Save The Reef

10 Easy Steps to Help Protect Coral Reefs

Do you want to make a difference every day? Want to learn about simple, effective actions you can take to help save coral reefs and the fish, animals, and plants that depend on them? You've come to the right place!

1. Conserve water: The less water you use, the less runoff and wastewater will pollute our oceans.
2. Help reduce pollution: Walk, bike or ride the bus. Fossil fuel emissions from cars and industry raise lead to ocean warming which causes mass-bleaching of corals and can lead to widespread destruction of reefs.
3. Use only ecological or organic fertilizers: Although you may live thousands of miles from a coral reef ecosystem, these products flow into the water system, pollute the ocean, and can harm coral reefs and marine life.
4. Dispose of your trash properly: Don't leave unwanted fishing lines or nets in the water or on the beach. Any kind of litter pollutes the water and can harm the reef and the fish.
5. Support reef-friendly businesses: Ask the fishing, boating, hotel, aquarium, dive or snorkeling operators how they protect the reef. Be sure they care for the living reef ecosystem and ask if the organization responsible is part of a coral reef ecosystem management effort.
6. Plant a tree: Trees reduce runoff into the oceans. You will also contribute to reversing the warming of our planet and the rising temperatures of our oceans.
7. Practice safe and responsible diving and snorkeling: Do not touch the reef or anchor your boat on the reef. Contact with the coral will damage the delicate coral animals, and anchoring on the reef can kill it, so look for sandy bottom or use moorings if available.
8. Volunteer for a coral reef cleanup: You don't live near a coral reef? Then do what many people do with their vacation: visit a coral reef. Spend an afternoon enjoying the beauty of one of the most diverse ecosystems on the Earth.
9. Contact your government representatives: Demand they take action to protect coral reefs, stop sewage pollution of our oceans, expand marine protected areas and take steps to reverse global warming.
10. Spread the word: Remember your own excitement at learning how important the planet's coral reefs are to us and the intricate global ecosystem. Share this excitement and encourage others to get involved. Send a free coral reef e-card today!

Break-Down of How Corals Grow

Corals use many reproductive strategies, but it now seems that nearly all large, reef building species release millions of gametes once a year, in precisely synchronized mass-spawning rituals. These spectacular displays allow the stationary animals to mix genetically and to disperse offspring over great distances. Such a copious delivery system is also believed to maximize the chances of fertilization, and at the same time overwhelm predators with more food than they can possibly consume. The exact cues triggering the annual phenomenon remain unclear. They are generally believed to be linked to water temperatures as well as the lunar, tidal, and twenty-four hour light cycles.

coral
Releasing Eggs
A few mass-spawners, known as gonochoric species, have separate male and female colonies, and depending on their sex, either release sperm or eggs, which, with luck, will cross fertilize somewhere in the vast water column. Most broadcasters, however, are hermaphrodites (both sexes occurring in each individual coral animal, or polyp). Such polyps once a year package both sperm and eggs into near little pink bundles that are expelled to the caprice of the currents when a biological clock strikes.

coral
Coral Smoking
(Releasing Sperm)
Fertilization, which is possibly aided by sperm attractants, produces planulae larvae that are able to free-swim by day two. Now, in the grasp of tides and currents, the tiny new coral embarks on a grand voyage that can last for months and carry it hundreds of miles from its origin. If the speck of life somehow survives the ever-hungry mouths of plankton-pickers, filter-feeders, and jelly plankton, it will one day mysteriously sense suitable hard substrate below, settle, and begin producing a tiny calcium skeleton – the genesis of a great coral colony that could live for hundreds of years.

Coral Spawning and Cool Info

If you have ever wanted to see how corals spawn, giant Tridacna, and awesome jellyfish from the Caribbean and The Great Barrier Reef, this link some really good information.

By the way, SUPPORT AQUA-CULTURED AND MARI-CULTURED CORAL!!

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/invertebrates-animals/other-invertebrates/coralreef_spawning.html

Coral Reefs

Coral reefs

Scientists predict that 70 per cent of the world’s coral reefs may well be destroyed over the next 20-40 years, unless we stop cyanide fishing, pollution, sewage, erosion and clumsy tourism.

Coral reefs are one of the most diverse ecosystems on our planet, rivalling that of the tropical rainforest. They have been built over thousands of years (some of the oldest reefs began growing about 25 million years ago) by tiny calcium-producing organisms, and are a haven for thousands of life forms. The coral reefs are unique in that living examples from nearly every group of organisms, representing a billion years of evolution, can be found there. In spite of this, we have spent less time exploring the world’s oceans than we have the surface of the moon.

Corals are classified as Cnidaria. They share the class Anthozoa with sea anemones, sea pens and sea pansies. Of the 6,000 known anthozoan species, 2,500 are corals. Corals are found in all oceans of the world, from the tropics to polar regions, to depths of 6,000m (19,700ft).

Reef-building corals are generally found at depths of less than 46m (150ft), where sunlight penetrates. These corals have a symbiotic relationship with algae and need sunlight to grow and thrive. Clear water, where light reaches the algae that promote polyp calcification, speeds growth. Reef-building corals require warm ocean temperatures of 20-28 degrees centigrade.

Warm water flows along the Eastern shores of major land masses and reef development is generally more abundant in areas that are subject to strong wave action. Waves carry nutrients and oxygen to the reef as well as distributing coral larvae and preventing harmful sediments from settling on the reef. Precipitation of calcium from the water is necessary to form a coral polyp’s skeleton. This precipitation occurs when water temperature and salinity are high and carbon dioxide concentrations are low, conditions typical of shallow, warm tropical waters.

Types of coral reef
Fringing reefs - which border the coast closely
Barrier reefs - which are separated from the land by a lagoon
Atolls - which develop at or near the surface of the sea when islands that are surrounded by reefs subside.

Feeding
Reef building corals rely on the photosynthetic products of algae. They also eat zooplankton which they capture with their tentacles and trap in mucus. They feed mostly at night.

Reproduction
Both sexual and asexual - by budding, fragmentation and mass spawning. The resulting zygotes develop into larvae which attach themselves to a suitable substrate. Some species brood their larvae, the sperm fertilises the eggs before they are released and they float to the top, settle and become another colony.

Conservation
Coral reefs cover less than 0.2 per cent of the ocean floor, but contain approximately 25 per cent of the ocean’s species. Almost 5,000 species of reef fish have been identified as well as more than 2,500 species of coral itself, of which almost 1,000 are reef-building. The calcium carbonate from sand, shells and coral maintains the pH balance in the ocean, which in turn maintains life within it.

What corals do for us
Corals provide shore lines with protection by breaking up wave action. They serve as nurseries for growing fish and give food, shelter and protection to a variety of marine species. They supply a protein source to the diets of coastal peoples and provide jobs through fishing and tourism. Corals provide a good source of medicine against a variety of illnesses and give us a wondrous underwater world to study and enjoy.

What we do for corals
In return, we pollute them with sewage, fertilisers and pesticides. We fish them in destructive ways through overfishing, chemicals and use of damaging equipment. We mine them with explosives and they can become smothered by the silt resulting from logging, increasing land use and development. We anchor and ground boats on them, step on them, drag dive gear over them and chop them down for jewelery and coffee table curios.

-BBC-Science & Nature

Wanna See Acropora Grow?

Crecimiento Acropora Species and GIANT table Acros.!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSesUvZ1og0