See everything that’s happened since you adopted your coral!
Grab your Mission Guidebook and add a checkmark because the coral you adopted has officially been planted in the 4ocean Nursery! In this impact report, we’ll take you behind the scenes to show you how our friends at Coral Gardeners plant your coral.
STEP 1: Pick a parent colony
Picking a healthy parent colony is the first and most important step for successfully planting coral! The Coral Gardeners team searches for a mature coral colony that appears healthy and shows no signs of stress.
The health and maturity of the parent colony are important because these corals have already withstood bleaching events and other stressors, which means their babies will be more resilient and likely to survive.
STEP 2: Harvest a coral fragment
Since coral skeletons are made of calcium carbonate, a bone cutter is used to quickly snip a small fragment of coral from the mother coral without causing her stress.
To ensure the parent colony continues to thrive, no more than 10% of the colony is harvested at one time.
At this time, your baby coral fragment is about the size of a human finger. (Aww!)
STEP 3: Plant in the nursery
Freshly harvested coral fragments are placed into a bin and taken to the nursery site. Then, each fragment is attached to a rope that’s strung up in our underwater nursery.
This setup creates ideal conditions for the growth of our baby corals. It allows water to flow around the entire fragment, which helps speed up its growth while reducing algal growth. (Sweet dreams, little buddy!)
STEP 4: Collect data and monitor growth
Before they leave the nursery, the Coral Gardeners’ team takes measurements of each baby coral and collects other data points about conditions in the nursery. The data they collect serves as a benchmark for critical coral research.
Over the next few months, Coral Gardeners will continue to check in on your baby coral to make sure it’s growing healthy and strong.
It takes a lot of time and patience to grow coral, so we’ll send another update in the next couple months to let you know how your baby coral is doing. But you can check conditions in the nursery any time you’d like with the ReefOs Dashboard from Coral Gardeners!
Ready to plant more coral?
Complete your Coral Restoration Bracelet Collection and plant all 5 species of coral onto the reef. Already have the full collection? Spread the stoke by gifting a bracelet!