Neptune Aquatics

Class Question - Frag Substrate

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.
 
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From my experience-

  • I have had SPS coral attach and grow on to the Acrylic Walls of my tank, and as well on Plastic Plugs.
  • Wild SPS corals will grow on metal too as shown from examples as old ships sunken to be used as artificial reefs.
  • I have never seen any coral grow on wood, so it will be interesting to see your tests. Be careful as wood can leach out a change the water chemistry, depending on the type of wood. I have had Chop Sticks (bamboo) I use to pick up fallen frags I can't reach, stay in my tank for weeks ( fell in when I wasn't looking). They did not warp at all, and no algae even grew on it. Not sure if that helps or not.
Good luck.
 
Fiberglass reinforced rods like they sell at Tap Plastics are good to allow you to make structures in ways that defy gravity. As for wood, my first concern would be tanins that leech into the water, that said corals can and will grow on pretty much anything I'd guess as long as there isn't any sort of chemical barrier that is preventing it, a quick google shows corals growing on mangrove roots

https://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2010/04/mang6desLG.jpg

now how ideal that is, I couldn't tell you, but it is possible.
 
My suggestion is simple 1/2" PVC pipe.
1) Sand it to make a rough surface.
2) Cut it lengthwise in half, quarter, or whatever, if you want smaller strips.
3) If you heat it with a simple heat gun, it bends easily, and locks in shape when dipped in water.
(Be careful - hot)
4) You can use standard PVC fittings for branches and so on.
5) If you want to make it look nice, epoxy sand to it.
 
Thanks for the responses. #1 priority for this challenge is no plastic, although it was not included in first post.
@Apon mentioned some interesting points. Totally forgot about steel ship reefs. Weird. I would think coral could never grow directly on metal, but it does. I don't think we'll be using metal, though.
The ideas about chopsticks and mangroves are interesting. I thought coral would not grow on those and wood couldn't be placed in a natural reef, but maybe so. We will get testing - the lack of algae growth would be a huge benefit.
 
No plastic is a pretty serious limitation...
:)

Coral may not grow on wood, but it would grow on things attached to wood.
Glue on bits of rock?
Stainless pan-head screws or lag bolts?

Does the school have a kiln?
You could put clay around stainless wire.
 
Doh! I misread @Apon and thought he had coral grow on wood with no algae. No, bummer!
We do have a kiln. Students ruled out clay as a time consuming process and too fragile. That's why I was wondering about fake rock material we could place in molds and how fragile it is. The simpler and cheaper, the better, so more growout structures could be put into use with the design. We are looking for something that can be made reliably, transported, etc. After coral skeletons, a group worked on how to glue on sand. Again, wood or something would be underneath, so just plain rocklike stuff would be better, like ceramic rods. Plus, they think glue is impractical and possibly in the plastic category.
We had to get ready for a field trip so took a few days off from this, so we'll see where we're at next week.
 
in addition, I have used tooth picks and rubber bands to hold down Leather corals...even to stab them. The leather corals never attached to the wooden tooth picks. Even after months. ( nor did they attach to rubber bands) Not sure if that helps.
 
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