Walking around the reef at low tide

MaccaPopEye · Apr 13, 2020

OrionN said:
Do you ever see any Black Ocellaris anymore? There was a similar and spectacular thread on RC years ago. The OP eventually got out of reefing and stop posting. Then all the images were gone due to software upgrade money requirements so the thread fell apart
It was a very popular thread for a LONG time

Hi OrionN

Lewy's thread on RC is actually what helped my find this reef and why I started this thread to post my own pics rather than taking over his (and because I like this forum much better

). I also bought my chiller off of him 5 years ago

I did mention his thread a couple of pages back and told people to go and check it out but I didn't know the pictures got removed

that sucks!

I am pretty sure Lewy started up another nano tank a few years ago and last I heard he still had it running, but that was a bit over a year ago so I am not 100% sure.

Darwin clowns were already a bit uncommon over a decade ago when Lewy started that thread (he actually later found out it wasn't a Darwin clown he was holding in that first pic). Now I would say they are still there but definitely more rare than just uncommon. I've been out a dozen times over the last 5 years and only ever seen tomato clowns. Although unless there is a few dozen hobbyists collecting from that reef that aren't in our local group then I don't think hobbyists are to blame for the decline. I hope they are much more common out in the off shore reefs.

I did hear that someone locally might have collected a couple from this spot a week ago, I haven't met them yet but I hope that if it's true that they will either breed them or donate them to Monsoon Aquatics so that they can hopefully be bred as it's a species I don't think we should be taking from the wild anymore, and if they do have to be taken it should only be done by professionals who intend to breed them (pure ones that is).

There is a coastal reserve a few km further up around the coast where they are still found (some of Lewys photos were from the reserve) obviously there is no collecting there which is good and keeps it nice and untouched.

As they are endemic to this tiny region I think it's sad that people don't want to buy captive bred and even sadder that breeders don't take a bit of pride in ensuring they breed true Darwin clowns (I think more fault lies with the breeders than people wanting true Darwin clowns).

MaccaPopEye · Apr 26, 2020

I went fishing with a friend the other night and since we were driving past the channel where all these pics are from I couldn't resist popping down to see if I could quickly find anything cool to show him.

Straight under the bridge we found a very cool wobbegong shark coasting around a little tide pool.

As usual, coral everywhere (bad pic as we were in a rush)

We found a large carpet anemone entirely out of the water (and it would be out of the water for at least 3-4 hours)

Close up of the carpet nem

Also found a few cool camouflaged fish. The first one is a crocodile fish aka flat head and the other 2 were different kinds of scorpion fish (at least I think they are)