What do we use?
How did we determine the need for these type of methods for our lagoon and reef?
The coral that we collected for our first nursery consisting of pyramid frames have been "corals of opportunity". These are orphaned, loose or broken fragments lying in the sand at the bottom of the lagoon. Broken off by either storms, strong wave energy, and or human disturbance by standing or walking on. We give these coral babies another chance by collecting them, if they are single fragments or a whole colony is decided whether to replant or fragment, and attaching them to our nursery. From there, our team members will do weekly maintenance in the lagoon site, cleaning the frames of any macroalgae growth to ensure they don't become covered and suffocate.
Pyramid Frames
Pyramid frames are strong structures built for stronger wave impact and are welded steel rebar into pyramid or spider shaped frames and coated in marine epoxy, and sand to allow the coral to attach faster and more comfortably to grow in the nursery. The coral that grow on these frames will permanently live where they are, adding to the coral numbers within the lagoon. There are 40-50 coral fragments per frame.
Rope Structures
Attaching coral fragments without adhesives, the rope structure allows fast coral propagation and growth. The coral growing on the rope structures will reach a certain stage of growth and be removed for out planting onto the reef. This process generally takes up to two years.
Image by Alex King Photography
Image by Corals for Conservation
Our team of volunteers set up our first nursery site called "Papua Nursery"
Our team collecting loose fragments and colonies and reintroducing them to a new home.
Images by Alex King Photography
Building our frames
A huge advantage to our project was having a team of individuals who offer different skill sets, experience and enabling the creation of our project from the ground up.
Every one of our team members have something great to add to our project.
Our project coordinators have the skills and expertise in steel fixing and to help cut costs to begin our project, we self funded the materials and built the frames. Team members Donald, Johnny and Dane(Rav) with the knowledge and experience they had built our pyramid frames, welding steel rebar and coating them in resin and sand ready to go.
