Koloa Dive 1-27-2014

3 days ago I dove at Koloa Landing with Claire, Ben and several additional divers, we were teaching to recognize coral diseases. We did not find much disease which is good but we did find a new type of algae killing a lot of the giant old growth mound corals, which is super bad! This algae looks like it has growth rings similar to the growth rings in a tree.

Koloa Dive 1-27-2014

Two days ago I did a coral research dive at Koloa Landing with Claire, Ben and some additional divers we were teaching to recognise coral diseases. We did not find much disease which is good but we did find a new type of algae killing a lot of the giant old growth mound corals, which is super bad!

This algae looks like it has growth rings similar to the growth rings in a tree. The large corals that are just covered with this algae have been around for hundreds of years and were the homes to hundreds of fish including the Dragon Moray Eels, so it is sad to see them die so quickly!

Part of the research dive is to document every species we can that is out and about to see if there are any changes in their patterns and behaviour. We found a lot of cool critters, from a Kangaroo Nudibranch, Fuchsia Flatworm, thousands of Collector Urchins all turning white, Rough Spined Urchin, Leaf Scorpionfish, Mamo eggs on a rock, White-Mouth Moray, to a sea turtle loosing its flipper because of a fishing line wrapped around it!

Aloha,
Terry