Im a reef builder

staman · #1 02/06/2006, 08:38 PM

My folks live on the water in the bahamas (i know i know..). Ive been building a coral reef for about 6 years now about 100 feet off the shore in about 9 feet of water. What i do is i blow up weather ballons (3' diameter) and then trowel a special concrete over them. Once dried i float the balloon out to where i want it, pop the balloon, and voila. Ive done this about 100 times so ive got a coral head thats about 120 feet long and about 6 feet wide. Corals are just starting to form on it in earnest. Saw and eel living there during christmas...

Drew Reed · #2 02/06/2006, 09:21 PM

can you get some pics?

edwar050 · #3 02/06/2006, 10:20 PM

staman,

That is awsome and I have alot of respect for you for doing that. If more people would take an active stance like that there would be alot more reefs around the world.

alexinfla · #4 02/07/2006, 12:20 PM

Absolutely one of the most positive things I have read in agers, please get some pics when you can. The ocean will give you great karma for this gesture.

staman · #5 02/07/2006, 10:12 PM

Sure guys i would love too. I just bought a Canon Powershot S2 IS. Now for that underwater housing.. Ill be home next in march or april i think. (I live in toronto...)

ficklefins · #6 02/08/2006, 07:09 PM

Great job Staman!

Some pictures would be great, but keep up the good work.

fishes2889 · #7 02/08/2006, 07:18 PM

props to u man making the ocean a better place for fish to live and sparing the lives of corals. this little bit counts

psycho_clown · #8 02/11/2006, 10:24 AM

staman thats great i as well would love to see pics.

davidcalgary29 · #9 02/12/2006, 02:20 AM

Staman, do you live on New Providence? I'd love to see pix, as well.

I grew up on Long Island, and my family still has a house there. Back in the '70s, my parents decided to create a "fish ballast" by dumping old appliances, concrete, & whatnot onto the sand bed approx. 500 meters offshore (our property fronts on the hypersaline and shallow waters of the Great Bahama Bank). It took approx. two years for corals & fish to thoroughly colonize the ballast, and it provided fish for us for years. I stopped visiting it, though, when I noticed that it had become the hunting ground for at least one hammerhead shark.

staman · #10 02/12/2006, 03:52 PM

No my folks live on GB in freeport. They live in Fortune Cay if you know the area. They have 2 acres of beachfront. When they are too old to run the place anymore (real soon) theyre gonna split to San Diego. And the place is ours. The first thing im gonna do is rip up the backyard for my intake pipe from the ocean. Ahhh no need for skimmer,heater, sump, fuge, nuttin. Just pumping 20 gallons an hour from the ocean

Turtle sanctuary baby....
Hey david calgary you did it 500M off shore--wow im doing it 50 meters.

dasnugs · #11 02/12/2006, 09:46 PM

thats great how about pics bro

davidcalgary29 · #12 02/13/2006, 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by staman
No my folks live on GB in freeport. They live in Fortune Cay if you know the area. They have 2 acres of beachfront. When they are too old to run the place anymore (real soon) theyre gonna split to San Diego. And the place is ours. The first thing im gonna do is rip up the backyard for my intake pipe from the ocean. Ahhh no need for skimmer,heater, sump, fuge, nuttin. Just pumping 20 gallons an hour from the ocean Turtle sanctuary baby....
Hey david calgary you did it 500M off shore--wow im doing it 50 meters.

A German woman built a saltwater swimming pool by the ocean at her property in Stella Maris, which is just to the north of us. She never thought out the concept properly, though, and ended up gouging out a huge rectangular tidepool by the beach. It fills up at every high tide, and is a great place to look for nearshore invertebrates and fish.

I was thinking about doing something similar on our property, but realized that I'd probably just screw up our water table -- we get all our drinking water from our wells -- and just content myself with feeding the wrasses and schoolmasters with bits of bacon off our docks when I go down for visits.

Fat Man · #13 02/13/2006, 05:20 PM

Iâ€™ve been looking at this thread for some time mulling over how to say this.

You obviously believe you are doing something good and in fact you maybe are. I have some reservations myself as it seems to me that you are dabbling in type or habitat conversion. There are many things that are unknown about your project; what was the habitat type that was there before you started, is that habitat in any way threatened or critical to some species? We must remember that when we create a habitat in on place we are also losing the habitat that was originally there. If the original habitat is in abundance then there is a net gain biologically. If not then we are trading one habitat gain for a loss in another and the net biologic gain can be a zero or negative.

So what you are doing may be a positive, things like this should not be undertaken lightly. The gains and losses of habitat must be critically examined.

Sorry for sounding like a killjoy.

staman · #14 02/13/2006, 08:23 PM

Considering that most people on this forum have marine tanks with pompeii/figi live rock that was undoubtely cracked off a bigger piece with a crowbar in "the islands"--- I think Ill just continue on doing what im doing...

staman · #15 02/13/2006, 08:28 PM

As for gouging out a piece of the beach to make a saltwater swimming pool,-i think its foolish and probably illegal.

Fat Man · #16 02/14/2006, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by staman
Considering that most people on this forum have marine tanks with pompeii/figi live rock that was undoubtely cracked off a bigger piece with a crowbar in "the islands"

Protecting existing reefs and creating new ones are a separate issue.

Quote:

Originally posted by staman
--- I think Ill just continue on doing what im doing...

I'm not saying you shouldn't, I don't know enough about your project to make that judgement.

Reefs around the world are taking a beating and work to create new reefs and protect those that exist are laubable. It's just that when you manipulate an environment you need to take a good look at the long and short term consequences.

When an agency of the federal government wants to do habitat improvement they are required by law (National Environmental Policy Act) to do an exhaustive analysis on the possible impacts of the project.

What I am really trying to get at is that we shouldn't create reefs just because we like them, but because it will produce an ecologic benefit.

acroporid23 · #17 02/15/2006, 02:44 AM

I say very cool my friend and quite interesting lets see some pics

Ddddrgnfly · #18 02/15/2006, 04:10 AM

yep, would like to see some pics as well.

AdidaKev · #19 02/15/2006, 09:53 AM

I have to agree with Fat Man here, he's made some really good points. There are a number of factors that must be taken into consideration before this type of project can be deemed beneficial. I'm not saying what you're doing is bad, I'm just not 100% convinced that it's good. I know you're excited about all this and sure, maybe it is a great idea. I'm sorry, but I just have my doubts.

BTW, have you gotten legal permission to do this?

Pandora · #20 02/15/2006, 11:28 AM

I am kind of on the fence with Fat Man & AdidaKev, too. I definitely see your heart is in the right place, but let's say there's some unknown, like some rare goby that likes to inhabit flat open ocean floor, and you are piling cement on that unknowingly. Honestly, in reality I think the chances of that are very unlikely (especially since you are working on such a small scale), and you are probably making a barren area into a mini-reef that can support a richer microcosm; it's just more of an unknown when it's done on a private, hobbyist scale, a little different to me than when the govt sponsors sinking a ship to create an artificial reef in a well-studied area.

I guess with that one reservation, it's probably on such a small scale, in practice I could see more good than harm coming from such a project. I know that private mini reefs have been created for years off the coast of Florida & Alabama by fisherman sinking all sorts of objects to try and promote fish populations coming closer to shore; but to me, you have nicer aspirations, and what you're doing is thought through better (sinking cement, rather than old cars and random materials, which was what most of them were doing). Let's see some photos if you ever get them.

Fat Man · #21 02/15/2006, 05:57 PM

Pandora just because an area seems barren doesn't make any less of a desirable habitat nor one that isn't threatened. Many of the deserts in the United States and the world are being threatened. Species that exist in these habitats tend to be living closer to the edge with scarce resources and are perhaps more easily pushed over that edge. We can't judge the value of a habitat merely by the appearance of abundant life forms.

I'll agree with you that the scale of his project is small enough that probably no harm is being done. But if a substantial number of people decide to build their own reef the scale of the impacts change.

It took me several days to decide to post my comments because I didn't want it to sound like I was trashing stamen for what he is doing. That was no way my intention nor desire. Nor is it my desire for him to stop. I work in the field that is directly responsible for land (habitat) management. In the past, and the present, many things have been done for laudable reasons but with bad results. It's just that I think these things should be well though out and not done for personal reasons but to better the environment as a whole.

Pandora · #22 02/15/2006, 06:59 PM

I totally understand where you're coming from Fat Man, and didn't mean to say that just because an area "seems" barren that it really is so (that's why I used the word "probably"); I studied ecology in college and am keen to these kinds of issues, too. I was also more emphasizing the fact that the size of the project is small, and not likely to be reproduced by 100 of his neighbors (unlike when a popular scuba spot gets "found" and subsequently trashed by tourists).

davidcalgary29 · #23 02/15/2006, 07:09 PM

Environmental merits aside, Staman's project will likely have a net positive benefit of provoking debate about the Bahamas' threatened marine environments amongst its citizens-- something that is sorely lacking in the country today. The Bahamas has little spirit to enforce what little legislation exists to protect its natural environments, and has green-lighted a number of extremely dubious developments (Atlantis is built on a sand bar!) in recent years. Any effort to build a reef offshore of Grand Bahama is likely to have little overall impact on the widespread degradation of its marine habitats caused by ongoing development in the hospitality industry (e.g. hotels and condos, and widespread dumping of garbage straight into the ocean by cruise ships).

Fat Man · #24 02/15/2006, 07:19 PM

Point well made davidcalgary29.

BigBert96 · #25 02/15/2006, 07:28 PM

I dont think any harm is being done. On a scale this small, I dont think theres much danger to the habitat. However, anything larger could possibly act as a mini tide breaker and alter the natural flow of the current, which in the long may cause minor erosion problems. But I dont think thats an issue with his mini reef.