Search results

Very creative! Bravo!!!

Another article saying that the Indo-pacific has more herbivores than the Caribbean and that is one reason why the Indo-pacific reefs are stronger. Our Coral Reefs Are Tougher Than We Thought - Science News - redOrbit

This is too bad because when algae and seaweed from the Indo-pacific area comes to the Atlantic/Caribbean there is little to eat it so it tends to overgrow everything. The Indo-pacific has many more fish, crustaceans and urchin species that they can eat the seaweed and keep in under control. The...

Fish have huge spawns and thus evolution comes quickly with them. Animals with small brood sizes tend to be the ones that have much harder times to adapt to new stresses. When the round gobies came to the Great Lakes everyone said that they would eat all of the eggs of the bass and lead to their...

I don't think there will ever be balance. I think the over-fishing of snappers, groupers and other predatory fish is one reason the lionfish are so numerous. The lionfish are just filling the role of the reef predator fishes that have been removed from the ecosystem. Lionfish hide under rocks...

I think most dangerous species are left alone because they are dangerous. But with the lionfish, there are people saying that if the lionfish are not killed then the entire Caribbean ecosystem will collapse so people go out and kill lionfish and end up getting stung.

My guess for the future of what will happen is that the fish will evolve to avoid them instead of lionfish gaining a predator. When lionfish invaded the Caribbean, they ate tons of fish that were unaware of the danger. There were some who survived and passed on their genes that allowed them to...

Nice video! The lionfish are a beautful fish to see when scuba diving. Thanks for sharing.

I think the Caribbean/Atlantic has Diadema antillarum as their main algae eating urchins while the Indo-pacifc has many other species in the Diadema genus in addition to Diadema antillarum. Here is a link:Diadema (genus) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Indo-pacific also has many other...

What I think is that when there are many more species then the food chain is more complex and stronger. If one type of species of herbivore is having trouble in the Indo-pacific there are many others that can do the same job and prevent the algae from over-growing the reef. Look how many species...

Scuba diving through mounds of algae could be sort of interesting if you think about it. Maybe one day fish like the surgeon fish and rabbitfish in the Indo-pacific will evolve in the Caribbean that will eat the algae too. It will be interesting to see what happens in the Caribbean from an...

Sure, pollution and siltation are the major cause of reef destruction. Many of the resort areas just dump raw pollution into the ocean and this adds a nutrient overload and causes the algae to overgrow the reefs. I don't know how this is going to stop however as the more tourists that come the...

Here is an article about how the algae on the coral reefs is winning the fight. The Caribbean corals are doing much worse than the corals in the Indo-pacific and in the article it says that it might be because there are less fish that eat coral. Here is the article: Caribbean reefs less...

Here is an interesting video about how the introduction of lionfish is helping the coral reefs. Damselfish and Lionfish - YouTube

Yes, those videos are very true but most people on these boards like to have a justifiable reason to kill fish on the reefs so I doubt those videos will have much influence. There are many other things that could be done which would be much more effective at helping preserve the reef systems but...

I am really curious, do most divers think that lionfish will eat all of the fish on the reef, leaving it devoid of all fish life? I like to dive for fun but I only go diving a few times a year so I have not been diving enough to really know the extent of the problem. I have seen lionfish in...

I think people place too much emphasis on predators that eat lionfish. The most important thing is for the small fish to become able to evade the lionfish. I think this will happen because there is variation in fish. When lionfish first came to the Caribbean most of the fish were not alert to...

I wonder if hunting the big lionfish might be counterproductive. The bigger lionfish eat the smaller ones and maybe the bigger ones control the populstion of the smaller ones. If there are a bunch of small lionfish growing up then I would imagine that they would eat a lot more than a big one...

That is what I mean, the Caribbean in general is very expensive and not really that nice. I just got back from Trinidad and Tobego and had fun there but it was very expensive in relation to the value you get. And the diving was not even close to a good as it was in Thailand. I have dived all...

The Caribbean is very expensive and not very good for diving. If you can get a flight to Thailand or Indonesia you will be able to rent a hotel for under $50 right on the beach. I went diving in the Similan Islands for $400 with seven dives, free food and a room to stay on the boat overnight in...