Artificial Reefs Part 1 - Building New Habitats and Homes

Bottle Reefs Drying in the Sand and Sun

Days at TRACC are filled with work dives, fun dives, classes, reading, species identification, and the inevitable hammock time in the heat of the day to recover brainpower and refresh the senses. A few times a week, once the heat of the day has diminished, the evening is filled with the communal labor of creating artificial reefs. The steady sound of the gaping mouth of the cement mixer turning and churning is the background to this labor, and the majority of camp contributes as much as they can. 

Some volunteers peel labels off glass bottles and cut twine for handles; others dig holes in the sand and cut corners out of cardboard boxes to create frames for bottle reefs. Still others bend PVC piping and ball netting for a different type of reef or scour camp for useable material and housing for sea creatures, asking, “If you were a fish would you live in this?” Then, the cement gets poured and the reefs are left to dry.

All artificial reefs built at TRACC are created with a specific biological niche in mind; for bottle reefs it is often the shallow reef crest. After the cement dries, the bottle reefs are placed throughout the various depleted reefs around Pom Pom Island, and in a twisted and spiny line along the reef crest just outside of TRACC. Once placed, we plant them with collected broken coral which immediately attracts a rainbow of little fishes and crustaceans who come to check out a new coral home.  

Sophie and Sophie Cleaning Bottles

A little farther down the slope, nets are draped and planted with the gentle pastels and sways of soft corals steadily in motion like pulsating flowers in their filtering and feeding, and are already being utilized by the sandy brown speckled moray eel that one must be careful to avoid when planting with coral. 

Bottle reefs are tipped upside down and sunk as to create steps and niches at slightly different depths to attract a greater diversity of species. Plastic crates combined and submerged to create the aptly named “biodiversity reefs” – attract a great variety of magnificent sea life, ranging from large brown and black spotted sweetlips hiding in the shadows, to cute little candy crabs nestled in the nephtheidae soft coral reaching its pink broccoliesque arms towards to light, and a whole spectrum of brightly colored fish, crustaceans, and corals, as well passing fantastical visitors like the grumpy frogfish.

Borja Helping to Build the Bottle Reef

Still more artificial reefs are created as by pouring cement into flat circular “biscuits” with holes poked into them for coral planting in the shallows to be utilized as nurseries for creatures and coral alike. 

At greater depths PVC pipes bent into igloos, tipis, and a swim through gather algae and coral on their surface to create space for sea creatures seeking refuge from predators. Tires sunk at an even greater depth are planted with deep water gorgonian coral and black coral, which are beginning to spread their deep purple fans ever wider and spiral ever farther upwards. These deep-water structures are often inhabited by octopus and other burrow loving creatures slinking back into the crevices of empty tire tubing.

It is so satisfying to participate in the whole process of the artificial reefs – the making, the placing, the planting the corals, and the intense satisfaction of seeing them populated by creatures in what was once a depleted reef of mainly coral rubble.  

More Marine conservation projects

Reef conservation would not be possible without generous financial support from

GEF /SGP for Malaysia who are helping our community activities.

Coralreefcare.com

If visits to Tracc are not possible then please help with financial support and follow their projects on Facebook.  https://m.facebook.com/Coral-Reef-Care-106658702743344/

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Whitneys project-soft coral and rubble planting

Today I went out with Tom and Helena to help out with Whitneys project.
Whitneys project is to see if soft corals can be used to stabilize a rubble reef slope and if they do, will this enable hard corals to settle, grow and create a coral reef.
I very much look forward following this particular project.

Tom's focused on attaching the cable tie

On the way to the control site we saw a octopus hiding in his hole and on the way back we saw a turtle resting.

The vizibility was, for Pom Pom, not that great, we have had a bit of rain and wind the last few days, which has been very much appreciated, we needed that.

Helena with things to plant

Octopus hiding in his hole

Green turtle resting

With his fellow sucker fish

For more information, please check our website or e-mail info@tracc-borneo.org

The main website is at http://tracc-borneo.org
Check out our posts on our activities
on fb tracc.borneo
on twitter tracc_borneo
on google + tracc

or simply #tracc or #traccblog on Google, Facebook, twitter or instagram

igloo reef assembly - underwater

under construction

more fun and games were had with the igloo reefs as they were assembled underwater.

You may also want to read about our coral planting for world ocean day or Growth of the branching corals in the coral nursery.  or Step reefs or Bottle reefs or Shark cave reefs or igloo reefs

More blogs about TRACC marine conservation centre   

Videos about TRACC  - Mabul shark week 2015 - White tip reef sharks -

More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia - Turtle Snorkellers - Divers  

Making bottle reefs for coral planting

Preparation of the moulds

Artificial Reef preparation and construction is an ongoing process at TRACC, some part of the process happens for 6 from the 7 days of the week.

This week, our Malaysian staff and volunteers were building more bottle reefs in the moulds. The moulds are lined with plastic to stop the cement sticking to the wooden sides or becoming dry by losing all the moisture down into the sand floor. Each mould is about 10ft long, made of a wooden frame. The cement is mixed by the very nice new mixer bought with the support of the Small Grants Programme of the Global Environment Facility (SGP/GEF). The mixture of sand and cement is a wet mortar and we use a plasticizer to give the mixture more workability. The sloppy mortar mixture is poured into the moulds and then the bottles can be added.

Bottle reefs waiting for the cement to set overnight.

Each bottle is pre-cleaned to remove the labels and any residue of contents. We only use bottles which have contained food or drink so that there is no risk of pollution from the bottle contents.

The bottles are rolled in the wet cement mortar so that they have a slightly roughened surface from the cement and sand. When this layer is hard it helps the attraction and settlement of a wide variety of sedentary reef building organisms such as sponges, ascidians byozoans as well as hard and soft corals.

The bottles are worked into the bed of mortar so that they stand upright and are submerged by 3-5 cm in the wet mortar. Generally the bottles are positioned about 7-12 cm apart. If they are too close then it is hard to make the block so that it doesn't fall apart when it is set. If the bottles are too far apart, then the coral fragments or biscuits could move out of the protective ring of bottles and fall into the sand. All sizes and shapes of bottles can be used; from jamjars to ketchup to beer bottles.

finished bottle reefs after the cement has set.

Plastic water bottles are not normally used because they can come out of the cement base when there is wave action. Fizzy drink bottles can be used but we puncture holes near the base so that the cement mortar goes into the bottles and helps to lock them into the bottle reef block. Most of the bottle reefs for coral planting use only glass bottles which are not in short supply. Glass is not recycled in Sabah because of the cost of shipping to Peninsular Malaysia. Consequently there are plenty of bottles which are donated by caring citizens or businesses.

The raw material for our artificial reefs is cheap and plentyful and with photos and videos of the results from our SGP/GEF project near the Tip of Borneo (Simpang Mengayu) and on Pom Pom island near Semporna, will lead to more community action projects around the region using the techniques we are developing to improve and rebuild the reefs close to each village. 

You may also want to read about our coral planting for world ocean day or Growth of the branching corals in the coral nursery.  or Step reefs or Bottle reefs or Shark cave reefs or igloo reefs

More blogs about TRACC marine conservation centre 

More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia - Turtle Snorkellers - Divers  

 

Masterpiece Reefs

Masterpiece Reefs

By looking at our masterpiece reefs now that we've built them you'll be able to tell that we all ''major in abstract art.'' However the process in itself required skills that some of us clearly lacked.

More Photos on TRACC facebook

The purpose of our masterpiece reefs was to create a frame in order to attach soft and hard coral to. Soft coral grows very quickly and will then cover the framework and after many years hard coral will eventually cover the frame, becoming a little coral reef.

We used very ''high-tech'' equipment which consisted of: toilet brushes, pipes, pipe connectors and wired mesh. The wired mesh acts as a  base support when cementing. The toilet brush allowed a little variety in our reefs. The cup of the toilet brush set was ideally used to create a burrow for small fish or other creatures to hide in. We could build the reef however we wanted using the equipment provided, this required us to bring out our creativity, which some of us struggled with. In order to cut and mould our reef into a masterpiece we had to use a saw. This was a challenge for some, as many of us had never picked up a saw and clearly didn't know that long movements at an angle were the key to success. For me however it was quite easy as I was brought up with helping my dad around our summer house in Sweden, For others it was clearly exhausting and taking a light doze was a priority.

Once we had all finished designing our masterpieces came the real challenge. We had to carry them all over to an area along the beach where we could mix cement and build bases. We all had a chance to mix the cement and my job was first. I had to mix the sand and cement powder together with the shovel. Next we added the water and this made the mixture a lot heavier then it actually looked and for some of my friends it brought out their true strength. Now, whether it was there or not that is the question! Once the cement was mixed, we had to put some above and below the wired gauze in order to be able to secure the frame, as well as keep it at the bottom of the ocean. Since the cement was wet, we all carved our names into our own masterpieces, however i highly doubt that in ten years time we'll be able to tell whose is whose.

We left our frameworks and the cement over night in order to let the cement dry and then they were ready attach our coral to.We sat in the shallow water in order to design our masterpieces.  This wasn't the most comfortable choice as I got sand in my swimmers.  We used cable ties to secure small pieces of hard coral to the bases of our masterpieces. We attached small fragments with soft coral growing on them to the rest of the framework and in a couple of weeks most of it will be covered in the growing soft coral.

We had a variety of soft coral to choose from, so each of our reefs will turn out to to as vibrant mini reef once fully developed. Once satisfied, we carried the frames out into a temporary nursery and on the way we were attacked by thousands of baby jellyfish, we thought they would sting us but as babies most of them are harmless. Now, our masterpieces are in the ocean and ready to develop into beautiful coral reefs which, in the future everyone can enjoy!

Linnea Borglin

More Info on volunteering with TRACC

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