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A Solution for Coral Reefs in Peril
Alien54 writes "At the recent Coral Reef Symposium in Bali, Indonesia, scientists concluded that most of the world's ocean reefs have been killed or severely damaged with the remainder in certain jeopardy. Disastrous reverses in reef health threaten marine biodiversity, tourism, fisheries and shore protection worldwide. Reefs die for many reasons: rising water temperatures, sewage flows, eutrophication, disease, and negligence. A reef ecosystem that took hundreds of years to grow can be destroyed in a single afternoon by dredging, dynamite or cyanide fishing. But there is a solution. In pilot installations in Mexico, Panama, Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand, and Papua New Guinea, artificial reefs have been built where corals grow rapidly even in stressed environments. Applying a low voltage electrical current (completely safe for swimmers and marine life) to a submerged conductive structure causes dissolved mineral crystals in seawater to preciptate and adhere to that structure. Surviving coral fragments are mechanically attached, and end up doing very well indeed. During the 1998 warming, fewer than 5% of the natural reef corals survived. But on the artificial reefs, 80% of corals not only survived, they flourished. Corals from these reefs are now recolonizing the surrounding natural habitats."
Actually, there was a recent article that discussed the fact that the symbiotic bacteria that made up corals was changing. So, though there's widespread bleaching of corals, it doesn't necessarily mean doom. The newer symbionts are much better adapted to warmer temperatures, so they should do better with the overall warming of the oceans.
What's probably happening with this artificial corals is that they're being colonized by the "clade D" symbionts right off the bat, which makes it look like they're thriving.
That's not to say that corals don't face other issues - pollution and disease most notably - but the situation may not be as dire as suspected.
That's pretty cool and might work in some places where the coral hasn't already adapted (admittedly a LOT of places). Coral has been adapting on its own to warming conditions though. Along the Panama coast, warm water caused extensive bleaching in corals that had formed a symbiotic relationship with one type of Symbiodinium algae, known as clade C. But corals that joined forces with another algae type, clade D, that can tolerate higher temperatures, did not become bleached. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns999 96275
...and you've eaten your pen. simply stunning.
iirc they use them to get fish for to sell as pets(the fish will go out for a while or get dizzy).
the fish need to be sold fast though, as catching them in this way isn't that healthy.
it's a stupid way to fish for the extremely shortsighted or careless(or for people who don't know that they're just destroying their own long term livelihood doing it).
i think tnt fishing is used more with fish you want to catch for eating(easier anyways).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Superb, extremely interesting and enjoyable overview of coral reef biodiversity, and very good at providing an overview of the threats faced by the reef, both manmade and natural. Cheap too, and free biscuits :-)
As their blurb states, "through understanding comes appreciation". Snorkling around the reef was one of the best parts of my recent world trip - apart from the sunburn I picked up by being too quick into the water. It was a huge shame the tour boat didn't much of a job of advising people of the threat we pose to the environment when out on the reef. If you fancy yourself as a eco-friendly geek, like me, you certainly would do well to visit Reef Teach.
ooooooh! What does this button do? - DeeDee, Dexters Lab.
The coral can't survive unless we're zapping the rocks they adhere to.
The impression I got from the novel exercise known as "reading the article" was that the electric current was used to accelerate the growth of the coral, not to keep it alive once it had grown. I dunno, maybe my reading comprehension is way off or something...
*** Quantum Mechanics: The Dreams of Which Stuff is Made ***
they found specific insecticides in the great barrier reef that were killing coral. The scientists located the companies that produced them, found the farmers that purchased them in specific quantities and then had to go far inland to tell them they were killing off the great barrier reef.
They had since gotten that situation under control but the fact remains that the farmers in north dakota are killing off all the corals in the caribbean and noone is doing anything about it. But its going to turn the water green and kill the tourism industry in the caribbean eventually. Apparently the water near the florida keys is already changing from its blue color to a greenish. The sad thing is that even if we stopped today, there is so much insecticide and fertilizers draining through the land between north dakota and the gulf that it would take decades to completely filter out. The way the reefs die is that the insecticides are weakening the coral which allows algae to gain a foothold. one the algae starts it gets fertilized by the fertilizer and takes over.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
phytoplankton blooms in a reef. Its what turns water green and blocks out the light. Iron seeding promotes algal growth. You typically want to use that in temperate regions instead of tropical. I've talked with some of the world's foremost coral experts and they said though that they thought it could be successfully used to pull greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere though.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Those works on electricity and coral growth are originally fromm Tom Goreau.
M VC_209X M VC_210X
I have a friend who worked with Goreau and implemented the system for use in aquariums, but most importantly for his coral farm.
Once thing not mentionned: corals growing that fast that way are quite brittle, as the critaline structure of their skeletton does not have time to be strong enough. Once electricity is not used anymore, the skeletton acquires normal solidity rapidly.
Some pictures of a home setup:
http://rdo.homelinux.org/gallery/saintvulbas2000/
http://rdo.homelinux.org/gallery/saintvulbas2000/
Do not ask what the grids are made of, this is the biggest part of the initial research...
Nico
Being a diver, the 5% number by the poster was suspect to me immediately since no location I've been at (Hawaii, Aruba, Cozumel, Florida) has seen numbers close to that. Yes, a large percentage of reefs are threatened, but certainly not 95% wiped out.
The 5% number is, according to the article, referring to the Maldive islands, a chain to the west-to-southwest of India, not worldwide.
Yes, I'm not kidding about this.
There has been a practice to sink the cleaned-up remains of old ships to use them to create artificial reefs. I believe that has been done off the coast of Florida with great success, and other parts of the world are doing this also.
Potassium Cyanide fishing is a technique used to "stun" fish rather than killing them so they can be caught live and either used in aquariums or served fresh from live tanks (popular in Asia). Potassium cyanide kills the reef where it is applied, but not the fish (the level absorbed by fish is non-fatal to them).
Dynamiting is used to stun fish (by the concussion), so it mainly kills reef by breaking it and stirring up sediment that suffocates the reef. I've always heard of this as grenade fishing, but I suppose it depends on what you're using as the explosive.
I'm surprised shrimp and lobster trawling wasn't mentioned - trawling kills more reef every year than any other method I know of (something like 2-3x the area of the United States yearly, or between 6 and 10 million square nautical miles, depending on source). Maybe those numbers are down, or else maybe the Cyanide/Dynamite numbers are way up and they want people to take notice. I think the cyanide numbers were only about 300000 square nautical miles last year (it was something like 330000, but the marine awareness and presevation class I attended was way back in February).
Now if only someone could figure out a way to replenish the stocks of large ocean fish that have been reduced by 90% since 1950.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I've taken a pretty comprehensive look at the website and noticed that Hilbertz, invented the mineral accretion process to create structures in seawater, in 1977, and because the website was so heavy in words like patent, trademark, intelectual property ect. I decided to look a little deeper.
A quick GOOGLE brought up Stanford's website which give us patent numbers and other interesting information such as;
- Patent - 4,246,075, Hilbertz, W.H., Mineral accretion of large surface structures, building components and elements, Jan. 20, 1981.
- Patent - 4,440,605, Hilbertz, W.H., Repair of reinforced concrete structures by mineral accretion, Apr. 3, 1984 - expired Apr. 5, 1992 due
- Patent - 4,461,684, Hilbertz, W.H., Accretion coating and mineralization of materials for protection against biodegradation, Jul.
- Patent - 5,543,034, Hilbertz, W.H. and Goreau, T.J., Method of enhancing the growth of aquatic organisms, and structures created thereby, Aug. 6, 1996. (7 yrs should be still good)
- Patent - 4,623,433, Streichenberger, A.O., Process for orienting and accelerating the formation of concretions in a marine environment,
- Patent 4,539,078, Wingfield, W.R., Method of and Apparatus for Making a Synthetic Breakwater, Sep. 3, 1985. (18 Yrs.)
- Patent 4,507,177, Duckworth, R. et al., Method of Stabilization of Particulate Material, Mar. 26, 1985. (18 Yrs.)
- Patent - 4,927,504, Scala, C.R., Sculpture process, May 22, 1990 (13 yrs)
So the basic technology is not under patent pretection, only it's application in constructing coral reefs and scuptures are.(22 years ago so it's expired i believe the period is 17yrs. IANAL)
to failure to pay maintenance fees.
24, 1984 - expired July 26, 1992 due to failure to pay maintenance fees.
Nov. 18, 1986 - expired Nov. 23, 1994 due to failure to pay maintenance fees.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Actually, DDT isn't poisonous to humans (one of the reasons it was so widely used in the past in the US and other countries) but it is poisonous to a lot of other species. The reason it is banned in the US is the catastrophic effect it was having on the bald eagle (the National Bird). The UN still condones its usage in other parts of the world because it is cheap for 3rd world countries buy, and unfortunately the gains (growing foods in poor countries) outway the negatives (killing of species due to egg shell thinning).
The use of "cyanide fishing" is limited to collection of reef specimens for sale in the aquarium trade.
Essentially, the collector carries what amounts to a small "box" of cyanide. Upon encountering a particularly attractive or desirable fish, he "pops" the box open, releasing a puff of cyanide around the fish. This stuns (to say the least) the fish, making it easy to capture.
MAC (The Marine Aquarium Council) and others estimate that roughly 50% of the fish caught in this manner do not survive the process, and are dead by the time they're removed from the water, or do not survive the shipment to the local fish store. Of those that do "survive" to be sold to reef keepers, some estimates suggest that fully 80% of them die within 1 year in captivity.
None of this even touches on the obvious damage done by "poofing" a few square meters of reef with a big cyanide cloud. While estimates of the damage done vary greatly, it's pretty certain that there aren't a whole lot of reef critters out there that enjoy the experience.
Most of us who keep reef tanks built and grown by our own blood, sweat, and tears abhor the practice, and purchase captive raised animals ONLY, specifically to try to reduce the profit involved in such collection practices.
In short, Save a reef...Grow your own.
Does it strike anyone else as... interesting... that the Director of the "Global Coral Reef Alliance" is also the registrant of, and one of the pricipals of, the commercial organization they're proposing as the solution?
Hmmm.
"...and to everyone else out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys."
You can read more about this idea in Marshall Savage's book _The Millenial Project_ (as mentioned in other comments). However, it turns out that seacrete is way too inefficient to be used for building real structures, I have an explanation with references here.
-- Patri Friedman (patri-at-seastead-dot-org)
Details and references here. (I replied with some comments about this, but I didn't have an account so they have 0-ratings, so I got an account to post this. Hope its not too bad form to comment in multiple places.)
Why bother? Saltwater aquariums grow quite out of control on their own. After scraping coraline algae off of everything once or twice a month, you'll be glad just to have things grow slow. Or try trimming back the explosive growth of Anathelia. All of my coral quickly got too big for my tank (when I had one).
Plus, you probably don't have enough dissovled minerals in your tank to do this without throwing off the balance of other things. It might work if you do frequent water changes, but I don't think that's too healthy for an established tank either.