Fish Breeding Project
During October, we witnessed a single spawning from our breeding pairs of Maldivian Clownfish (Amphiprion nigripes), but they did not hatch due to the anemone problems we’ve been experiencing recently (as reported last month).
Our Clark’s Clownfish (Amphiprion clarkii) breeding pairs were more successful, with one successful spawn and one failed spawn (eaten by the parents on the third day, which is quite common behaviour).
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- Clark’s clownfish laying eggs
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- Rotifer production
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- Rotifers under the microscope
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- Artemia under microscope
Infographic to show the complex food chain of our Fish Lab seahorses
Anemone Garden Project
We have taken three fully grown anemones from the wild, and cut them in half to form separate individuals in our marine Fish Lab tanks. After a further three weeks they become fully recovered, and we can repeat this process again to multiply the population. Our long-term plan is to create an Anemone Garden in the lagoon (probably in the Dive Site Area), to have a ready supply of anemones to use in our Clownfish breeding tanks.
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- Seahorse in our Fish Lab tank
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- Outdoor anemone tank
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- Wikipedia: Tambja affinis
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- Wikipedia: Goniobranchus gleniei
BAARU Meeting – Baa Atoll Resorts United
On 22 October we held a BAARU meeting at Reethi Beach Resort, with resort managers, dive school operators and marine biologists from most of the resorts of Baa Atoll. The overall aim is to implement solutions to protect our shared natural resources, and minimise the impact of tourism on the environment.
The major topics of discussion included:
– food waste management (by Gordon Jackson, Waste to Wealth Manager at Soneva Fushi);
– deployment of mooring buoys at diving and sunset fishing sites;
– standardised measuring ruler for fishing (to determine the maturity of commonly caught fish species).
BAARU – Baa Atoll Resorts meeting at Reethi Beach (thanks to Gordon Jackson for the photos)
Wikipedia Project – Baa Atoll Marine Life
We are continuing to update our Wikipedia catalogue (in both English and French language versions) with the aim of photographing and positively identifying all the marine life of Baa Atoll (more info here). We now have 500 different species in the catalogue!
Our resident marine biologist aboard the Four Seasons Explorer recently returned with photographs of more than 50 species from South Baa Atoll, including two new species of Nudibranchs and numerous groupers and wrasse. The pages are proving very popular, with the English and French language versions receiving 1800-2000 visits each, within the last 90 days.
