Fish begging to be cleaned

Cleaning stations are popular sites on the local reefs, both with fish and with divers.  Fish often assume quite odd postures or orientations as they beg to be cleaned.

Today's post features juvenile Spanish hogfish (small, blue and yellow fish) as the cleaners, and a queen parrotfish and creole wrasse begging to be cleaned.

These fish were about 40 feet deep.  The queen parrotfish was about 16 inches long.  The creole wrasse were about 6 inches long, and the Spanish hogfish were 2 or 3 inches long.

Wrasse and parrotfish soliciting cleaning from juvenile hogfish.

Wrasse with mouth open, parrotfish head-up

Queen parrotfish in head-up posture.

Creole wrasse in head-down posture with mouth open.

Longsnout butterflyfish

This morning, I had the pleasure of finding 2 different longsnout butterflyfish that didn't flee into the nearest reef crevice.  This is my favorite butterflyfish on Bonaire's reefs. The species is small (about 3 inches), delicate, and almost always solitary.  They are rather skittish, and taking photos of them has always been extremely challenging.  Today, for the first time, I found a longsnout butterflyfish in a cleaning station.

Swimming up.

Swimming to the upper right.

In a cleaning station with a Pederson cleaner shrimp.  The fish is facing the lower left.  The shrimp is bluish, just to the left of the fish.

Getting ready to flee the cleaning station.  The fish is facing the lower right, the cleaner shrimp is to its left.

One of many cleaning shrimp

This morning, I was able to photograph scarlet-striped cleaning shrimp.  They are the largest of the cleaning shrimp in Bonaire, at 2 inches.  However, they are often deep under reef structures, so to see them, you have to peer into reef recesses.  To photograph them, you have to time your shot to avoid all the little fish that are darting about in the same space.

Fish come to their cleaning stations.  We have seen them cleaning eels most often.

Scarlet-striped cleaning shrimp

Shrimp with a potential client, a spotted moray.

A smooth trunkfish, moving in to be cleaned

A red-spotted hawkfish at the cleaning station.

A brown chromis at the cleaning station, also cardinalfish, just zipping by.

These photos were taken in less than 15 feet of water.

Swimming with a swarm of fish

One of the most abundant fish in Bonaire is the brown chromis.  It is a small (about 4 inches long) member of the damselfish family.  They often swim in large aggregations in the water column, where they feed on zoo-plankton.  When they aren't actively feeding, they can be seen close to the reef, begging to be cleaned at cleaning stations.

These photos were taken at depths of 40 to 50 feet.

Yesterday, these brown chromis were hoping to get cleaned.

Another cleaning station.

Today, the brown chromis were streaming along the reef, up to about 15 feet above the reef.

More fish swarming the reef.

A longlure frogfish

For many divers on Bonaire, the longlure frogfish is almost the Holy Grail of diving.  Finding them and photographing them is a favorite activity.   And divers often stack up, waiting in line to take photos of them.  They often blend in with their surroundings, and don't look or act much like fish.  Their fins have been modified to perform like feet, enabling them to walk.

This is the second frogfish that we have seen this week.  I found the first one when I was diving with an empty underwater camera housing.  So no photos there.  And by the next day, it had moved elsewhere.

Today, a friend found this charming frogfish.  After taking more than a dozen photos, using at least 10 different settings on my camera, I narrowed them down the best to share.  This fish was about 3 inches long, and was found at a depth of about 45 feet.

Heading downward, facing to the left

Facing to the left

Heading downward, facing to the right

Facing to the left

Smooth trunkfish

The smooth trunkfish is a member of the boxfish family.  It has a boxy skeleton that is triangular in cross section: narrow at the back, and quite broad along the belly.  This species is easy to approach.  Adults occasionally grow past 10 inches, but most are 6 to 10 inches long.

An adult

An adult 

Early juveniles of this species take refuge in and around reef structures.  They resemble a brown pea with white polka dots.  This morning, I found an early-juvenile smooth trunkfish, and took quite a few photos of it.  This little fish was about 25 feet deep, and was 1/2 inch in diameter.  They are really hard to photograph, because they are always moving, and my camera has a short delay between the time I push the button and the picture is taken.  Many of the photos were rear-end shots.  These were the best.  If you look closely, you can see the snout, the eyes, and the fins.

This fish is heading towards the lower left.

This fish is heading to the lower right.

This fish is facing the coral, the tail is wrapped to the right.

They are fun to observe over the season as they grown larger.

Two "similar" fish species

This morning, while diving at a depth of about 60 feet, I was struck by the physical similarity of two species, both of which were milling around me.  Their coloring and body shape is quite similar: a silver, torpedo-shaped body with a long yellow stripe down the center and a yellow tail.  But these two species have very different life styles.

The first fish is the yellowtail snapper.  This is a fast-swimming, visual predator that feeds on smaller fish in the water column.  These individuals were about 14 inches long, but they grow to over 2 feet in length.

The second species is the yellow goatfish.  It is a bottom feeding fish, that feeds using chemoreception to detect the scent of prey.  These fish were about 9 inches long, and they don't grow much larger than one foot.

Athough they superficially look like each other, their lives are very different.  But they were all hanging out in the same area, not interested in feeding.