Engineering Coral Seeding

We utilize specially designed nets to collect coral spawn in the wild, ensuring efficient coral spawning collection for restoration efforts. These special nets are constantly being refined to make them easier to use. A diver needs to handle several nets under water during the night dives of the spawning dates, easy handling is therefore key. To advance coral reef restoration, we are developing innovative solutions that combine restoration techniques such as Coral Seeding with fragmentation. One such advancement is the Coral Tree Collector, a newly developed tool that gathers coral spawn from tree nurseries alongside coral fragments.

Propagated coral larvae need a place to settle on and transform into a coral polyp. Within our Coral Seeding approach, we use custom designed settlement tiles, so called Seeding Units that can be outplanted effectively. Now, our engineer Miles McGonigle has come up with a new design. The substrate resembles a cross with an extended arm, which lacks the microhabitats attracting coral settlement, and thereby can be easily inserted into reef cracks for attachment. 

SECORE has developed a floating coral crib (aka Coral Rearing In-Situ Basin or CRIB) that allows for the rearing and settling of coral larvae without the need for a land-based culture facility.  The CRIBs not only significantly reduce the cost to start coral breeding efforts, even with limited onsite logistics, but also require less personnel and less specialized training to operate. Further, they potentially allow large scale coral reef restoration to be conducted in remote areas, which would not be possible with other methodologies known today.