Coral Propagation Project

HPTRDSKPR · #1 10/07/2007, 09:55 PM

First Off This Project Will Not Be For Profit!

I am a Sophmore in college and I am in the planning stages of a small scale conservation project. My plan is to collect frags and propogate corals to make available to the average aquarist. I will be selling the corals only to the extent that It will allow me to continue the process.

I know many people are starting to aquaculture corals and that this is not a new idea. My plan however is to get to a steady point and create a network of people across the nation doing the exact same thing. If we can provide a steady flow of quality coral to the average hobbyist it could help slow the destruction of the coral reefs. I also am working to help the Captive Breeding efforts for fish both FW and SW.

Im just looking to see what people think and how they would go about getting started.

77railer · #2 10/07/2007, 10:29 PM

I would start with common corals if preservation and the average aquarist is what you have in mind. This will also help ensure the survival of the more exotic corals once you get your tank(s) established. My wife and I are in the process of being the same ordeal on a very small scale using a 15 gallon frag tank. Good luck!!!

Leroy & Linda

Leroy

HPTRDSKPR · #3 10/07/2007, 10:52 PM

Thanks for the support. I'm hoping that if enough of us devote one small tank to propagating corals and offering them to the public that we can make some type of positive impact on the reef ecosystems. If your ever up in the Tidewater area send me a PM I'd appreciate another conservationists opinion on my setup once its up and running strong.

redox · #4 10/08/2007, 04:55 AM

there are several people around here that are in the process of starting a co-op to do just what you are talking about.

HPTRDSKPR · #5 10/08/2007, 06:36 AM

For once in my life I'm glad I'm not the first with an idea. It's reassuring to know that there are other people out there trying to do their part. So since this is an already moving deal how about anyone else that's trying to do the same thing post here about their setups and share some info on their project.

redox · #6 10/09/2007, 05:46 AM

the guys I know that are in it took it to another site because of the rules here

Treeman · #7 10/09/2007, 09:35 AM

There are some of us that are trying to make it a business. I am not sure if there is very much money in it, but it does make you feel warm and fuzzy

What have they decided about the no pictures from coral farmers rule?

SoFloReefer · #8 10/09/2007, 09:01 PM

I was under the impression that there were other factors killing coral reefs such as bumping nutrient rich water into ecosystems.

Treeman · #9 10/10/2007, 06:52 AM

There are many factors causing coral reef die off. Nutrient run-off, damage by divers and ships, overall pollution, warming of oceans in areas, etc...

What ever the reasons, if we can lower the impact of any or all of them, it will help. I believe that the biggest one that is very hard for us to do anything about as individuals is the warming oceans. We can all do our part though.

firecrackerbob · #10 10/10/2007, 08:22 AM

I think its a great idea!... you should start a website up and come up with a more defined business/organizational model.
Some other ideas to add on:
People could "donate" space in their frag tanks for the project-you pay for shipping frags in and out( you would need a good system to keep track of it all though)...
You could set it up as a non-profit and give any additional proceeds to research...
you could donate display corals to peoples tanks. when it grows out, they frag it and return the frags to you...

anything that helps minimize human impact on the worlds reefs is a great thing in my book
Good luck.. and if you are starting a list of supporters to keep in touch with, feel free to add me to it.
Eric

Rickyrooz1 · #11 10/10/2007, 10:01 AM

I'm doing a research project on Global Warming’s effect on Coral Reefs and found interesting material at the college’s databases. Not only is global warming hurting the reef but so is pollution (excess nutrients from run off of farms and sewage), deforestation of mangrove trees (mangroves hold the soil together and prevent it from washing into coral reefs), tourists and divers walking on the reefs and picking off pieces of coral, etc. Some interesting studies show that the zooxanthellae known as Clade D is much more tolerant of warmer ocean temperatures than Clade C. Corals currently are more abundant in Clade C and when bleaching occurs and corals can recover, they uptake more Clade D. Another thing was that coral propagation is helping precondition corals to global warming by making them adapt faster to the rapid changes. I will post more information about this when I get home and can reference my papers.

Treeman · #12 10/10/2007, 12:08 PM

Ricky,

That is very interesting. Please post the info when you get a chance. Sounds like great reading.

Treeman · #13 10/10/2007, 12:11 PM

Ricky,

How do you go about classifying the different zooxanthellae types. I was thinking that looking into the different strains may change the colors of corals in captivity. Is that something that would be possible or is it out there

Rickyrooz1 · #14 10/10/2007, 03:59 PM

A study from the Great Barrier Reef has shown that some algae can adapt. Corals from warmer reefs harbour a strain of algae called type D and resist bleaching. Corals from cooler reefs have a slightly different strain, called type C, which cannot take the heat. Some corals have a little type D algae amid the C. In warmer water, these corals adapt and survive as the D algae multiply. While D algae can take an extra 1.5 degrees Celsius, average sea temperatures are expected to rise by between 1 and 3 degrees this century.

“Coral warming.” New Scientist 190.2555 (10 June 2006): 6-6 Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. 3 October 2007.

Although another study states a coral cannot change its algae. A study conducted on 442 coral species found that 77% host only one type of algae. It also stated that in these species the type of algae does not change over time, or when they are exposed to disease or higher temperatures. “If climate change continues, coral reefs may undergo a significant change in biodiversity”.

“A coral can’t change its alga.” New Scientist 191.2570 (23 Sep. 2006) 16-16. Academic Search Elite. 3 October 2007.

I will post more information tomorrow about the Clade D and Clade C algae when I receive my papers back.

raaden · #15 10/12/2007, 01:39 PM

Very nice idea HPTRDSKPR,

The first place I would start would be to get started on the NFP paperwork. If your intention is NFP then getting certified would provide amazing benefits for your operation. I did some volunteering during startup of a NFP group that was tutoring Seniors prepping for the SATs and it was alot of work, but well worth it in the long run.

digression follows:
Rickyrooz1,
Awesome information!!

your first post
coral propagation is helping precondition corals
do you know of any further info on this part of it. I scanned through the mentioned articles but didn't see much about how this is happening or what it is related to.

rick rottet · #16 10/12/2007, 02:15 PM

try this link on for size... need adobe because it is a .pdf file

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006...-CladeList.pdf

Rickyrooz1 · #17 10/16/2007, 09:00 AM

Initial uptake of zooxanthellae by juvenile corals during natural infection is nonspecific (a potentially adaptive trait); the association is flexible and characterized by a change in (dominant) zooxanthella strains over time; and growth rates of experimentally infected coral holobionts are partly contingent on the zooxanthella strain harbored, with clade C-infected juveniles growing two to three times as fast as those infected with clade D.

Little, Angela F., Madeleine J. H. van Oppen, and Bette L. Willis. "Flexibility in Algal Endosymbioses Shapes Growth in ReefCorals." Science 304.5676 (04 June 2004): 1492-1494. Professional Development Collection. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 16 October 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.as...ite=ehost-live>.

Rickyrooz1 · #18 10/16/2007, 09:03 AM

The potential of corals to associate with more temperature-tolerant strains of algae (zooxanthellae, Symbiodinium) can have important implications for the future of coral reefs in an era of global climate change. Single-stranded conformation polymorphism and sequence analysis of the ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS)1 region was used for genotyping. A chronically warm but partly shaded coral reef in a marine lake that is hydrographically well connected to the surrounding waters harboured only two single-stranded conformation polymorphism profiles (i.e. zooxanthella communities). It consisted only of Symbiodinium D in all 13 nonporitid species and two Porites species investigated, with the remaining five Porites harbouring C•. Despite the high temperature in this lake (> 0.5° above ambient), this reef did not suffer coral mortality during the (1998) bleaching event, however, no bleaching-sensitive coral families and genera occur in the coral community. This setting contrasts strongly with two other reefs with generally lower temperatures, in which 10 and 12 zooxanthella communities with moderate to low proportions of clade D zooxanthellae were found. The data indicate that whole coral assemblages, when growing in elevated seawater temperatures and at reduced irradiance, can be composed of colonies associated with the more thermo-tolerant clade D zooxanthellae. Future increases in seawater temperature might, therefore, result in an increasing prevalence of Symbiodinium phylotype D in scleractinian corals, possibly associated with a loss of diversity in both zooxanthellae and corals.

Fabricius, K.E., et al. "Identity and diversity of coral endosymbionts (zooxanthellae) from three Palauan reefs with contrasting bleaching, temperature and shading histories." Molecular Ecology 13.8 (Aug. 2004): 2445-2458. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 16 October 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.as...ite=ehost-live>.

Rickyrooz1 · #19 10/16/2007, 09:13 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by raaden
Very nice idea HPTRDSKPR,

The first place I would start would be to get started on the NFP paperwork. If your intention is NFP then getting certified would provide amazing benefits for your operation. I did some volunteering during startup of a NFP group that was tutoring Seniors prepping for the SATs and it was alot of work, but well worth it in the long run.

digression follows:
Rickyrooz1,
Awesome information!!

your first post
coral propagation is helping precondition corals
do you know of any further info on this part of it. I scanned through the mentioned articles but didn't see much about how this is happening or what it is related to.

There are two major differences, however, between current climate-driven changes and the recent past. First, because the oceans today are already at a high sea-level stand, the projected rise [0.1 to 0.9 m in the next 100 years ( 10)] will be very small compared with sea-level changes during the Pleistocene. Second, unlike the past, the response of reef-dwelling species to projected climatic trends will be profoundly influenced by people. As outlined below, human impacts and the increased fragmentation of coral reef habitat have preconditioned reefs, undermining reef resilience and making them much more susceptible to future climate change.

Clearly, the capacity of coral reef ecosystems to continue to generate the valuable goods and services (on which human welfare depends) has to be better understood and more actively managed. Sustaining this capacity requires improved protection of coral reef resilience ( 43). Marine protected areas (MPAs) are currently the best management tool for conserving coral reefs and many other marine systems ( 44, 45). MPAs range from ineffective "paper parks," to multiple-use areas with varying degrees of protection, to marine reserves, or no-take areas (NTAs). NTAs provide the most effective protection for extractive activities such as fishing, affording a spatial refuge for a portion of the stock from which larvae and adults can disperse to adjoining exploited areas ( 44, 45).

NTAs, when properly supported and policed, are effective in preserving fish stocks because they change human behavior. They do not, however, prevent or hold back warm water, or stop bleaching.

Hughes, T. P., et al. "Climate Change, Human Impacts, and the Resilience of CoralReefs." Science 301.5635 (15 Aug. 2003): 929-933. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 16 October 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.as...ite=ehost-live>.

Rickyrooz1 · #20 10/16/2007, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Treeman
Ricky,

How do you go about classifying the different zooxanthellae types. I was thinking that looking into the different strains may change the colors of corals in captivity. Is that something that would be possible or is it out there

This was as close as I could get to finding information about zooxanthellae colors. The is the abstract of the article that is recent, October 2007! If you can access this article there is a nice study in a PDF file.

Here we investigate the evolutionary scenarios that led to the appearance of fluorescent color diversity in reef-building corals. We show that the mutations that have been responsible for the generation of new cyan and red phenotypes from the ancestral green were fixed with the help of positive natural selection. This fact strongly suggests that the color diversity is a product of adaptive evolution. An unexpected finding was a set of residues arranged as an intermolecular binding interface, which was also identified as a target of positive selection but is nevertheless not related to color diversification. We hypothesize that multicolored fluorescent proteins evolved as part of a mechanism regulating the relationships between the coral and its algal endosymbionts (zooxanthellae). We envision that the effect of the proteins’ fluorescence on algal physiology may be achieved not only through photosynthesis modulation, but also through regulatory photosensors analogous to phytochromes and cryptochromes of higher plants. Such a regulation would require relatively subtle, but spectrally precise, modifications of the light field. Evolution of such a mechanism would explain both the adaptive diversification of colors and the coevolutionary chase at the putative algae-protein binding interface in coral fluorescent proteins.

Field, Steven F., et al. "Adaptive Evolution of Multicolored Fluorescent Proteins in Reef-Building Corals." Journal of Molecular Evolution 62.3 (Mar. 2006): 332-339. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 16 October 2007. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.as...ite=ehost-live>.

Rickyrooz1 · #21 10/31/2007, 09:59 AM

bump

rick rottet · #22 10/31/2007, 12:21 PM

i have heard of coral farmers who will take a fresh cut frag and puree it. they then pour the "soup" into various tanks of different species. the hypothesis is that when the frag is pureed, the zooxanthellae can be liberated, then as the resident corals in those tanks go through their normal daily cycles of uptake and expansion, they can (possibly) gain new or different strains of zooxanthellae, as well as different pigments. as the corals gain new zooxanthellae, they also gain the possibility to adapt to a wider range of light conditions.

H20ENG · #23 10/31/2007, 06:28 PM

Rick,
I've heard this about clam propagation as well. Blend one big guy to feed to a whole bunch of little ones...

ReefFreaks · #24 11/05/2007, 09:04 PM

HP,
What type of housing are you going to use for this project? Will you have different lighting options? ie. halide, T5, sun light?

samtheman · #25 11/08/2007, 07:24 PM

Growing coral, especially SPS under lights is not environmentally friendly. How much coal do we have to burn, to provide the electricty? A greenhouse would actually reduce energy consumption, but doing it under lights simply adds to the problem.