The reef aquarium hobby has grown so much, and become so successful at growing corals, that we’ve become far removed from what natural corals and reefs look like. One the one hand it’s nice to be self-sufficient from wild harvests but on the other hand, we can’t forget that corals don’t ‘come from’ Florida or Colorado, they come from places like Indonesia and Australia.
Palau is another great hot bed of awesome coral reefs, and a new clip by Dr. Bruce Carlson is a pure uncut reef immersion experience. No music, no narration, no context, just a simple window into a healthy slice of natural reef.
It’s impressive how many different kinds of corals are in this clip, and just how many different kinds of fish pass through this area in under three minutes of time. Big wrasses, oddball butterflyfish, exotic damsels and cardinalfish all call this area of Palau’s Rock Islands home.
You might not be able to spot everything on a display the size of a mobile phone so for the truly immersive experience, definitely go ahead and throw this video on the big screen. If you look close enough there are literally dozens of different corals in this part of the reef and the more you look, the more you’ll find.
