Today (Sunday) was very successful! The science team followed a total of 27 fishes throughout the day. We split up the observations pretty evenly among the three species (black grouper, blue parrotfish, and hogfish). Jere and I started out along the Ridgeline to get a few parrotfish and groupers. We swung by our new favorite spot where, for four days straight now, we have seen the aggregation of midnight parrotfish (about 4-5), filefishes (about 4-5), and black groupers (about 2-3). It is quite a sight to see all of these species foraging together on one small cluster of coral. The coral cluster has been different every day but the species makeup of the group stays the same. We are hoping to go check on them one more time tomorrow morning.
On our afternoon dive, we headed out near the Kamper station and headed off to a new section of reef we had not yet explored. Suddenly, I had to blink because there were two small (~1m) bonnethead sharks swimming along the reef. Then, they started attacking one another! Just for a second though, one swam one way and the other in the opposite direction. We tried to follow one, but he was going way too fast for us to catch up. Then, not 10 seconds later, a giant Southern stingray lifted off about 15 meters away from us, and swam along the reef. It was a pretty incredible 45 seconds! That’s one of my favorite things about the ocean, you can swim around all day seeing very cool stuff and then suddenly something even more amazing happens!
I am so happy to be here once again. My last mission was such an incredible experience, I never thought I’d get to go again. I forgot how indescribably comforting it is to lay in my bunk, listen to some tunes, and watch the fish swim by the viewport (AKA the window). There are these three huge Goliath groupers that hang out around the habitat at night; they just lumber past the viewport every once in awhile — peering in on us.
We are decompressing early, begining tomorrow. I’m a little sad to be leaving early, but I must admit I am excited to see the sky!
Ashley Knight
Aquarius Aquanaut
CSUMB
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Alyssa asks: I would like to know what the variety of discoveries that you’ve found so far in your trip, and if there is any possibility of danger to yourselves or the aqua life while you are observing.
Hello Alyssa,
We have been lucky to be able to work here at Aquarius where there are so many of the fish we are studying, and we are able to watch them for up to 7 hours each day. We have discovered the ecological preferences of these fish. For instance, the Black Grouper is an ambush predator and seeks hiding spots among the reef to wait for unsuspecting prey. The hogfish spends most of its time willowing in the sand, taking large mouthfuls of sand and filtering it through its gills. The Blue Parrotfish travel actively over the reef and sand scraping the coral and helping to turn it into sand.
The last few day the visibility has bee poor. Normally we can see several hundred feet but recently the currents have stirred up a lot of debris in the water column reducing the distance we can see to only 50 to 60 feet. One of the biggest dangers to us as saturation divers is losing our way and not being able to find our way back to the habitat for air. To protect ourselves against this we us reels, like fishing reels, which we use to mark the direction we have come, that way when we need to turn around we can just follow the line back home. When the visibility is bad we have to stay extra close to our buddy and seeing the line disappear into the distance makes me appreciate all the training we received prior to becoming aquanauts.
Sometimes we will wrap our lines around the reef to keep from dragging and harming corals. When doing this Matt and I have discovered fire coral. This special coral has developed a unique defence. To protect itself from other creatures, including scientists, the coral has stinging cells that cause your skin to feel like it is burning. This sensation only lasts a little while but you are sure to recognize and avoid this coral next time.
While diving and collecting data we are very careful not to harm the reef. This is a special place and very beautiful, in order to keep it that way we only observe, or watch the fish and other creatures. This ensures that Conch Reef will remain healthy and unspoiled. It is these characteristics which brough here to conduct research in the first place.
Thanks for your question
Jeremiah Brantner
Aquarius Aquanaut
Cal State University Monterey Bay
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Mission Day 4
Today we got out early and began another day of data collection. I was tasked primarily with photography so that we could have some photo and video evidence of the project. The water was better, still not prime, but everything is relative. When you’ve been diving the conditions we have, today was not bad. Honestly, getting off the boat and being on the boat are not too bad, if you are not prone to sea-sickness, it’s getting back on after a dive that sometimes takes some doing. Thanks to our captain, Tim, we get our cameras, clipboards and fins on the boat and then time the waves so that we get on the ladder in the trough (bottom) and ride the wave up. You can get a little beat up while you are handing your fins up, so we are careful.
In our four dives today we tracked 8 fish. The saturation team got 17! Thirteen were Grouper. Apparently they hit the mother lode on what is called the S4 line. Since the saturation team has been so successful, they were going to run out of data collection sheets, so when the surface team sent more materials down to Aquarius today, we included more of the waterproof data collection sheets that we are using to track our fish.
Steve Houwen
Alameda High School
Surface Science Support
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It was quite a day at Aquarius today. Sure, it started the same for the saturation team, buddy teams out at 6:45 and 7:00 as usual, but by 9:30 they were staging back in to Aquarius to prepare for the first live video show. Before that, NURC’s tech guru Dominic Landucci was hard at work along with the two habitat techs Dewey and Jim as they ran the equipment through sound checks, getting levels set. After a few last minute fixes, we were ready to go. As is the case for most live events, it didn’t go exactly as planned, but the team did a good job of making it work. There was a tour of the habitat, video of training week and the first mission day, a visit by Dr. James Lindholm, the Principal Investigator who talked about the mission and its purposes. I was topside at the shore base for my segments, one of which was unplanned. Dominic did a great job producing the show, cutting video in and out, switching camera shots, and getting us all through it. If you didn’t catch this morning’s show, log on to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/aquarius-undersea-habitat to see it archived. In fact, if you want to participate by asking questions on the next show, you can sign up on ustream , and then ask questions via instant messaging. The next show is on Saturday, 10:30 am EST.
After the show, I changed quickly and boarded the Sabina, our support boat for a trip out to join Dr. Lindholm for an afternoon of fish tracking. The whole crew here is amazing, nothing would happen without them. When we got out past the reef, the 2 to 4 foot seas forecast were nowhere in sight. It was still the 4 to 6+ that have been around a few days. As we closed with the RV Research Diver, the boat we stage from, I got my fins and mask on and jumped in for a quick swim over. I got aboard and got into my dive gear, which I had loaded first thing this morning and we were in the water for our first of three research dives. We got data on a few fish today, but we’d hoped for more. Funny thing about field research – your subjects don’t always show up on demand. When we track fish, we are looking for several things, are they actively swimming, are the “station keeping,” or hanging out in a certain location, are they feeding, and if so, what type of feeding? We also log the type of habitat – is it over the hard bottom, over coral rubble or over the reef itself, in the water column, etc. This is important because it will give us data, which we can logically extrapolate to other species and help inform us about the general ecological interaction of fish with their habitat. It is important that when deciding where to place Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) we have proper habitat makeup to support populations of fish. While we were only able to track four fish today, the saturation team tracked twenty. Should I say it again? Okay – this is why we need to be able to have a place like Aquarius to do research from, the difference in the volume of collected data is staggering.
On our dives today, we did get to see more interesting things, like a school of 12 to 15 or so barracuda. I’ve never seen more than two at a time before. I saw a large cowfish and a scrawled filefish. One of the Parrotfish that we tracked had a remora attached, that was new. I saw a coronet fish with a lot of blue coloration. While gathering data on a Black Grouper, I looked down and saw a trumpetfish trying to act like the gorgonian he was hanging out next to. In the mouth of a large sponge, James noticed coral growing – that was amazing to me. Every time I dive I see new things. Perhaps that is what drives my love for the oceans. There are things that most people never get to see or to appreciate. As I put in my profile, one of the things that has always intrigued me is the diversity of life I see. Unfortunately, that diversity is on a hard decline to put it mildly. We cannot afford to lose this, but that’s another blog. Tomorrow we head back out for four science dives. I’m praying for flatter seas – you know the 2 to 4’s they keep promising would be nice.
Ocean Ed Item of the Day:
As noted, today I saw a Scrawled Filefish. They are cool. One of the interesting things to me about this fish is that although they have a large caudal fin, they rarely use it in swimming. Instead, they use other fins to do it. See if you can find out which ones they use and then figure out why this method of movement is effective for their needs.
Stephen Houwen
Teacher, Alameda High School
Science Surface Support
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Amber Layman asks: This question is for Ashley. Do you get to touch or feed the fish that swim by? Are you going to help teach any lessons? And is it cold or warm down there?
Hi Amber!
No, the fish don’t reall y like us to touch them so we don’t try. They are too fast anyway, we could never catch one. We don’t feed them either, but we are watching how they eat out on the reef. The black groupers suck up other fishes, the blue parrotfish scrape the reef to get the algae (plants) from the coral, and the hogfish rummage around in the sand for worms and other tasty treats. We spend most of our time out watching them eat, so we are learning a lot about how they do it!
I’m not exactly teaching any lessons, but I will be outside SCUBA diving for all of the broadcasts. I will be showing you around the habitat and introducing you to some of the fishes that hang out around here.
The water is not very cold – about 78 degrees fahrenheit. That’s nice and warm for those of us from California (we’re used to about 55 degrees!). It can get a little cold inside the habitat, which is why I am usually wearing a hat and socks and a thick sweatshirt.
Ashley Knight
Graduate Student, California State University, Monterey
Aquanaut
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