FLORIDA AQUARIUM - Deep water fish & Bait Balls

by Robin

I think this may be a squirrel fish but not 100% certain.



Pompano.... which is not a deep water fish but in that tank.  Oh well.



I am look-down obsessed.  They are fast-swimming and I took dozens of photos just to get a couple clear ones.





I think red snapper, but the color is absent under the blue water.
I dunno.... the eyes don't look right.  Maybe it is something else.


Alamo or lesser amberjacks.  Maybe some Crevelle Jacks thrown in (bottom) too.




My buddy!!



Nurse shark.





Black grouper!!





Sea Turtle - star of the show!





Sand Tiger shark pictures!



Why hello babe!





Who needs a dentist??  Not you!



When you see bae with someone else..........       (you may have a loose tooth!)





I just loved these bait ball pictures.

The first two are taken from the top of the tank during our behind-the-scenes tour.




This is from down below.



And here are pictures of the boys together.



I had a little free time with my eldest while the class was doing a squid dissection.  Seems like I just dissected a LOT of squid on Saturday while offshore fishing, so I opted out of that.  Hope you think these are as funny as we think they are.







We ended up at the show, watching the divers and answering questions about sea life.  I didn't downsize any of those pictures.  Maybe next free day.

This is the walkway out of the tank area.  It is actually smoke falling down and then a projector runs a movie onto the smoke.  Then, they walked through it.  Cool, almost-stain glass, effect!!



Happy Spring Break everyone!

Robin

FLORIDA AQUARIUM - Coral Reefs & Shallows

by Robin

I really don't know their specific names but a lot of these are anemones.  They had this great anemone petting tank.




I had so much fun shooting these.









The seahorse was sleepy.  And there were large crowds waiting for me to leave.






This might technically be a deep-water fish, but he was in with anemones.


Stingrays were in the mangrove area.



Little puffer fish!



He's so much cuter than the ones we find offshore.



Not sure what type of octopus this was.  Little guy. Cute.



Lionfish!



Sting ray pool.



I love petting sting rays!






They put a gag grouper (snook in the background) in the mangrove tank.   We usually find these in 150 ft+ of water.  I think they may grow as babies in mangroves, but this is a full size adult.



Isn't she gorgeous???



Hogfish snapper  - these are found around coral.



Happy Spring Break!

Robin

FLORIDA AQUARIUM - WETLANDS

by Robin

On Monday,



We joined up with other biology & Marine biology students for a behind-the-scenes tour & dissection of a squid at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.

I wanted to share with you my photos from that trip.  There are so many, that I will break them down into categories.

Here are the wetland animals.






Spoonbill Roseate.







Variety of ducks.







Lemurs






Gecko




I have many more photos of the red fish, snook and so forth.  I need to keep downsizing them.



Blessings,

Robin

OFFSHORE- 3/21/15

by Robin


We barely got out of the inlet and came across large schools of Spanish Mackerel eating some type of 4"-ish bait fish

I should have taken video because the camera could not catch all the fish jumping out of the water.  Too unpredictable.



Jack has one on the line!



And another!



We kept 6 in all and then kept going.  These were really nice size Spanish Macs.  Too bad we don't really love eating them.  I guess that's why there are so many out there.  Very oily.


Portuguese Man O'War Jellyfish






Jack's double-header... with a single hook!!   (And a remora chasing it up from the bottom!)




Look closer!  Jack doesn't even need a hook.  LOL   Caught him by the spine!




My trigger.  I think I caught about 3 of these.  Whereas, Jack seem to catch all the Lane Snappers.




Oh, and you can see a couple Porgies in the box too.  Overall, beautiful day out there and plenty of fish to catch.  We did catch many red snappers and threw them back.  We had friends catch a couple mahi at 130 ft.  They're showing up early.  Next trip, we may go ahead and troll.



Fish box!

We did a little bit of looking around for manta rays and cobia but didn't see any.  We did come across this small school of dolphin on the way back in.







Some joined us at the bow of the boat, but only for a minute or less.



I was working on this photo and noticed that the dolphin has a small wound on the tip of his dorsal fin.  Poor guy or girl.



Hope you enjoyed viewing the pictures.

Happy Fishing!
Robin

NORTHERN RIGHT WHALES

by Robin

We're hoping to head out this weekend.  Not sure which port we will go out of but I researched and found this link.  If we see a NRW, we will be sure to report it, but stay very far away from it.  I have my new camera and telephoto lens.  :)

I sure hope that many more calves will be born this year and help to repopulate the ocean.

(Photo from 2009)



Here is the blog to follow:

Northern Right Whale sighting & reporting


"The 2015 right whale calving season is off to a slow start in Florida. So far, only 14 right whales have spotted in the southeast U.S., including 2 calves. The numbers are low compared to previous seasons because the aerial survey teams (only two this year) have met poor weather and had to cancel many flights."