artifical reefs

cwgibson

cwgibson

Member
i got an "undersea explorer" video for christmas. i have been watching it and one of the episodes was describing how some organizations have been sinking decommissioned warships. well these ships have become "artifical reefs". i thought this was pretty cool,but it is a fairly new thing just wondering if there could be any potential drawbacks. they prepare the ships to be eco-friendly and they look really good after awhile, lots of fish corals and such. they have also been used to help with "over diving" of some areas where the reefs have been damaged by divers.
 
saltn00b

saltn00b

Active Member
artificial reefs have been researched and implemented for many decades. Even old wrecks from previous centuries inadvertently fulfill this role. as long as the substances are somewhay porous, then sponges and coral can lock onto them. They once tried a few acres of Tires off of Miami and that was utter failure, nothing could grow on the Rubber, and they were detriorating rapidly, leaching poisons....
on the other side of the spectrum in the bahamas there is an organization that has pattented and marketing Cement 'Reef Blocks' that are very porous and a lot of surface area that get covered with a lot of life within weeks, and have seen great results in the wild. Proactive things like this might be our only hope to save the reefs we destroy.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
on a side note to the reef blocks, they also make a larger version of our reef plugs. they are large concrete blocks, but they are shaped like that toy we all had when we were kids that was open in the middle, and you put the different shapes through the holes, you know the square, circle, and triangle, anyways back on topic, they take those big plugs, and they put peices of coral that have been broken in hurricanes and other storms on them the same way we attach it to our LR and then they place it in the ocean and let them grow into reefs. I will see if i can find the article about it, it was on cnn.com not to long ago.
 
wangotango

wangotango

Active Member
i saw the thing about the tires, they kept rolling away too, so now they're picking them up
. the concrete structures were the way to go all along.
 
reef diver

reef diver

Active Member
IT is nice to see, however things would be better if the restoration was not necesary in the first place
 
cwgibson

cwgibson

Member
Originally Posted by Reef Diver
IT is nice to see, however things would be better if the restoration was not necesary in the first place
i agree but there are too many factors working against it
 
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