a bucket of rhomboids!
Do you sell those to wholesalers or what do you do with them, love the wrasses! How deep did you catch them?
Pat

[Jadams]

This thread has just taken up most of my morning here at work...I dont think ive done anything the past 2 hours..

Stunning to say the least

[nirvanaandtool]

Originally Posted by Jadams

This thread has just taken up most of my morning here at work...I dont think ive done anything the past 2 hours..

Stunning to say the least

Same here... Amazing thread.

Need more pics!

[strout]

What can say that hasn't already been said, awesome.

[NatureNerd]

Wow! I just found this thread and loved every single picture. Thanks!

[mrbncal]

Wow . . . wait a sec . . . gotta . . . pick . . . .my jaw up . . . off the floor. . .

[r-balljunkie]

Been awhile since I updated. just getting back from Thailand/Vietnam vacation, back in the saddle for a couple of weeks now. While on vacation, I managed to sneak away and get a few dives in at Phuket , near Phi Phi island. The wildlife was really different from what I'm accustomed to in the South pacific, err actually about a complete 180. Thailand was full of non-photosynthetic and soft corals. it was hard to SPS / hard corals. the waters were nutrient rich, loads of plankton in the water. I won't say it was bad diving, just different.

Here's some pics from Thailand. It would have been nice to dive Vietnam, but had family duties/related stuff to do like take tours, see sites etc.














I've done one collecting trip since I've been back, zip on the fish, loaded up on some new corals. my underwater camera took a nice dump on me, so back to Olympus under warranty, so no shots from that trip.

had a nice thinning out of fish while on vacation. word to the wise, don't let a box fish die in your tank, while you're on vacation. My poor house sitter was in over his head. my guess is he couldn’t find the boxfish. 50% wipeout of my fish. clam made it, damsels are nuclear bomb proof, wrasses fine. grrr.
tank did OK all things considered, poor guy (house sitter) was sweating bullets thinking I would be upset, meh. it happens.

ill post some updated FTS pics later, with my crappy second camera.

[r-balljunkie]

I also had some issues with a 'muy malo' vendor, Brian Edwards of Finsreef.
See thread on the vendor feedback.

Dude swiped 1400 bones from me for a new Maxspect Mazarra, strung me along and never sent it. Has the nerve to tell me to contact his lawyer.

I can't really say what I want to say due to the mod squad and my numerous infractions due to expressing what i really really think, already incurred. I'm sure you can use your imagination to surmise what I think of him.

end of the day, ill win...because I'm a winner, and that’s what winners do bro.

Originally Posted by frctlimg

Nice bucket of fish you've got there.

yeppers, that’s my buds….im just tagging along for the ride, watching the zen master do his work.

Originally Posted by sreefs

Man you could send me a bucket of rhomboids!
Do you sell those to wholesalers or what do you do with them, love the wrasses! How deep did you catch them?
Pat

I personally don’t sell them. I'm just tagging along with my buddy whom is a collector. these are collected at 100' plus in areas. it's not easy catching fish, especially net caught. he only targets specfic and rare fish, very focused on his trips, re: what to go for. something as simple as a watanabe or multi color anglefish wouldn’t be worth it for him when you factor in transporting, holding etc. I don’t really focus on the rarity, rather what appeals to me, and whatever is dumb enough to end up in my net. I take the 'its 2:00 in the morning, and the bar is closing approach' to collecting. not too picky.

Originally Posted by Jadams

This thread has just taken up most of my morning here at work...I dont think ive done anything the past 2 hours..
back to work, or else ill call ur IT dept!!
Stunning to say the least

thanks!

Originally Posted by nirvanaandtool

Same here... Amazing thread.

Need more pics!

asketh and you shall recieveth

Originally Posted by strout

What can say that hasn't already been said, awesome.

your too easy…..

Originally Posted by NatureNerd

Wow! I just found this thread and loved every single picture. Thanks!

cool, glad u liked them. I think its beneficial to all to get a glimpse of reefs in their natural state.

Here some dive pics from before vacation, not yet seen!!

[r-balljunkie]

[r-balljunkie]

[maysorum]

Wonderful pictures, please keep 'em coming!

[nemosworld]

Great pics chuck! when do you come back to H-town? bet you don't want to come back.



-felix-

[Oceanman79]

Wonderful as always! I'll follow the others and whip you like the sad reef pony you are to us - don't stop, keep it comin'!!

[gambitcobra]

WOW, amazing photos and what a fantastic thread to stumble upon today.

Keep up all the pics please