Engineering Coral Seeding

We use nets especially designed to collect the coral spawn in the wild. These special nets are constantly being refined to make them easier to use. A diver needs to handle several nets under water during the night dives of the spawning dates, easy handling is therefore key. We are also looking for new solutions to efficiently promote coral restoration, e.g. by combining different restoration approaches such as Coral Seeding with fragmentation. This involves the application of a newly developed Coral Tree Collector, that collects coral spawn from tree-nurseries for coral fragments.

Propagated coral larvae need a place to settle on and transform into a coral polyp. Within our Coral Seeding approach, we use custom designed settlement tiles, so called Seeding Units that can be outplanted effectively. Now, our engineer Miles McGonigle has come up with a new design. The substrate resembles a cross with an extended arm, which lacks the microhabitats attracting coral settlement, and thereby can be easily inserted into reef cracks for attachment. 

SECORE has developed a floating coral crib (aka Coral Rearing In-Situ Basin or CRIB) that allows for the rearing and settling of coral larvae without the need for a land-based culture facility.  The CRIBs not only significantly reduce the cost to start coral breeding efforts, even with limited onsite logistics, but also require less personnel and less specialized training to operate. Further, they potentially allow large scale restoration to be conducted in remote areas, which would not be possible with other methodologies known today.