[Coral-List] Planting of propagated coral fragments

Michele & Karl michka at fellenius.net
Tue May 2 18:13:41 EDT 2006


Hi Andrew,

We have never used nails, but we place mesh trays of cable-tied live rock
bases (scleractinia rock from depth covered in coralline algae), which have
coral nubs (5-6cm) super-glued into pre-drilled holes, onto tables of
galvanized rebar. Its for export, not re-planting. But at times we have
experimented with a dive operator here in getting tourists to adopt a
cultured coral frag and plant it on the reef. In those cases we take our
frag on the rock base and have the tourist place a small amount of z-spar
epoxy underneath the base and carefully 'plunk' it in place. Over time it
creates a little colony. Wish we could do more of that but the business has
to survive as well. [as an aside here we are interested to learn about
funding opportunities to do more of this as well as direct reef restoration
using our Vanuatu staff]

There may be some concern with using non-galvanized metal in proximity to
coral. As discussed by others on this list in Dec/Jan, iron released through
rusting may contribute to cyanobacteria growth. We had issues with this
prior to our switch to galvanized. Part of the list recommendation was to
promote grazers as much as possible.

Good luck with your efforts.

Karl
--
Karl Fellenius
Reef Solutions Vanuatu
http://www.RSVcoral.com


> From: andrew ross <andyroo_of72 at yahoo.com>
> Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 08:23:27 -0700 (PDT)
> To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: [Coral-List] Planting of propagated coral fragments
> 
> List,
>    
>   I'm hoping to begin replanting of propagated A. cervicornis material in
> June/July in Montego Bay: racing the storm season.
>    
>   Any suggestions on methods?
>    
>   I am planning to break up the propagated material into 5-10cm segments and
> wire them to masonry nails hammered into urchin grazed, clean reef.
>    
>   Wire will be a vinyl coated copper (i'm having good success, it's cheap,
> colour coded and easy to work with) but i'm interested in suggestions on types
> of nail: galvanized is probably bad (?) I'm expecting partial attachment to
> the reef within 2-3 weeks and overgrowth of the nail within 5-7 weeks. Will
> nail rusting inhibit overgrowth?
>    
>   Are there other suggestions in reef attachment?
>   I've looked at simple spreading, string anchoring, epoxy, concrete,
> drilling-and-sticking and some more. Nails seem most secure in the short-term.
>    
>   Andrew Ross
>    
> 





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