My Sunday

[chrisstie]

Okay so this weekend was really cool Spring break yay and all that jazz so I thought i'd keep myself busy..

On Sunday we headed out down 50 towards Titusville to meet see a man about a tank. On the way there we drove through Christmas which really goes by in the blink of an eye...

I think we also did the same through Bithlo - we saw the speedway where we can hear cars from our house down by Avalon Park.. and we saw a bunch of people who probably are missing more than a few teeth in the median in like a makeshift garage sale. It didn't look legal but there were a bunch of people doing it so if I was a cop I don't think I'd have the guts to ask them to leave!

Eventually we made it to Skinnyjoe's house to see about his tank- Can't wait for that baby to be in my house He has the coolest little angler fish!!

So not being familiar at all with the area we found out that the beach out by titusville is a Wildlife Refuge which means no collecting, poo! We don't want to break the law or hurt the environment so we trekked up a little bit north in an attempt to find ponce inlet.. Not knowing where the heck we were going we ended up going to the very end of the south causeway of New Smyrna beach I think. Haha I don't even know for sure..

Kevin drove us to this statepark where they had florida regulations and what not listed and it looked like a go as far as collecting. It happened to be low tide which was great- but I think we will try Sebastian Inlet next weekend (if we don't keep what we collected in my QT tank we will return it then)

Anyhow when we got out of the car it was really rough at the beach and really windy and 2 raccoons came out in broad daylight and nearly attacked a group of old people. It was almost funny but I was ready to start swooshing them away with my little net just in case. They probably had rabies. We also saw a not-squashed armadillo picking around at the side of the road.

For now here are some pics of our time there, i still need to take pictures of what we caught and kept!

Boat ramp side of little island we were on

Cool Flower

Spider Crab

Swimming Crab

Our portable tank

 

[cowboyswife]

Sounds like an awesome day! Cant wait to see pics of what you brought home!!!

 

[sytanek]

Looks like you guys went to Callalisa Creek

 

[Radnor]

Here's the google maps link for where we were at. It's quite a drive from the entrance to the park!

 

[sytanek]

Ohhhh you went into Canaveral and to the turtle mound area.

 

[chrisstie]

Yeah. there was a little place we could park and look at "Turtle Archeological Site" ? But we didn't get a chance. anyone ever been there or know what its about?

also I am having one heck of a time taking pictures of the stuff in this little QT tank.. it doesn't have any proper lighting and i've tried taking a fish out to get a pic of it in a container but its still not working for me so from Meerwasser's iD site here are some facsimilies of what we caught

It looks like a blenny but has no cirri so i think its a goby

above is the blenny version below is the goby version

Have a few little sand goby guys

a sorta plain looking pipefish (this one is probably going back to the coast unless i can get it to eat some brine\cyclopeez) unless anyone has a species tank and would like to adopt him

Kinda looks like that but without all the babies haha

The rest I am not so sure of but can try for better pics soon

I'll post the pics I do get shortly but working on some water changes.

Also there were these *weird* centipede looking bugs about an inch long clinging all over to the macro algae out there.

Weird weird stuff

 

[sytanek]

Turtle mound is where the native americans used to live and piled up tons of oyster shells into tall piles. Did you guys go near the eldora house? We go fishing out there all the time, you can find pistol shrimp and a larger species of mantis shrimp.

 

[chrisstie]

We drove by a road called Eldora is it down that path? We only went out to the tip of where we were and got so distracted we didn't explore anymore and it was starting to get late.

I think we'll definitely have to trek back there to see what its all about.. I <3 pistol shrimp


I found another kind of snail. Im watching it make suicide runs out of this little 3g tank it wants to swim toward the light and crawl out of the water- its about the size of my pinkie nail but *really* smooth. Wondering if it is maybe a baby cowrie?

 

[sytanek]

or a limpet lol. Some of the inter-tidal species tend to do that. Then they expect a wave to come and pull them back into the water. Just watch and see if he comes all the way out or stops at the very edge.

 

[chrisstie]

Oh I saw a limpit underneath a big clam shell but left it alone since we went poking around before actually bringing out ye old bucket. They are cool looking

 

[sytanek]

lol. The eldora house is the parking spot before where u guys ended up at. There is a lot more rocks and oyster rocks that one could turn over there

 

[sytanek]

and yes its down the eldora road.

 

[chrisstie]

er double post. stupid lag

 

[chrisstie]

I will totally have to go back and check that out next time. Didn't get some pics until now was doing some spring cleaning and joe brought that monster tank over i had to make room for it (THANK YOU JOE!!)

So I had to also fiddle with the color balance a little since these were taken in just a crappy QT tank without a light .. I tried to put fish into a container to get a better pic but didn't really work

here's one of the gobies

a corner shot of my QT with some fish shrimp and algae

The pipefish- found a bunch of these but only took one home to try to get to eat since I know they have a hard time getting food

Here's my cool blenny or goby thing. I can't quite figure what it is it looks a bit of both.. Think I am going to keep him in QT and add to tank if he shows signs of being healthy and hopefully doesn't carry any weird STDs (saltwater transmitted diseases?

lastly a little guy who looks kind of like a basslet or a minnow or something? not sure and not in my books

 

[chrisstie]

after watching the fish in the last pic i wouldn't be surprised if it was related to a damsel or something.

The normal fish I called a shiner i dont have a pic of looks like a silverside thats alive and not being eaten by something lol

 

[sytanek]

Probably a shad. Typical baitfish..lol

 

[chrisstie]

looks more like this but silver all the way down the body

 

[sytanek]

possibly an anchovy if he is that thin, or still could be a silverside they dont always have the yellow.

 

[chrisstie]

I am going to frag some stuff and take pictures of some stuff I need to sell to make up the $ of that tank so I'll make sure I get a good pic of him today.. kind of looks like a 3 inch tarpon its shiney like that.. anchovy look half clear like the pic above too.. He's.. a shiner lol

 

[nymotts]

what beach is that new smyrna? how far out do you have to go out off shore to catch some stuff?