Fish farms, not divers, to blame for Red Sea coral damage

[Subrafta]

Researchers are blaming the deterioration of the once-pristine coral reefs around the Red Sea resort of Eilat on intense fish farming, and not, as previously thought, on pollution or divers.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=5597935
http://www.divernet.com/news/stories/eilat070704.shtml

[Reefmaniac1]

I had read these articles on another board. The theory makes sense: All the extra fish excrement is GOING to make a nutrient impact on the area...

We faced a similar situation back home in Eastern NC: Hog farm run off was fueling algae blooms in the rivers, nearly choking them out...in addition to causing blooms of a dinoflagellate that would literally EAT the skin of the fish and kill them (some people aquired wounds from researching this thing).

[directfish2]

divers NEVER harm coral unless they are carless .. hate to tell you but read my entry in the thread about the keys

[Papa Funk]

To blame the deterioration of any reef system on solely one cause is asinine...synergistic causes such as farming, exploitation, hurricane damage, disease, and global warming contributing to raising sea levels, temperatures and alterations of current are just a few factors that affect reef vitality.
Divers can and do damage corals every day around the world...it is not a matter of people being careless (well maybe it is) it is a usally a matter of uneducation about the sensitivity of the environment.
Branching corals like staghorn and elkhorn break easily - you can catch them with the tip of you fin or the edge of your console and break them without knowing it has happened. In nearly every stony coral, all the living coral tissue is concentrated in a thin layer on and just under the surface. Destroying this outer layer can destroy the entire coral colony. Kneeling on coral, grabbing it or scraping it with fins, cameras, consoles or tanks can damage or destroy this thin layer of living coral tissue. Even wiping the mucous off the surface of the coral with your hand will expose the coral to stress and damage.
The explosion of this hobby as well is contributing slightly to reef degredation and I strongly urge people to buy fraged corals and tank raised fish...

PF

[AeroD79]

cant they just add mangrove islands at the israel coast to help eat up the nutrients from fish farms?

[Ira NZ]

Then in a few decades they'll have to spend billions controlling the explosion of mangroves.

[Unresistible Blue]

Originally posted by AeroD79
cant they just add mangrove islands at the israel coast to help eat up the nutrients from fish farms?

This is not so far fetched. We design and "install" what are called "constructed wetlands" to process all sorts of residential, municapal, and industrial waste streams. This is not phytoremediation - in which you are left with contaminated plan materials that have bound with the contaminants. Rather the plants provide a matrix that supports microbes that metabolize the wastes into less harmful byproducts.

Blue