Coral Reef Regeneration
project
Pioneering Coral Rejuvenation: A Journey of Regeneration
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!
Microfragmentation: how smashing up corals helps them grow faster!
Okay we don’t actually smash them… We use a wet band saw to carefully cut Acropora corals (mostly Elkhorn) into roughly 1cm2 pieces containing 20-30 polyps, and glue them to tiles which can be secured onto tables at our nursery.
The corals that we fragment are found during ‘fragment of opportunity’ dives across various dive sites around Carriacou. The little ‘frags’ from the same original colony are stuck on tiles a few centimeters apart, and will eventually fuse together as they recognize that they are all clones with the same DNA.
This method of cutting the corals, increases the surface area, allowing for much faster growth and can be used for many different species of hard coral, e.g. Elkhorn, Staghorn, and brain corals.
Soft Coral (Gorgonian) Propagation
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!
Pioneering Coral Regeneration Project
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!
Microfragmentation: how smashing up corals helps them grow faster!
Okay we don’t actually smash them… We use a wet band saw to carefully cut Acropora corals (mostly Elkhorn) into roughly 1cm2 pieces containing 20-30 polyps, and glue them to tiles which can be secured onto tables at our nursery.
The corals that we fragment are found during ‘fragment of opportunity’ dives across various dive sites around Carriacou. The little ‘frags’ from the same original colony are stuck on tiles a few centimeters apart, and will eventually fuse together as they recognize that they are all clones with the same DNA.
This method of cutting the corals, increases the surface area, allowing for much faster growth and can be used for many different species of hard coral, e.g. Elkhorn, Staghorn, and brain corals.
Soft Coral (Gorgonian) Propagation
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!
Marine Conservation in the heart of the Caribbean.
- Main Street Hillsborough, Carriacou, Grenada W.I.
- +1 473 443 7882
- info@caribbeanreefbuddy.org
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