Coral Reefs
Coral reefs around the world are dieing because of rising sea tempertures, neglegant tourists and increasing coastal pollution and sedimentation. Coral reefs provide humans with food, tourism, and even protect land from erosion and flooding infact over 50% of the global population directly depend upon coral reefs.
so what is coral?
Coral is infact animal, plant and mineral. The coral polyp is an anemone type animal and can be best seen at night when the coral structure seems hazy or fluffy, the haze are the coral polyps feeding. The coral polyps actually have no colour, but corals are colourful, their colour comes from a symbiotic relationship between the coral polyp and algae growing in the polyp called zooanxthellae. The zooanxthellae actually provide 90% of the polyps energy by photosynthesis. The zooanxthellae on a coral can change daily giving the coral different colours, its like the coral can change its clothes, it changes its zooanxthellae depending on the sea condition. As the polyps grow they multiply and build a solid calcium carbonate structure (hard coral only) they split again creating a colony which we call coral. Coral grows very slowly with large boulder corals growing just a few cm's per year!
Coral BleachingCoral bleaches when it becomes stressed - the zooanxthallae are released making the coral colony go white. The normal reason for coral to become stressed is warm water. Coral generally live in water between 22-28c if the water temperature is above 28oc the coral starts to bleach, if the coral is above 30oc it is common to see bright white coral. If the water is too hot for only a short period the coral can recover however if the temperature of the water is elevated for a long time the coral will die.
At Bubbles we are surveying our house reef conducting the coral watch survey (see www.coralwatch.org for more information). Corals are surveyed every half metre along a 35m transect. The results from the coral watch have shown the coral in our bay to be very light in colour which means the coral is under stress. The main reason for this is warm sea water because when diving on the reef we often have temperatures between 29 to 30oc and heavy sedimentation from coastal developments on the islands and the mainland. Pollution from the Bubbles resort is not a major factor because our nutrient surveys along our river and beach have shown negligable nutrients.
We our surveying our reefs every 2 weeks to monitor the health of our reefs.
Pi Bar ('Perhentian Islands Bubbles Artificial Reef' or 'Peisee Isle Bryan Alan Ronnie')
Looking at what nature has done with raised areas of substrate being colonised with new coral Pei see, Isle Bryan Alan and Ronnie decided to give nature a helpng hand and build the Pi Bars. The Pi Bars are mounds of dead coral substrate which where broken off during the monsoon season. The Pi Bars are at a depth where freshwater from the stream, water temperature is lower and the effects of the monsoon waves are all negliable allowing coral to grow undisturbed. The next step to develop the PiBars was to translocate the most stressed corals in the bay to this safe haven where they could recover and become healthy once again. The Pi Bars have gone from strength to strength with four now built. In 2008 new stressed coral was transplanted onto the PiBars with great success with an increase in fish numbers of 75% on some of them.
The Pi Bars are now home to many fish including a moral eel, box fish and they have become a cleaning station with many Cleaner Wrasse.
To find out more visit our PIBAR page
Whats next?
In June 2009 we are planning to create our own coral farm where a series of ropes will float vertically on the sand flats allowing corals to colonise them. The corals will then be moved to the PIBAR's and natural coral reefs in our bay.
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This site is designed and managed by Peisee Hwang. Any comment or suggestion please write to peisee@bubblesdc.com
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