Donating coral to reef restoration?

nemo1017 · Feb 18, 2017

So I got to thinking today after reading more in depth about david Vaughn and his coral reef restoration program. For those of you that don't know; he is a marine biologist who discovered that fragged corals grow twice as fast vs corals that aren't fragged. He manages a coral farm on mote island in key west Florida. He and his team plant tiny micro frags over dead coral skeletons in the area and these tiny frags grow and cover twice the area that would take a non fragged coral to do. I urge you to read up more on his research, very interesting idea he has come up with.
Is there a way for saltwater hobbyists like us to donate coral for coral reef restoration? Or are we as a hobby generally looked down upon due to the perception of being destructive so no one will be inclined to let us help? Overall, I would like to believe that our hobby educates and contributes more than it hurts. We as reef enthusiasts care a great deal about the creatures in our little glass boxes.
How can we assist such biologists and work together to help come up with a solution or aid them in their research? I have been searching on the internet but all I can find are monetary donation sites. If anyone has any insight at all that would be great!

Oscar47f · Feb 18, 2017

I don't think that we are looked down upon and thats the reason we can't help lol but if you were to help you can't just donate random species you need corals that are native to the florida keys, like stag horn, and elk horn and fire coral, which are species that most aquarium hobbyists don't have because its illegal to harvest these hard corals... Corals down here aren't always bright and stunning like their pacific counterpart.. and there is a law about not releasing whats been in an aquarium, not sure if it applies to corals though i think its mainly fish...