saxonnelson-milton's Identifications

One of quite a few adults seen on this dive (I spent about 2.5 hours under and near the jetty, starting at shallow end and exiting via outer dive platform and steps. The other 2 on this "pipefish focus " dive in good conditions followed the same basic dive plan but exited after roughly 1(edited:90 minutes and 2+ hours respectively,with apologies for my inaccurate times underwater for my 2 very experienced and especially tolerant buddies!!). We all found a good number and variety of pipefish, as well as seeing many of the usual other marine life forms for the location. Gentle outgoing tide, minimal swell and cloudless sky. Horizontal visibility varied from 6m to 3m but was mostly around 5 metres).

As previously mentioned, on this snorkel there were blue sprat schooling continuously under and near the jetty base. Previous observation of this species from this snorkel was using a different camera, FWIW.

Image #1: Small adult or adolescent in pink mode,with a medium size adult less obvious in lower frame (other species in frame include sea sweep, zebrafish, dusky morwong FTR).

Image #2: the same pink individual ,with more of it's slightly larger companion adults, from directly above.

On this snorkel there were several quite large schools of these fish shifting about close to the rocky shoreline between beach and jetty. But I don't know what they are, nor if they are juveniles or adults.. While they were all of similar size, the largest would have had a TL of about 4-5 cm. Not easy to get sharp close images when snorkeling, either!