Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

In order to create new habitat for marine fauna, a project of reef balls had been conducted in Ratatotok Peninsula at North Sulawesi of Indonesia waters (000051?45? Northing, 124044?42? Easting). Around 3000 reef balls were deployed near reef areas in 1999 and 2000. For this study 15 reef balls were slightly modified by adding several little holes on the reef balls surface. View species of hard coral were used as transplants and were attached to the holes. Most of the transplants were chosen from the Acroporids. Lengths of coral transplant were about 5-8 cm. After 14 years, most of transplants were successfully developed. The average of colony diameters transplanted on the reef ball was 1,875 m. It was found in this study that even Acropora grandies, which could not be found to attach on regular reef balls, was successfully developed as transplant. As a conclusion, it can be said that hard coral transplant will developed successfully on reef ball. Besides, hard coral species which by nature avoid settling on regular reef ball, will grow well as transplant on the modified reef ball.

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