MolaMola
Supporting Member
From students:
“Hello reef experts,
If Our group is in Ms. Horne's Period 1 Aquatic Studies. We are doing a project to make a tree shape to grow frags on in the ocean. Next week we will put woods in saltwater to see what happens to the wood and water. We are also going to hang frags into our big tank to see how they grow compared to gluing on rocks and cement stands or sitting on the sand. [Note: Sitting on the sand is the worst because frags blow upside down, sand gets on it and scrapes it, and urchins can carry them away.] We will try the main tree trunk as bamboo and have to test a lot of matter for the floats.
My group thinks we should make the side tree branches not just wasted to hold "branching" corals hanging down. We think you can also grow "encrusting" corals on the tree branches like ones we have growing on rocks and a millennium falcon. Then when they are ready you can cut up the side branches and place them on the real reef too. Or leave them whole. Our hypothesis is encrusting coral has chemicals to keep algie away from between the branching corals you plant on the reef. We want the sunlight for photosynthesis to go to the corals zooxanthellae instead of to algie.
We know from a model we made of food items that polyps grow from the corallite skeleton (represented by cracker) made of "calcium carbonate". In our frag tank a group adds 20 mL of "#1 AKALINITY" and "#2 CALCIUM" to put chemicals in the water to build skeleton and in the big tank pumping machines do it. We grow frags on dead skeletons, shells, rocks, and cement stands and we think that is a better base than wood for encrusting corals in our project. We did some research but can't find information and our teacher does not know besides rock, shells, and coral skeletons, do you know what matter or substances coral frags might grow on that you can make into a branch shape to go on a bamboo trunk? We are getting pumice to try as floats and might test it as side branch too.
Thank you very much for your suggestions and help with our project. Also thank you for trading our frags with Ms. Horne and helping us with equipment and problems. We are taking care of the new frags in a quarentine tank and carefully soaked, toothbrushed, squirted, and rinsed them. We broke 2 but they are ok like smaller frags. We will better thank the generous reef friend who gave us the HUGE pink bird nest braching coral later. From, Group Narwhals “
From me: Unfortunately I could not attend the rock building workshop and cannot find the thread about it. Is there some sort of material we can use in a form to make lightweight rods or plates out of some rocklike material? I’m guessing corals do not grow well on wood and it would not be suitable for transplanting to a reef.
“Hello reef experts,
If Our group is in Ms. Horne's Period 1 Aquatic Studies. We are doing a project to make a tree shape to grow frags on in the ocean. Next week we will put woods in saltwater to see what happens to the wood and water. We are also going to hang frags into our big tank to see how they grow compared to gluing on rocks and cement stands or sitting on the sand. [Note: Sitting on the sand is the worst because frags blow upside down, sand gets on it and scrapes it, and urchins can carry them away.] We will try the main tree trunk as bamboo and have to test a lot of matter for the floats.
My group thinks we should make the side tree branches not just wasted to hold "branching" corals hanging down. We think you can also grow "encrusting" corals on the tree branches like ones we have growing on rocks and a millennium falcon. Then when they are ready you can cut up the side branches and place them on the real reef too. Or leave them whole. Our hypothesis is encrusting coral has chemicals to keep algie away from between the branching corals you plant on the reef. We want the sunlight for photosynthesis to go to the corals zooxanthellae instead of to algie.
We know from a model we made of food items that polyps grow from the corallite skeleton (represented by cracker) made of "calcium carbonate". In our frag tank a group adds 20 mL of "#1 AKALINITY" and "#2 CALCIUM" to put chemicals in the water to build skeleton and in the big tank pumping machines do it. We grow frags on dead skeletons, shells, rocks, and cement stands and we think that is a better base than wood for encrusting corals in our project. We did some research but can't find information and our teacher does not know besides rock, shells, and coral skeletons, do you know what matter or substances coral frags might grow on that you can make into a branch shape to go on a bamboo trunk? We are getting pumice to try as floats and might test it as side branch too.
Thank you very much for your suggestions and help with our project. Also thank you for trading our frags with Ms. Horne and helping us with equipment and problems. We are taking care of the new frags in a quarentine tank and carefully soaked, toothbrushed, squirted, and rinsed them. We broke 2 but they are ok like smaller frags. We will better thank the generous reef friend who gave us the HUGE pink bird nest braching coral later. From, Group Narwhals “
From me: Unfortunately I could not attend the rock building workshop and cannot find the thread about it. Is there some sort of material we can use in a form to make lightweight rods or plates out of some rocklike material? I’m guessing corals do not grow well on wood and it would not be suitable for transplanting to a reef.
