The Ghost pipefish or Solenostomidae is a family of small fish (less than 15 cm) with a very good camouflage. It spends long part of its adult life the head down.
Its camouflage and small size meaning it is very difficult to see it.
The dive site – snorkeling in Pantai Sire
Front of our dive center, there is a coral reef. The maximum deep is 8-10 meters. Deeper, there is a sandy bottom.
I dove a little bit further for looking for an object lost by a catamaran. I found quickly the object, dive time 9 minutes, so I swam to the reef and visited it. I wanted to watch the nice pink fans.
In the first fan, there were many small shrimps. But they were always moving so I couldn’t have a good picture, they are blur:
I saw a stingray, a lion fish and a scorpion fish.
The third fan was with many small fishes a beautiful Lionfish and a Ghost pipefish. So I spend 30 minutes there.
This site is also good for the night dives, especialy if you don’t care about the deep (10-12 meters maximum).
And, this site is nice for snorkeling, there are nice corals, fans and just front of the resort.
A pink ghost pipefish in Sire beach
Usualy, the ghost pipefish I have already seen were brown / black like the one:
But, this one was pink like the fan.
And it was the first time I saw one in a fan.
Here it closer, its body is transparent :
The scientific name of this specie is Solenostomus paradoxus and the Wikipedia page doesn’t have many informations.
It was near a nice Lionfish. I saw the ghost pipefish when I took a picture of the lionfish.
The both are on this picture:
The ghost pipefish lives with the head down. it is looking for food and its camouflage is more efficient as it stay near vertical life like comatule.
More pictures
I have more than 150 pictures.
This fish Solenostomus paradoxus was 2-3 meters deep and at 5 minutes swimming from the dive center.
And few days ago, I went swimming and I meet a Manta Ray.
