The Pros and Cons of Coral Nursery Trees

[@withandwithout3230]

Super interesting stuff! I hope to see the platform method and the rope method more in the future!

[@rmar127]

Great video mate. Would love to hear your opinion on mineral accretion through electrolysis for reef restoration. It’s something I am really intrigued by.

[@ConservationDiver]

Thank you! We actually have several videos on our channel on mineral accretion, one of our passions. I am also working to get a 2 hour lecture on it cut down a bit before uploading here, so keep an eye out for that :)

[@rmar127]

@@ConservationDiver that’s awesome mate. I saw an article about an Israeli marine biologist investigating weather it could be used to remove excess salts and minerals from the waste brine at desalination plants. If this can be done economically it would be an amazing development.

[@scubaspaces]

Mike Anderson of Aquarium Divers For Coral Society. My concern is the changing of depth from trees to outplanting. I was not aware that a 10ft. change would be cause so much stress and reduce sucesses. My question is what about the change from land based nurseies to depth which I have seen from branching corals like elkhorn to 5-15 ft and staghorn from 10 -35ft and bolder corals to 40-60 ft.? What is the sucesses long term?

[@ConservationDiver]

Yes, this is a major issue. And if you look through the current literature this is not well addressed. Projects where corals are bred or kept in land based holding systems still have very low successes after uotplanting. This is often blamed on outplantinig conditions, but I think it is obvious that the method tself is a big part of the problem. Millions of dollars are being spent to raise corals in facilities that have a massive carbon footprint - and the benefits are yet to truly be realized when it comes to restoration (leaving living gene banking and rescue projects aside). At the very least, these lab grown corals should be placed in a mid-water nursery before final outplaning to ensure they can be cared for while they adapt to new conditions. We beleive this would increase success, but for some e=reason that we don;t understand this is currently prohibited by the DEP in America. . .

[@jimmarshall5453]

It looks to me like a 2 foot change can harm them significantly. With that in mind, it raises the concern about ice melting and subsequent sea level rise even more.

[@vincenthickey8622]

I guess how heavy an artificial reef depends on the currents of the area; but nontoxic lighter prefab structures seem the way to go.

[@vincenthickey8622]

Every local fisherman and lobsterman should be subporting a coral building company in its area. This would become long term aquatic farming. Creating long term jobs too. Every year the environment improves, means better and better catches. A win / win! I would bet one dollar spent one year equals 10 dollars in ten years.

[@jcmoral1978]

Dumb question, why not permanent fixtures of rope, platform, or trees?

[@ConservationDiver]

It's actually a good quesiton. Several reasons really, first being that we don't like to leave plastics and other such materials in the ocean where they can break down and enter the food web or cause damage. Also, unlike artificial reefs, these are ideally a temporary installment, and once the area is doing better we can move onto other areas, and want the nueries close by to reduce swim times.

[@jcmoral1978]

@@ConservationDiver makes sense, thanks!

[@thesilentone4024]

Why cant they use Lava rock melt it down and cast it into massive blocks make art out of it then sink it for corals to grow on. I mean this can make jobs make more areas for corals to grow on and Lava rock is full of important minerals. Oh ya if there tall like trees and wide so they don't fall in a storm can reduce Erosion of shore lines. Oh ya the rock leftover after turning the block into art can be used in the next block reducing waste rock. Dropping these blocks and half not putting corals on them and half putting corals on them seeing if a natural process is faster or worse if given a proper base to sit on. Thoughts.

[@ConservationDiver]

There have been projects using laval rock, generally its best not to melt them down first though, as it is energy intensive. We want to reduce our carbon footprint as much as we can while still doing the most we can. For that reason, the best articial reefs are ones made from locally available (non-toxic) materials. In areas where lava rock is available it could be a great material to use. In other areas there may be something else that is preferred (or cheaper). For example, on the Island of Koh Tao it costs to much to ship glass back fro recycling, so it fills up the landfill. There we integrated a lot of glass into our artificial reefs, a win-win for everyone.

[@troothhertz6297]

I dream of doing similar, building huge artificial reefs with marine cement blocks like they use in Oz ,that can rip ground fishing trawler nets off ships who poach off our shores . And try restore our oceans. Time to recover .And only fishing allowed would be by boat and line , so there's no over catch .It's only a dream , as this would cost into billions. And no one is going to pay.

[@kerrirenee8567]

From what I understood the breaking process does not defeat the nursery process because those broken pieces are transplanted to the reef in clusters of 5 which then can fuse back together. This is actually done purposefully in boulder corals which are grown on a flat substrate.

[@ConservationDiver]

Yes, I do agree with you for the boulder corals, and with great success. However, there is a little bit of a difference. For the boulder corals, they are generally cut and then grown out on the nurseries for a period of time to allow them to repair the damaged tissue before being planted out. As you pointed out, when they are planted in close proximity they fuse and become a bigger colony (see our video on micro fragmentation :) ) However, what I was referring to was the process that I see a lot in Florida, where branching corals are removed from the nurseries, and fragmented before being trasnplated to the reef (without the recovery period). This often results is injured, small corals being out planted. These are then very susceptible to predation and other risks before ever being able to fuse, as evidenced by the very low success rate of out planted corals in the region.

[@thezebrafinch4650]

But you never told us what’s the actual depth must be ??? 4 5 6 7 8 meters ???

[@ConservationDiver]

The depth of the nursery should be the same depth as the area you are restoring. That way, the corals will not be stressed by too much/too little light when you finally move them out. If you have multiple restoration sites at different depths, then you will want to have multiple nurseries at those same depths. Keep an eye out on our other social media sites as our online coral restoration coourse will drop in the next few weeks. All the best!

[@thezebrafinch4650]

@@ConservationDiver Thank you !!! And btw I’m planing to start a coral nursery with my classmates in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a couple of weeks

[@conservemarine1]

@@thezebrafinch4650 HI, I am the founder of conservation diver, and I'm actually in West Palm Beach right now. Let me know if you need any assistance on that coral nursery.