Fish orgy - Red Sea!

Those of you who have seen my photos will know that I have done a great deal of fish spawning photography. But none of that could prepare me for one of the dives I did in the Red Sea. I dusk dived on most days during the trip and I have dusked dived this site before, but I have never seen anything like this.

There were litterally 1000s of fish spawning with at least 15 different species active. I am sure there were lots more, but the action was so ubiquitous I found it hard to keep up.

I don't need any IDs, but I thought that this would be a good place to post the pictures to an interested audience.

They are not all the greatest shots but all were taken within a few minutes of each other to give you a feel for the intensity of activity.

Alex

First up were the broomtail wrasse. These were spawning in very shallow water up on top of the reef. The males were in territories, each about the size of a parking space. And these stretched right across the reef. The most "attractive" males had 10+ females in their harems. And I could certainly see 30 or so territories on the edge of the reef within the limits of visibility.

Here is a male courting the much smaller, drabber female:

Whenever a pair went up into a spawning rise a Klunzinger (spelling?) Wrasse would always follow them to feast on their eggs. After spawning the male Broomtail would often turn right round and chase the Klunzinger away.

Often after eating the Broomtail eggs the Klunzinger would then return to its own territory and spawn too!

You can actually see the eggs coming out of the female in this shot.

Also at the edge of the reef, although further out were these parrotfish. This male clearly felt threatened by me and made several close passes to scare me out of his spawning territory. I am not sure whether to be complimented or insulted!

These guys are incredibly fast spawners. I have a decent collection of parrotfish spawning shots, but these guys are super fast. This is the best of a bad bunch and it is heavily cropped. Very big clouds of gametes, though.

Alex

Also going off in large numbers were several species of surgeonfish. Interestingly the Brown surgeonfish and the sailfin tangs were often spawning together, although the much larger sailfins were usually on the seaward side.

The small Brown Surgeonfish gather in considerable numbers to spawn. And then smaller groups dart off from the main school up into the water column to spawn. They go so quickly I had no chance of getting a non-blurred shot. This shot shows the clouds of sperm and eggs from each of these mad dashes, hanging above the school as it spawns.

The image below shows the sailfins starting out on a spawning dash and they race upwards to the surface. The next shot in this sequence is totally blurred by their speed.

Anyway, for me it was a real privaledge to see all this natural behaviour, so I thought it would be nice to share it.

Alex

Thanks for posting these Alex -- it is really a treat to see them!

Great shots. I'll start dusk diving more.

Guido

Damn Alex! the 3rd and 4th shots are simply amazing!!!

not that the others suck... :-)

Awesome, great shots! I wanna take photos like these when I grow up!

Luiz

cool stuff Alex