We have built two new rope nurseries to up our coral growing game! The first step of building a nursery is site selection. Selecting a suitable site is important to give the coral fragments we grow the best possible chance of survival and to maximize their growth rate. Factors we take into account are for example water depth, sunlight, the composition of the seabed, currents and the surroundings and safety at the site. Site selection is a learning curve and shows us that there is always room to improve.
One of our new nurseries has shown us the importance of the presence of browsing fish. Although we found otherwise great conditions for a successful nursery, the fish have let us down. Fish are important in helping us to ‘clean’ our nurseries and we usually find many fish hanging out below the ropes after just a few days. They feed on algae and other growth that attaches to the ropes and also the coral fragments. With very few herbivorous fish present (lots of predators are patrolling the site) around our new nursery, the bio-fouling has been very intense. This however keeps us on our toes as we frequently have to visit the nursery armed with toothbrushes to keep our ropes and corals clean and happy. We are monitoring this nursery with hawk eyes to see if the biofouling is a temporary thing and if our nursery is sustainable, or if we have to find a new home for our growing fragments.
Having learnt from this, for our next nursery we took the presence of fish into account as an important factor and chose a site near some thriving coral bommies that should provide some cleaning staff. We are very excited about this nursery as it is so close to the shore of Chole Island that we can even visit it by swimming or paddling there. In a big team effort, we have started to fill this nursery with new coral fragments and are now impatiently waiting to see how they will do! To fill the nursery, we first have to collect fragments of opportunity, which are then be further fragmented into smaller pieces for optimal growth and are tied into the ropes that make up the nursery. This requires many hands and usually music, but is definitely one of the most rewarding jobs in the nursery business.
Exciting things are happening over here! Come join us! We are launching a new internship program to help you become a coral gardener. Check out the internship tab and become part of our team!