[Coral-List] Artificial reef - cement or metallic /w electrical stimulation?

Douglas Fenner douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Sat Jul 8 17:03:22 EDT 2017


Thanks everyone.
    A few published articles on the effects of this technique on coral
growth:

Sabater, M.B., Yap, H.T.  2002.  Growth and survival of coral transplants
with and without electrochemical deposition of CaCO3.  Journal of
Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 272: 131-146.

Sabater, M.B., Yap, H.T. 2004.  Long-term effects of induced mineral
accretion on growth, survival, and corallite properties of *Porites
cylindrica* Dana.  Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 311:
355-374.

Goreau, T.J.  2014.  Electrical stimulation greatly increases settlement,
growth, survival, and stress resistance of marine organisms.  Natural
Resources 5: 527-537.  (it has supporting references including the patent)

(check Google Scholar for access to all of these)

Tom Goreau has said that those who can't replicate his results are not
doing it right.  If you have questions about trying it and the patent,
check with Tom.  email: goreau at bestweb.net  He may post a response to this
discussion on coralreef-freeforall (a Yahoo group).  His last post on that
discussion was March 31, in which he said that corals on biorock had a much
higher survival rate following bleaching in the Maldives than did corals
not on biorock.  Check it out.

Cheers,  Doug


On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 6:46 AM, Durwood M. Dugger <ddugger at biocepts.com>
wrote:

> Walt,
>
> (Sorry about the pre-mature sending of my previous email.).
>
> Actually the electro-precipitation of minerals in seawater goes much
> further back than 2005 and or Mr. Goreau’s interest. The Japanese have done
> extensive research on this subject and at one time they projected they
> would be able to precipitate seawalls, other marine construction materials,
> and even entire island foundations using electric mineral precipitation
> technology.
>
> The concept of coral and other marine organisms growth enhancement or
> repulsion (marine fouling technology industry)  has also been researched
> since at least the 70s, but apparently with little positive outcomes that I
> am aware of.
>
> Here are a few of the many references on the subject electric mineral
> precipitation:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorock <https://en.wikipedia.org/
> wiki/Biorock>
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_mining <https://en.wikipedia.org/
> wiki/Brine_mining>
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=zNicdkuulE4C&pg=
> PA616&lpg=PA616&dq=Japanese+electric+mineral+precipitation+of+seawater&
> source=bl&ots=NjwhyYBase&sig=lbb8GdocwF5kGnrCv4BD-vhs2II&hl=en&sa=X&ved=
> 0ahUKEwj4gunFmvrUAhUF5yYKHRhnDg0Q6AEIWDAI#v=onepage&q=
> Japanese%20electric%20mineral%20precipitation%20of%20seawater&f=false <
> https://books.google.com/books?id=zNicdkuulE4C&pg=
> PA616&lpg=PA616&dq=Japanese+electric+mineral+precipitation+of+seawater&
> source=bl&ots=NjwhyYBase&sig=lbb8GdocwF5kGnrCv4BD-vhs2II&hl=en&sa=X&ved=
> 0ahUKEwj4gunFmvrUAhUF5yYKHRhnDg0Q6AEIWDAI#v=onepage&q=Japanese electric
> mineral precipitation of seawater&f=false>
>
> www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/2/4/980/pdf <http://www.mdpi.com/2071-
> 1050/2/4/980/pdf> (Extracting Minerals from Seawater: An Energy Analysis
> - MDPI <https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=
> web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwj4gunFmvrUAhUF5yYKHRhnDg0QFggnMAA&url=http%3A%2F%
> 2Fwww.mdpi.com%2F2071-1050%2F2%2F4%2F980%2Fpdf&usg=
> AFQjCNGoHjTeUu9NfLI3Bsf_hri_GyHzCg&cad=rja>)
>
> Best regards,
>
> Durwood M. Dugger, Pres.
> ddugger at biocepts.com <mailto:ddugger at biocepts.com>
> BCI, Inc. <http://www.biocepts.com/BCI/Home.html>
> Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2017 07:29:04 +1200
> From: "Walt Smith" <walt at waltsmith.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Artificial reef - cement or metallic /w
>         electrical      stimulation?
> To: "'Philippe Sanchez'" <pipobs at gmail.com>,
>         <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Message-ID: <005b01d2f68e$24593260$6d0b9720$@waltsmith.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> Bula Philippe,
> I met Tom Goreau in (about) 2005 and he was interested in our work on coral
> farming in Fiji that we had been doing since 1998. He visited our farms and
> had a talk with my manager, at the time, and convinced him that we needed
> to
> try his experiment on several of our racks (that were made from rebar) and
> judge the results. I was in the States at that time but we managed to meet
> face to face at LAX when I was on my way back to Fiji and he was arriving..
> We crossed paths at the airport and the talks were so interesting I almost
> missed my plane.
> Anyway, we eagerly set up a battery charger on the beach at one of the
> resorts we had an ecotourism installation. At this resort (Hideaway) the
> tourist could walk out and view the coral farms and chose a piece of coral
> to plant in the "Coral Garden" next to the farm.
> The cables that ran from the beach to the racks were several hundred meters
> long and started from dry land to protect the charger from weather and ran
> across the beach and across the reef flat to the racks. Despite the fact
> that it was a slight hazard (tripping over cables) we did notice a slight
> difference between the racks connected to the charge and those that were
> not. What we noticed was some calcification build up on the rebar closest
> to
> the connection point but no significant difference in coral growth from one
> rack to the other. We ran the experiment for about 2 years and although
> there was something definitely going on with calcium build up I could not
> actually see the corals benefiting from the available electrical current
> compared to those without it.
> It all makes perfect sense, electrical current attracting calcium which
> corals need to build on, and perhaps I needed to make some adjustments to
> my
> test but my observations hold true to my account above.
> Today we continue to successfully grow coral at a huge rate (we have 9 farm
> sites with over 60,000+ pieces growing) and have been able to identify the
> quickest growing species along with some surprises on some species we did
> not expect to do as well as they did.
> We no longer use the electrical currents but I also would like to know if
> someone else has had a similar experience or better success with this
> method. Dr. Goreau certainly is enthusiastic about his method and in my
> view
> anything that keeps people thinking of new and positive methods to increase
> the state of our coral reefs and learn more is always a step in the right
> direction.
> Regards,
> Walt Smith
> www.adeproject.org
>
>
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>



-- 
Douglas Fenner
Contractor for NOAA NMFS Protected Species, and consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

phone 1 684 622-7084

New online open-access field guide to 300 coral species in Chagos, Indian
Ocean
http://chagosinformationportal.org/corals

Managing reefs without monitoring is like driving a car without windows,
you can't see where you are going, or where you have been.  Crashes may
result.


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