Real life reef in Mexico!

[LEOreefer]

Hello everyone! I recently came back from my honeymoon, we were in Mexico and I had the privilege to do some snorkeling in a real live reef! I wanted to share some pictures and video with you all that I took with my gopro! I do have some quick thoughts so here it goes.......

I don't consider myself to be an expert in anything reef related esp. when is comes down to some of the extremely knowledgeable folks on this board. What I believe is I have a solid understanding of this hobby and what we all strive for. Everyone wants the pristine clean, algae free, pest free tank as do I. What I saw in the underwater habitat was the exact opposite of what we look for in a reef tank. It was covered in grey/ brown unsightly algae, there was very little color and there was what looked like detritus everywhere! Now I will admit that I use the term reef lightly as corals where scarce, they once that i came across were of the soft coral variety, sea fans etc..... I did come across a beautiful huge brain coral and some spa scattered around. It begs the question do we try to hard to keep algae out of our systems? should we embrace small amounts of algae for the sole purpose of keeping our tank inhabitants happy?

I don't have the answers to that but I will tell you I've never seen so many healthy big fish in my life, I'm talking about tangs the size of my head, rainbow patriot fish half the size of me, all healthy and happily grazing on the stuff we cringe at..... I should also note that our tour guide told us this was considered brackish water as all the really beautiful fish were concentrated where the underground fresh water river emptied into the reef which I though was real interesting!

Some of the video and pictures might appear blurry, that was the salt and fresh water trying to mix almost like a oil and vinegar......so here are some pics and videos take a look and share with friends !

 

[LEOreefer]

Video 1 from the reef

 

[LEOreefer]

In this video you can see the huge patriot fish swimming out in front of the camera

 

[LEOreefer]

another video

 

[LEOreefer]

Here are various pics I took, I'm pretty sure there are angel fish thrown in there also!

 

[LEOreefer]

Tangs anyone ?

 

[LEOreefer]

Various shots of corals

 

[LEOreefer]

Brain coral ?

 

[Lovemyreef2015]

Very nice, thanks for sharing!

 

[LEOreefer]

some of my favorites

 

[LEOreefer]

Thanks everyone for keeping this a awesome place to come and share things like this....... without the people in the community I don't know if my love for reefing would be so strong! Thanks for checking out my pics!

 

[juanmanuelsanchez]

sorry to bust it, but as good it might look that reef its in really poor condition. Its a nice experience, specially if you have never done it before.

 

[LEOreefer]

sorry to bust it, but as good it might look that reef its in really poor condition. Its a nice experience, specially if you have never done it before.

Yes I figured but for the first time I thought it was amazing esp the he fish

 

[VR28man]

I'll sort of agree with JMS.

The videos show rock (concrete?) rubble (plus an apparent boat ramp) and other assorted artificial stuff placed/randomly thrown right next to the shore.

A reef is "is a bar of rock, sand, coral or similar material, lying beneath the surface of water" (wikipedia). An "artificial reef" is a large piece of artificial material intended to attract sea life (as opposed to just stuff randomly left around, which oftentimes is "littering"). A "coral reef" is a reef loaded with stony corals on top of, generally, other dead corals skeletons. The "coral reef" has many areas: reef crest (where the waves hit closest to she surface), fore reef (seaward of reef crest, where the reef slopes down deeper), back reef/reef flat (shoreward from the reef crest), fringing reef (reef that goes straight from the shore to a fore reef), and patch reefs (outcroppings of rock in a lagoon protected by the main reef). Each of these areas have different forms, shapes, and colors of hard coral (with soft corals generally existing in the back reef or in patch reefs). This is why we get all kinds and shapes of coral (and fish and invertebrates), which some argue do really not go well mixed willy-nilly together.

Assuming you were on the east coast of the mainland Yucatan near Playa del Carmen, you probably were in the shoreward lagoon zone of the north section of the Belize barrier reef. If you took a boat trip out (probably at least a few 100m out) you'd see the other zones. Looking out from a random area in the vicinity (Hotel Xcaret), right outside their artificial swimming hole there appear to be a few patch, possibly even fringing reefs; the the NE there's a decent size lagoon which go down to the fore reef. (all I know about the place is what I see on google earth and so I'm just guessing).



The photos you took below of the photosynthetic gorgonians (soft corals) are just gorgos growing on reef/rock rubble in presumably a lagoon; a very common place for soft and massive brain-type hard corals to grow. As far as the loads of micro algae on the rock: first, people think algae is unsightly. Second, in general only an area loaded with lots of run off (nutrients - phosphate, nitrate, etc), sun, and relatively low flow will have that much microalgae. This also means corals (soft or hard) will not grow there, and you'll have to go at least a few feet away from the pier/boat ramp to have decently strong soft/hard corals.

In the end, even a small reef is very big. We need to pick and choose what animals we keep; at the very least we need to do our best to give them the conditions best for them. Some would even go farther to match their natural environment as much as possible (not easy at all if one's never seen them in the wild); but even if you do that you have to carefully pick and choose your area. Even in the area you saw, we have two potential tank ideas: a high algae environment for algae eater, and a rock rubble+soft coral zone; the environmental requirements for these two different areas are exclusive in any reasonable sized tank you'd like to make. (my call, for anyone who'd want to emulate these biotopes, would be for the gorgonian+brain coral zone )

Either way, thanks for sharing and cool pics!