Homemade reef...

[Clay-Doh]

Quote:

In my area, there are at least 200 of those PUBLICLY deployed with the GPS numbers listed. Not counting all the private ones that people have deployed.

We also have piles of army tanks, airplanes, old concrete bridge rubble piles, and more manmade reefs like that one in the picture, and every other configuration.

IMO, any ocean dumping for the purpose of artificial reef production should follow long term ecological guidelines specific to that locale.
You are right. And they are very particular and there is a 10 page document outlining the rules for making and deploying your own private reefs, and they must be inspected permitted first. Also there is a designated area in the Gulf that is the only allowable place to deploy them. And as far as the ones they publicly deploy, they are EXTREMELY enviromently safe.




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And of course, the larges artificial reef in the world...the USS Oriskany aircraft carrier. There are some pictures of it in my picture gallery link below. With the flag, and POW~MIA flag.

Fish can't read, PR doesn't impress them, just the tourists. Barnacles are non-political, they'll attach to anything in the sea that isn't freshly coated with toxic "marine paint".
Actually I think the flags that are maintained and replaced on a regular basis are more for the proud service men who served on the Oriskany, including for the many men who lost there lives aboard the ship during the combat it saw during several wars. Some of the retired service men where there for the sinking.
Also, there has been 2 Discovery Channel specials on the Oriskany, and the first one was entirely about preparing the ship for sinking, at a cost of millions of tax payers dollars to completely remove all paint, hydrolic fluids, toxic chemicals, rubbers and plastics, residues, ect. It was in port for a year that I can rember during the preperation.




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We are fortunate that our county and state goverment put so much into our artificial reef program. And let us deploy our own permitted reefs.

Is that the same government that built the rubber reefs?
Don't know who that would be or how long ago, but no. Here rubber, plastic, toxics, ect. are NOT allowed.

 

[poacher]

What is wrong with rubber tyres as a building material for a reef ?
what is illegal now probably was thought of as a good thing to do 20 or 30 years ago. I remember my Grandmas old book on helpful hints had a doctor recomending a bit of arsenic as a good tonic to take daily to improve your health.
Defintaley not recomnded now guys so do not try it.
Peter

 

[wet]

I think even smooth porcelain will be grown upon eventually. It depends whether it is sheltered enough.

Mussels settle and form beds on sheet glass. (I've done it in the lab).

I'm thinking of those toilets in the Red Sea, they looked completely scrubbed smooth, and I think they've been there a while, not sure about the current speed, but I'd think if that was typical rock they would have been covered quickly.

Yeah, mussels have super glue L-Dopa to attach to anything, and since they filter feed they don't need to get food from the ground. Sheet-glass is made from sand, is non-toxic and chemically inert in seawater, doesn't have cubbyholes for crustaceans and fish.

 

[wet]

What is wrong with rubber tyres as a building material for a reef ?
what is illegal now probably was thought of as a good thing to do 20 or 30 years ago. I remember my Grandmas old book on helpful hints had a doctor recomending a bit of arsenic as a good tonic to take daily to improve your health.
Defintaley not recomnded now guys so do not try it.
Peter

The rubber reef project stacked and chained thousands of rubber tires together in a concentrated mass quantity fashion. Storms broke the chains, tires moved all over substrate. I don't know if they leached chemicals into the water, but rubber is cured with sulfur from rubber tree sap. Sulfur compounds released into the marine water might produce a local acid rain effect, not sure. Tree saps tend to be insecticidal, since they protect the tree from damaging insects, which are related to crustaceans, both have similar nerve systems. I just don't know if this is a problem, but I wouldn't assume it isn't, especially regarding large quantities.

I'd think an iron tetrahedron with a cured concrete base (with holes/tunnels in the concrete for critters and to lighten it a bit) would be well secured, a storm wouldn't move it around.


IIRC arsenic gave the cheeks a pink flush, giving a healthy appearance in an unhealthy way. Also I think it was used to kill various tapeworms in the gut, but the quantity had to be just right, else convulsions would occur. Nowadays, better methods exist.

 

[wet]

Quote:

In my area, there are at least 200 of those PUBLICLY deployed with the GPS numbers listed. Not counting all the private ones that people have deployed.

We also have piles of army tanks, airplanes, old concrete bridge rubble piles, and more manmade reefs like that one in the picture, and every other configuration.

IMO, any ocean dumping for the purpose of artificial reef production should follow long term ecological guidelines specific to that locale.
You are right. And they are very particular and there is a 10 page document outlining the rules for making and deploying your own private reefs, and they must be inspected permitted first. Also there is a designated area in the Gulf that is the only allowable place to deploy them. And as far as the ones they publicly deploy, they are EXTREMELY enviromently safe.

Sensible.

Quote:

And of course, the larges artificial reef in the world...the USS Oriskany aircraft carrier. There are some pictures of it in my picture gallery link below. With the flag, and POW~MIA flag.

Fish can't read, PR doesn't impress them, just the tourists. Barnacles are non-political, they'll attach to anything in the sea that isn't freshly coated with toxic "marine paint".
Actually I think the flags that are maintained and replaced on a regular basis are more for the proud service men who served on the Oriskany, including for the many men who lost there lives aboard the ship during the combat it saw during several wars. Some of the retired service men where there for the sinking.
Also, there has been 2 Discovery Channel specials on the Oriskany, and the first one was entirely about preparing the ship for sinking, at a cost of millions of tax payers dollars to completely remove all paint, hydrolic fluids, toxic chemicals, rubbers and plastics, residues, ect. It was in port for a year that I can rember during the preperation.

They did it right. Here in northern California Humboldt Bay, the shipyards, power plants and pulp mills used lots of toxic chemicals, and dumped a lot of crud in the bay. Now mariculturalists are growing oysters in the bay. Every rainy season storm swishes the substrate around and channel dredging mucks up the water. Normally a little dredging is great, moves the nutrients around, but too much overwhelms and buries the critters. There aren't any easy answers now, and the costs aren't going down.

Quote:

We are fortunate that our county and state goverment put so much into our artificial reef program. And let us deploy our own permitted reefs.

Is that the same government that built the rubber reefs?
Don't know who that would be or how long ago, but no. Here rubber, plastic, toxics, ect. are NOT allowed.

Sounds like a solution.

 

[wet]

Problem with rubber tire reefs

Statement on Tires as Artificial Reefs For Malaysia by Dr

 

[wet]

I was not suggesting you leave them there...
Thats why the buoys are attached, so you can remove them.

Concrete is pretty nasty stuff... Exudes a host of nasty chemicals.

According to the Reefball site, regular concrete has pH of 12 (very alkaline) while seawater pH is 8.3 and pure freshwater is 7. They use a special type of silica (sand) that makes their concrete reefballs pH the same as sea water, supposed to last 500 years if not in the surf zone.

 

[wet]

The reefball foundation seems to do it right, good info at the site:

Reefball Asia Sdn Bhd - Home
Reef Ball Foundation Inc. Services Division Internet Brochure

They aren't actually balls, they're cone-domes, hollow with holes in the concrete walls, and concrete base for weight. Water current flows through the holes and out the center hole so nutrients keep flowing. Good idea. Corals can be pre-attached as starter seed, fast growing.

They are only on the shore bottom, on sand/rock, to stay anchored during storms.

They also make mangrove nursery reefballs, anti-trawler-net reefs, lobster reefs, oyster reefs, specific fish reefs etc.

I wonder about adding that electrolysis method I mentioned earlier here to a bunch of reefballs, speed up coral growth a bit. Or perhaps add a bit of iron & copper, to give an electrical differential and add Fe & Cu ions to the water? Iron rebar in the concrete apparently weakens it, but perhaps if it wasn't in the concrete it would be ok.

In cooler deeper water, and on seamounts, I'd like to see about making space frames attached to reefballs, to add vertical height, rather than just on the shallowest sea shores. This puts corals below the sunlit surface water which is apparently getting too warm these days, causing bleaching in many tropical shallow reefs.

One problem is that the reef building people seem to want to concentrate them together, like 50 reefballs right next to each other. That's too many critters, not enough food or oxygen in the water for that high concentration, especially in blue waters. The reefballs should be more loosely distributed, say a group of 3 -5 regular reefballs + one lobster-layered reefball, or 3 + a octopus pot + an oyster ball.

See the eco-rig post, that too would be cool, mixed with reefballs.

 

[wet]

Tsunami worst where coral/mangrove/dunes were removed

On the Ground and in the Water, Tracing a Giant Wave’s Path - New York Times