South east queensland aquarium society collecting trip (rock pools)

[Saltliquid]

A day that should have been a complete dud,ended up being a good day,even with the bad weather,we were able to fit the visist to the pools in with out getting wet,well maybe from the knees down!

We got there one after the other from 11.00 on, Danny the club pres was first dropped off by his other half, than myself and my other half after visiting my father at Maroochydore, some more clubbies and the last was Kit.

The tide was very low, so straight away we were into checking out the area for some algae, clean up crews and fish food.

The clean up crews we find there are made up of several types of snails including limpets, yellow clawed small hermit crabs, lawn mower blennies, that type of thing.

Danny brought up an interesting point, he used to use limpets for bait while living on Stradbroke Island in days gone by, and any thing that is excellent bait is also good fish food, so I got some to give it a whirl.

The conspict in Marks marine swimming pool should like the Cunjivoe and the limpets we got, hopefully?It would be great to give such a beautiful fish a treat!

The surf was a bit full on and the water not that clear, but for keen collectors and fish food fossickers, that was no problem.

We got some nice caulerpa, coralline algae, a few lawnmower blennies a shrimp or two, Cunjivoe and some molluscs, and had lots of good fun, adventure, marine creature education and our hobby very much enhanced.

After a long low tide hunt it was time for lunch and just before it rained we headed home.

360 degree video of the spot.


The beaches here are very nice.

Danny collecting some cnjivoe.

The clubbies searching for their catches.

A few of the lawn mower blennies seen on the day.

Some algaes from the area.

xenia here is quite abundant,blue and grey!

A couple of pics of the beautiful rock formations at this spot.

 

[OARrocks]

That is too cool. Thanks for sharing. I miss Australia...

 

[Saltliquid]

aus

aus

Which part of Aus were you in?

 

[criccio]

Do you guys have to worry about blue rings in your area, or are those further north?

 

[Saltliquid]

blue rings

blue rings

They used to be very common around here,but global warming has virtualy removed them from up the coast,this high anyway.
Life in our waters is changing heaps.

 

[billsreef]

Re: blue rings

Re: blue rings

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15338491#post15338491 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by liquidg
Life in our waters is changing heaps.

Seeing that in my neck of the Oceans as well One of the things we're seeing is in increase of harmful algae blooms and normally warm water/tropical fish diseases expanding Northwards.

 

[Saltliquid]

Ah ha,you get it.

Ah ha,you get it.

Billsreef what would you work out from this?

Our amazingly inteligent powers to be are confused as to why we are finding in excess of fifty percent of all dead dugongs died for no obvious reasons.

We have sewerage into the bay appart from all the other things going on with the environment and the turtles are dieing from bacterial attacks on there bodies from our waste,algea blooms of toxic varieties all over the place,all year round now,sea grasses,food for the dugongs coverd in algaes that were not common on them 20 years back.

These dongongs in large numbers dead with no external reason,what would your common sense say,what was ingested killed them,you would think the first thing they would do is look at there organs for traces of substances and abnormalities.

Honestly they are so imbarrising!

They get healthy ones cut up by props to check out and dead ones for no reasons,they do ortopsies on people to find out what the hell happend,how hard is that for the dugongs!

Sorry to go on,but it is very sad!

 

[billsreef]

It's a global problem, but one that starts locally to all of us on the coast anywhere in the world Lot's of people, lot's of pollution. Our sea grass beds took a major hit about 25 years ago from diatom bloom that shaded them out...water was positively solid brown, was like trying to look through coffee...sechi dish readings were measured in mere centimeters. That particular diatom also was inedible to bivalves, and also crowded the edible phyto's. Result was a total crash of bay scallops. Last year was the first year since that first "brown tide" that there was actually a good scallop harvest, took over 20 years of restoration efforts for that. IMO we do a great job at pushing our environment to tipping points, ones that when you look at an individual factor it will not prove out responsible in a lab, but when you combine it with the multiple factors in a complex environment is enough to shove something out of whack.

A Marine Toxicologist I know did some research that showed the hormones released in sewage (meds and many soaps use estrogen) are in sufficient levels to alter sex ratios in fish...in a large well flushed embayment. She also did some work on recent disease problems with local populations of North American Lobsters that have been having issues. The lobstermen have been wanting to blame gas additives (MTBE) and mosquito spraying among other things. While labwork was not able to show a direct link to low levels of any of those chemicals individually, the feeling is that it's a combination of all those pollution factors coupled with warming SW temperatures....too many parameters to test for in an accurate scientific fashion. So the politicians jump on the part about Malathion by itself not being factor, and ignore the rest of the combination...because more of their voters want to kill mosquitoes.

Well, I think I ranted enough for one post

 

[Saltliquid]

Sounds about right

Sounds about right

Over all we humans are not a very bright dominant species,i would say that virtualy every other one before us has screwed it up as well.

I think i remember something on what was possibly the first dominant species here,if i remember right they say it would have been a type of flat worm.

I bet they let there numbers and environmental impact get out of hand as well.

It's good to hear some one a little passionate about how badly,from our polution, things seem to be going for the other creatures that live here as well.

You know,our instinctive and religious beleifs and the confusion of the two,won't let us do what is needed,consider the other things here as actual other inhabitants and the need to reduce our numbers.

It's really quite simple and that to me is why it is all so very sad for other poor creatures that we poison out of their existance.

My dad used to say we are destroying the earth,i would tell him we only affect what is here now and a very short part of the worlds life span,tectonic movement and other natural forces will remove traces of what we did,maybe leaving it with no trace that we ever existed at all.

I know how you feel,see yah on the pages billsreef.