Tonga fish market!

Hello everyone. It has been a long time since I have posted, I apologize. Lots of things have happened in my personal life that have greatly impacted my ambitions and goals. Earlier this year, my elderly Aunt/Mother that raised me since I was 7 had a stroke. My plans of going overseas and working had to be put on hold. These days I am busy taking care of her as she has not recovered. Besides that, my wife is pregnant! I am going to be a dad in mid January.

As for business wise, I managed to get my own export license for coral from Tonga earlier this year. This was a dream come true as I had been screwed out of lots of money and time from really bad business partners. I was forced to work with them due to the fact that they had a license. Now things are different and I have total control over things.

Currently I am looking for customers in Vancouver Canada, Asia, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

There are convenient flights via Aukland from Tonga to these destinations. If you are a wholesaler or a distributor and would like to import my corals, please contact me at joylucktp2000@yahoo.com.

One of the "coolest" thing for me to do is to check out the local fish markets when I'm in a new country. Not only will I encounter the strangest things but also fish that are commonly found in the aquarium trade. I keep forgetting that many of the fish we keep in our fish tanks are actually food fish in their native waters. Below are some pictures from the local fish market in Nukualofa (the capital) of the Kingdom of Tonga!

Depending on what time of the day it is, different products will be available. For example, in the morning, fish and stuff will be available that were caught the night before spearfishing. Night spearfishing is very popular and productive, particularly because the fish are sleeping and easily to spot. You do need a powerful underwater flashlight to hunt at night though. In the above photo, vendors are selling cockle clams. Actually my divers know where to find these, in the sand in about 15 feet of water.

These cockles are quite large and if you know how to cook them, it would taste great.

I bought one of these bag fulls and boiled them, tasted kind of fishy and hard as leather!

Now these "Manila" type of clams were pretty good boiled, with some soy sauce! One of my favorite foods to eat when I go to Chinese restaurants is "clams with black bean sauce" - unbelievably delicious in HK restaurants!

Not too surprised to see caulerpa being sold at a tropical fish market. There is a famous Tongan food dish made from these edible sea veggies. I have seen locals harvesting them in the raceways at the Fisheries clam farm.

When the tide goes out on the reefs, locals are searching for mainly two things, octopus and these conchs. I have tasted these sweet, tender meaty things raw while collecting corals with my divers - yummy!

Octopus is a staple at the fish market, they are always available and high in demand!

For sure last night's catch. Looks like a bag full of naso tangs and parrot fish!

The fish on the right in the bag is a snapper or a grunt of some sort. The others including the bright yellow one are goatfish. Goatfish are one of the best tasting reef fish there is! My Filipino fish divers used to make great soup from these tasty little guys. Even just fried with some salt yields a great meal with rice!

Another fish we are familiar with in our trade, the clown tang!

The time of the year was in the Fall and the mangos were starting to show up. The first ones are from other islands and quite expensive. But as the season goes on, mangos are everywhere. Price drops like a rock and I used to buy a bag full (about 30) for $2 US and take them as snacks when we go collect corals. The sweet taste is really refreshing after swimming around in salt water. We use our teeth to peel the skin off and eat like apples!

Maxima clams are available from time to time. For sure they are harder to find locally. These I'm sure were found some miles out in more remote areas. Years ago, I used to see maximas, squamosas, and derasas on the tables for sale all the time. Practically everyday they were available. But on this trip, I only saw maximas two times and not in many numbers. So for sure these valuable invertebrates are being overfished. Good thing there are still plenty healthy populations of giant wild clams in the other two major island groups of Tonga. Tonga is made up of three big islands, Tongatapu is where the capital is, Vavau a volcanic island, and Haapai an atoll. Recently a trip was made by the government Fisheries to collect brood stock of giant clams from Haapai for spawning. They came back with great specimens, including a giant blue squamosa! I'll post pictures of the magnificent beast in a later thread.

A close up shot of the maxima shows that it is black with gold teardrops. Once I found a turquoise teardrop, drop dead gorgeous about 15 inches in the similar condition as this one sitting on the market table. I quickly bought it for $5 US and brought it to the fisheries clam facility. I left it in the raceways and prayed that night that it would live. I was planning on using it as a broodstock (at that time I was heavily involved with spawning clams). But unfortunately it was gaping and dying by morning. I let one of the workers take it home for dinner:(

There were some clams that had already been cut opened and the meat for sale in plastic bags. There is a very popular food dish that the locals make out of raw clam meat and coconut milk. It tastes really fishy and nasty, nothing like the conchs, but the locals love it!

Parrot fish are common catches during night spear fishing ventures. I have spear fished many times with my divers in the shallow reefs and it is really a cool experience!

A close up shot of the head of a parrotfish. The markings are beautiful!

Conclusion

Ok guys that is it for today. I hope you have enjoyed the topic. I will post again in a few days with some other exciting adventures from Tonga.

Cheers,

Eddie

LFS Jakarta Part 1!

Hello everyone. My Coral Adventures shifts back to Indonesia, where on Sundays, me and my friend like going to the local fish stores. My business partner/friend (name is Gili) has a 240 gallon plexiglass tank that I gave him while back. It is set up as a fish only tank and Gili does weekly water changes. Sundays are perfect for driving around Jakarta. You don't want to know about Jakarta traffic on weekdays, it is horrendous!

We use these five gallon containers to transport the water.

The water is sold at one of the stores. That hose connects to a reservoir and quite many reefers come to buy the water. The water originally comes from around Jakarta. Jakarta Sea World filters the water and sells it to the stores.

No water containers, no problem, plastic bags can be used!

Indonesians are very creative. They glue dead coral skeletons to make these cool aquascapes.

LFS's in the US could do the same. I would ask the customers to bring in their dead coral skeletons for credit. Then put together these coral "sculptures" as part of the rockwork in our tanks. After some time, it would be all coralline encrusted and look really nice. I think this would be perfect for nano tanks!

All tanks are made from glass. Acrylic is not readily available and very pricey. Here you see some local common fish, cardinals, rabbitfish, moorish idol, etc..

So this was kind of sad. Local wildlife is not closely monitored in Indonesia. But in Bali, turtles are revered by the Balinese Hindus, so there is much more awareness. Turtles are a favorite food item in most parts of Indo.

Another disturbing site, color dyed trachys. Coloring corals was very popular some years ago, especially with leather corals. The practice has tapered off quite a bit in the years, so that tells me that reefers are rejecting the bad practice. Part of the problem was that unscrupulous store owners were selling the colored corals without telling the customers!

Corner shot of a display tank. Note the fully opened fox coral and the green bubble coral. Recently, Cites has determined that Nemenzophyllia turbida can be sent under the bubble coral Plerogyra sinuosa. Somehow Cites has determined that taxonomically, these two corals are the same or similar genus and species.

Lobos and fungias grouped together stands out, all part of positioning your corals so they look visually appealing to the eye - nice!

Surprised to see some high end dry goods. For sure these were brought in from Singapore.

A titan trigger. These are commonly eaten as "chicken fish" in Indonesia, and they do taste like chicken.

Blue ring angels and tangs.

A maroon clownfish pair playing around in assorted anemones.

Some common inverts from local waters.

Some very small black tip sharks cruising around in a 12 foot tank!

A stellatus puffer hanging around with sponges. These are the world's largest puffer species.

Assorted butterflies. Surprisingly, many people come by and buy these common fish. Most likely they end up dying and are simply replaced with new ones.

Like many other places around the world, the fish stores are concentrated in a certain area. This makes it easy for the customers.

Lots of fish in stock!

These had just come in earlier in the day.

Some fish are already prebagged for simple purchase.

Cool little starfish!

One of the bread and butter fish in the trade, the yellowtail damsel!

These powder blue tangs are from Sumatra, from the Indian Ocean!

On Sundays, it can get crowded. Here the workers are busy netting and bagging fish for customers.

Conclusion,

Ok guys that is it for today. Stay tuned for more posts of Jakarta LFS's in the coming days.

Cheers,

Eddie

Tonga - Day 12 Part 2 Final

Hello everyone. So I was at the edge of the reef looking for the intake pipe. The waves were crashing onto the corals. It made me think of how the corals are actually very strong. I decided to walk back to shore.

A shallow water acropora growing on a large coral rubble. Although the body was brown, it had nice purple tips!

A couple of blue damsels in a shallow pool!

The biggest corals in this area were from the genus Porites.

A nice sea cucumber that would fetch a good price with the buyers.

This long slimy thing is a medusa worm. It is actually not a worm but a type of a sea cucumber.

A cute little Acropora millepora hiding among debris!

A bright yellow brittle star!

Groups of stony corals like this were common. There would be nothing and then an oasis of these stony corals growing together!

A yellow Pocillopora in a foot of water.

A large colony of purple Montipora digitata!

A wild trochus snail! This is pretty amazing considering that the only trochus around Tonga were the products of aquaculture. The original brood stock were brought in from Australia. The stocked cultured specimens must be spawning on their own in the wild. I have seen large adults while snorkeling around the shallows many times, but never a juvenile one like this!

A crinoid sea star clinging onto my fingers!

These dead porites skeletons looked like tree stumps!

Everything is big in Tonga! Check out this monster blue linkia.

This patch of the reef had these table like dead porites. Since the coral couldn't grow upwards due to the shallow water, it kept growing sideways. It is an amazing sight!

A few hardy Acropora milleporas were making a home in this desolate zone.

Many of the porites "tables" had openings on the top. In this particular hole, a live porites was making a home. I wonder what it would look like in a few years as the coral continues to grow.

Even a sea anemone made a home in one of the crevices! There were clownfish too but couldn't get a photo. The clowns looked like cinnamon clowns.

As I walked back towards the shore, I spotted this local hunting for something.

He was hunting for octopus! It was pretty cool how he was catching them. Once he spotted the octopus hiding in the rocks, he would simply stick his hand into the opening. The curious cephalopod would then stick out its arms and grab the fingers of the fishermen. Once the octopus arms were securely wrapped around the fingers and hand, the fishermen would simply pull out the unsuspecting slimy guy! There would be lots of ink at this time but no where to hide.

This is a small one and the local guy offered to give it to me. I told him to let it go since it was so small. He said that on a good day he can catch up to ten good sized ones during low tide. He mostly catches the octopus for food, but will sell if he has extras. The hard part is locating the octopus hiding in the rocks, catching them is the easy part. Oh and he did keep the little guy:(

The weather had changed and started to rain, time for me to go!

Conclusion

Ok guys, that is it for posts from Tonga. I hope you have enjoyed my adventures in this small South Pacific Island. I do look forward in going back in the near future!

Cheers,

Eddie