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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanOLDER POST:Yellow Tube Sponges at Mushroom Forest, CuracaoNEWER POST:Glowing Sea Urchin with FlowersDec 29, 09 Comments Off
 Damselfish Garden Good morning friends, someone was kind enough to give me a cold for Christmas so I am a bit under the weather this morning and went to bed early last night.
Remember a month ago or so I sent a photo of a pillar coral with green alga on top?? I had told you I thought it was a dying colony of coral or some kind of coral disease? Well here’s the exact same thing except this time it’s on a big colony of grooved brain coral. See the little damselfish at the top of the coral head? He did this damage to this beautiful coral, it’s called a “Damselfish Garden. My friend Nick who is a coral expert explains below just what your looking at, it’s very interesting so read on. Nick writes, the story with the damsel fish is that they find a bit of coral they like and peck off the living coral tissue. The exposed skeleton becomes overgrown with algae that the damsel fish like to eat. The fish defend these little farm territories so aggressively that they will even chase off larger herbivores like parrotfish that would quickly clear away the algae (I have definitely had them bite my fingers while working with the corals & once had one hit me right between the eyes…good thing I had a facemask on). Apparently with the decline of larger predatory fish on reefs worldwide, these little guys have become much more abundant and can be a real threat to reef health. The photo you took is a great example, where you have what appears to be a perfectly healthy coral missing tissue only on that patch at the top of the pillar where there is a thick mat of algae growing on the white skeleton. The angry looking three spot damsel fish staring you down in the center of the photo tops it all off! If you want to hear more about these guys check out this piece NPR did on Bonaire last month.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1117 I found this scene again on my first dive to San Juan a few weeks back. I have been telling everyone that my dive there wasn’t the greatest but in fact I captured some really cool pictures from there that morning, I guess I didn’t realize just how many. When I was shooting this I watched this little fish chase off many other bigger fish who thought they could stop and graze on what seemed like an unprotected buffet of algae, boy did he ever teach them a lesson and me as well! The closer I got to his little farm the crazier he got! As I passed he came up and bit my wetsuit twice, I am not kidding when I say these fish have no fear!! Another Lionfish was found by our Sea Aquarium staff and is now on display at the aquarium, if you haven’t seen one yet come on it! Have a wonderful day, Barry
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