In 2023, Caribbean Reef Buddy proudly launched a brand-new project: Coral Microfragmentation and Propagation!!

In an effort to fast-track coral growth, we have adopted new, widely-used techniques to not only increase the number of species on our nursery, but to grow corals in different ways so that they can be out-planted quicker onto the reefs of Carriacou!

This program seeks to highlight the importance of marine macroinvertebrates, potential stressors that they are facing and challenges for their conservation in this region.

This part of the project has been our response to the devastation that the over-population of flamingo tongue snails have had on the soft coral gardens at Sandy Island. The snails eat the coral flesh right down the axis that runs through the centre of the soft coral, and have reduced patches of the reef into a wasteland!

To recover gorgonians (sea rods and sea plumes) that are already damaged, the ends are propagated, and given a new chance at life!

We remove an inch of flesh, exposing the axis which then gets glued into a small cement indentation on a tile. The tiles are then placed onto tables at our nursery. This method has been a hugely successful and we are excited to continue and expand our soft coral nursery!