FEBRUARY 2022
BREAKING NEWS:
CORAL BATTLES WITH MONSTER HAIRY ALGAE!
Hey, Wavemakers!
Another month goes by and another month of growth for your corals!
Have a look at their progress here. See if you can spot the individual corals growing over the cable ties!
Also, have a look at this video to get an idea of how large our site is getting! Thanks to your contributions, it's going to get even bigger in time to come!
As of today, this is where we stand:
848
REEF STARS PLANTED
555
M² OF CORALS REGROWN
15,264
CORAL FRAGMENTS PLANTED
Unfortunately, this month we noticed quite a bit of algae growth on the reef stars.
There were other areas that you won't see in your photos with large patches of blue and purple hair algae. We had to manually remove these from all over our site.
Check out these videos to get an idea of the problem that the corals face. You'll see the hairy purple algae and also brown fluffy algae on some of the reef stars and covering the seabed. It's crazy how quickly these grow!
This is a common issue that we have every few months. I'm not exactly sure this relates to the agricultural cycle, but algal blooms like these are normally caused by excess fertilizer runoff from the fields that comes down to the ocean with the rains.
In really bad times, we've seen hundreds of square metres of reef covered with this invasive species of algae.
What's bad about them is that they grow really fast with the extra nutrients in the water, and they can smother live coral really quickly, killing the coral in the process.
Over time, when all these algae die, they decompose, taking up oxygen in the water, and potentially creating dead zones in a process called eutrophication.
Luckily, Bali is blessed with fast-flowing currents, so the problem doesn't get that bad. The algae get blown off sometimes and eaten by the herbivorous fish in the area. Plus, the water flow is good, reducing the potential for dead zones to form.
That being said, nothing beats regular maintenance for getting rid of this invasion of algae and helping your corals to grow big and strong enough to survive the onslaught of the algae.
That's why we head out every 2 weeks or more to the site, making sure that the algae problem doesn't get too bad by removing some of it before they can overtake the corals.
Solving the root problem (fertilizers) is another big issue altogether, and will be greatly helped by the use of organic instead of chemical fertilizers.
Till next month for another update on the growth of your corals!
FISH ARE FRIENDS!
WOULD YOU LET YOUR FRIENDS BE HOMELESS?
DONATE AND GIVE YOUR FRIENDS A HOME!
100% Privacy. We Will Never Spam You!
© PT Livingseas Explorers Indonesia. All Rights Reserved.