The St. Petersburg Times is running an interesting piece today about an ongoing reef restoration project led by a University of Florida Lab.
The concept is simple and familiar to reef aquarists. Take a healthy coral, break it up or cut it up into small pieces. Attach the pieces to a piece of plastic, concrete or rubble with super glue or epoxy and let them grow and heal for a few weeks. Reefers call it fragging and it's a minor way many try to offset the costs of their hobby / addiction.
This article describes an effort to accomplish this on a massive scale. Instead of growing a few specimens for trade, or even propagating a large number of specimens for agricultural gain. The attempt here is to harvest healthy corals, frag them and distribute the frags on a healthy reef at what basically amounts to an industrial scale.
In the words of Ilze Berzins who is in charge of the effort:
"If we can't come up with answers to our environmental problems, we're not being good stewards."
Read More at The St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/04/13/Brandontimes/A_million_tiny_life_r.shtml
The concept is simple and familiar to reef aquarists. Take a healthy coral, break it up or cut it up into small pieces. Attach the pieces to a piece of plastic, concrete or rubble with super glue or epoxy and let them grow and heal for a few weeks. Reefers call it fragging and it's a minor way many try to offset the costs of their hobby / addiction.
This article describes an effort to accomplish this on a massive scale. Instead of growing a few specimens for trade, or even propagating a large number of specimens for agricultural gain. The attempt here is to harvest healthy corals, frag them and distribute the frags on a healthy reef at what basically amounts to an industrial scale.
In the words of Ilze Berzins who is in charge of the effort:
"If we can't come up with answers to our environmental problems, we're not being good stewards."
Read More at The St. Petersburg Times
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/04/13/Brandontimes/A_million_tiny_life_r.shtml
0 comments:
Post a Comment