Maricultured corals, Aquaculutured corals, and saving the natural Reefs

[rds85]

A spike of curiosity got me...

Generally speaking aquaculturing corals seem to ideal/best option for this hobby in regards to preserving natural reefs. Maricultured can be debated till you are blue in the face, although it has provided a large study platform for marine biologists and scientists with good intentions.

I just want to state initially I am all for restoring/preserving our natural reefs globally!

I am sure this has been done, just can't find a scientific journals or articles in regards to this:

Has there been statically proven success stories of aquacultured corals ( corals that have been truly grown on land for a few years) being re established to a natural reef? Are these aquacultured corals more resilient to all the environmental changes pertinent to the natural reefs? Can these corals be placed in different areas of the reef and thrive ( Ex deeper waters, near different currents than normally found)?

 

[ichthyogeek]

To the best of my knowledge, I can't think of any projects that do so. Most use maricultured corals. I'm sure that it also has something to do with not introducing pests and disease into the native environment, as well as it being less labor intensive to do so in the ocean.

What might make you think that aquacultured corals might be more resilient towards environmental changes or other microbiomes within the reef?

 

[rds85]

To the best of my knowledge, I can't think of any projects that do so. Most use maricultured corals. I'm sure that it also has something to do with not introducing pests and disease into the native environment, as well as it being less labor intensive to do so in the ocean.

What might make you think that aquacultured corals might be more resilient towards environmental changes or other microbiomes within the reef?

I do not claim any facts here on the aquacultured corals being more resilient, but just seems closed systems always have something significantly different from NSW that corals were originally custom to having which could lead to resilience. I am not saying all corals would be successful at this.
Examples include:
1) build up of nutrients/pollutants in closed systems and corals still survive
2) large swings in elements
3) elevated/lower temps ( could you slowly increase temp over a year or so to get corals accustom to it? )

Now this could be a very bad idea with side effects I am not aware of, but can you slowly adapt the corals to the current projections of the environmental/microbiomes changes?

These are all just thoughts and not recommendations.

 

[reefingBeAmazin22]

I’ve heard that the amount of corals people take out for our hobby is like 0.001% and that that amount grows back almost immediately and more fish in this world eat corals than we steal them, BUT now climate change...

 

[ichthyogeek]

Examples include:
1) build up of nutrients/pollutants in closed systems and corals still survive
2) large swings in elements
3) elevated/lower temps ( could you slowly increase temp over a year or so to get corals accustom to it? )

Hmmm....so I think you might be confusing corals' natural hardiness with generational hardiness. If the corals were spawned and cultured, then I could see benefit, but the majority, if not all, corals are asexually produced via fragging. While some matter of epigenetics comes into play for sure, without being able to pass those traits on to future offspring (sexual reproduction), those traits are ultimately lost when the individual dies.

1) The ocean is not as pristine as you think it might be. The pollutants corals come into contact with in our home aquaria most likely aren't going to be on the same scale as that within the oceans. Unless you're doing something real weird with diesel/gasoline, the chances of a coral being exposed to, say, the levels of pollutants found within an oil spill, are not very high.

2) The ocean is big. In general, elements within the ocean tend to be incredibly stable. Of course, science progresses, and concepts like the Redfield Ratio (106 C: 16 P: 1 N) can be changed as more research is done. But in general, calcium, magnesium, etc. are not going to change in drastically large amounts as you find in a reef tank. To the best of my knowledge, the ocean doesn't randomly say "I'm going to drop the calcium ppm from 450 to 250 ppm today" like what might happen in a reef tank.

3) So the temp issue IS interesting. Look into Stephen Palumbi (Stanford University). He does some super interesting work on coral heat tolerance. Too much heat means too much zooxanthellae production, which means too many free radicals produced by the zooxanthellae, which means the coral starts ejecting the zooxanthellae to prevent too many free radicals. BUT, the temperatures our tanks typically reach are generally within the living range of corals. I can't remember the last time I heard of a bleaching event in a home tank. Unless somebody on this forum is doing some seriously high temp swings, in which case, I wanna talk to them.

As for lowering oceanic temperatures...yeah, that's probably not gonna happen? What we might see in the future, is the living range of corals going from, say, 6-100 feet, to 60 - 154 feet or so as the ocean temperatures rise. I'd be willing to be that they won't approach the thermocline.

 

[rds85]

Hmmm....so I think you might be confusing corals' natural hardiness with generational hardiness. If the corals were spawned and cultured, then I could see benefit, but the majority, if not all, corals are asexually produced via fragging. While some matter of epigenetics comes into play for sure, without being able to pass those traits on to future offspring (sexual reproduction), those traits are ultimately lost when the individual dies.

1) The ocean is not as pristine as you think it might be. The pollutants corals come into contact with in our home aquaria most likely aren't going to be on the same scale as that within the oceans. Unless you're doing something real weird with diesel/gasoline, the chances of a coral being exposed to, say, the levels of pollutants found within an oil spill, are not very high.

2) The ocean is big. In general, elements within the ocean tend to be incredibly stable. Of course, science progresses, and concepts like the Redfield Ratio (106 C: 16 P: 1 N) can be changed as more research is done. But in general, calcium, magnesium, etc. are not going to change in drastically large amounts as you find in a reef tank. To the best of my knowledge, the ocean doesn't randomly say "I'm going to drop the calcium ppm from 450 to 250 ppm today" like what might happen in a reef tank.

3) So the temp issue IS interesting. Look into Stephen Palumbi (Stanford University). He does some super interesting work on coral heat tolerance. Too much heat means too much zooxanthellae production, which means too many free radicals produced by the zooxanthellae, which means the coral starts ejecting the zooxanthellae to prevent too many free radicals. BUT, the temperatures our tanks typically reach are generally within the living range of corals. I can't remember the last time I heard of a bleaching event in a home tank. Unless somebody on this forum is doing some seriously high temp swings, in which case, I wanna talk to them.

As for lowering oceanic temperatures...yeah, that's probably not gonna happen? What we might see in the future, is the living range of corals going from, say, 6-100 feet, to 60 - 154 feet or so as the ocean temperatures rise. I'd be willing to be that they won't approach the thermocline.

This is the type of information I was looking for. Thank you!

So in the end there would be no significant benefit to using aquaculture corals to repopulate reefs versus other methods.

 

[fish farmer]

Protection of habitat should come first over anything else.

 

[jda]

From what I understand, there is not yet a need to use mari corals to repopulate wild reefs, although some have gotten big enough to sexually spawn, which likely has made some new colonies. In places where death is active, they won't take anyway. In other places, there are wild specimens that are cut into fragments and re-established. I am not a super pro. There is a neat video of some people in the Gulf fragging wild corals and then putting them back into the reefs.

It will take centuries for new reefs to form in cooler places if the current warming is not stabilzed or reversed... so we won't be alive for this and whatever we think today won't likely be true then.

 

[rds85]

From what I understand, there is not yet a need to use mari corals to repopulate wild reefs, although some have gotten big enough to sexually spawn, which likely has made some new colonies. In places where death is active, they won't take anyway. In other places, there are wild specimens that are cut into fragments and re-established. I am not a super pro. There is a neat video of some people in the Gulf fragging wild corals and then putting them back into the reefs.

It will take centuries for new reefs to form in cooler places if the current warming is not stabilzed or reversed... so we won't be alive for this and whatever we think today won't likely be true then.

Very valid point! I think I have actually seen the video you are reefing too. I believe they have also tried/did this in Indo?

Also just realized you are from Boulder and maybe 20 minutes from me. Nice to see some locals on the big forums.