Message #124
A summary of 2 monitoring dives on Reef Balls in Sarasota county
with state artificial reef Coordinators & various government officials
who are members of the Gulf & Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission
By Todd R. Barber, President, Reef Ball Development Group
On Friday morning, November 12th, the group loaded up on a dive boat
donated by Scuba Quest and headed south to the M-17 Reef Ball reef located
about 9 miles out from Venice Pass. The captain anchored us just south of
the patch of 200+ Reef Balls. First in the water was the “Fish Counters”,
(folks from Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,Division of
Marine Fisheries,Bureau of Marine Fisheries Management) armed with slates
and pencils to document the fish on the Reef Balls. Next was myself and
others with video cameras followed by the rest of the group.
Upon decent, I saw five groupers lined up in the sand curious about the
human visitors to the Reef Balls. It was a sure sign the Reef Balls were
nearby. About twenty swift kicks and soon the Reef Balls appeared. The
first Reef Ball shocked even me, the growth was fantastic. I stuck my
camera inside to get an image of a 12 inch long jewfish. This was the
smallest jewfish I had ever seen, perhaps evidence that they are
reproducing since the protected status was given to them several years
ago. As we approached the central area of Reef Balls, thousands of fish
began to appear…groupers, snappers, amberjacks, hogfish, filefish, and
even tropicals such as Blue Angels, Grey Angels and Beau Gregories. The
fish counters were indeed busy this morning! The growth was the real
shocker still. These Reef Balls were only 3 years old yet every single
Reef Ball harbored lots of hard corals, 14 kinds of tunicates and they
sported oculina corals some over 2 feet tall! Jan Culberson of the Texas
Artificial Reef Program confirmed that indeed, her Texas Reef Ball were
covered in oculina too. Seems oculina corals really love Reef Balls!
(This was important to me because I know efforts are being made to recover
important oculina spawning grounds in 800 feet of water on Flordia’s East
coast which were destroyed by trawling and fishing). Out of the corner of
my eye, I noticed a 70 pound Jewfish hinding in the sand, I filmed the
jewfish as he entered a Reef Ball and stayed despite my camera being only
4 inches from his/her mouth. Still a smaller jewfish, it was nice to see
how much they like the Reef Balls. Later on the boat, Larry Beggs of Reef
Innovations reported playing with a beautiful sea turtle in a Reef Ball.
Others reported seeing beautiful purple and yellow nudibranchs (shell-less
snails) and starfish of various types. Bill Figley of the New Jersey DNR
commented that he was impressed that after 3 years there was no
“Subsidence”
NOTE: Subsidence is a term Artificial Reef managers use to denote when a
material sinks into the sand or mud of the bottom. It was a major concern
because back in the 1980s and early 90s, some artificial reefs were
designed with no bottoms to try to save costs for shipping by stacking
such as the plastic Van Dorin Domes, concrete Grouper Gettos ™ (pyramids),
and the similarly copied Fish Havens ™ (pyramids). These materials were
prone to subsidence since they did not have bottoms. Subsidence can occur
with any material when proper bottom surveys are not conducted. Reef
Balls can be engineered with larger flat bottoms when needed for softer
sands or mud bottoms.
Next we headed north to M-4, Reef Balls and concrete culvert about 6 miles
west of New Pass in Sarasota. We positioned the boat over the “Petey
Reef”, 23 Reef Balls with the cremated remains of Carlton “Petey” Palmer
and slipped into the water. We ended up between “Petey” and the concrete
culverts. We started on the culverts and saw several snappers and some
angelfish. Then we came to the Reef Balls, it was hard to make them out at
first because the menhaden or porgy fish were schooling in the shape of
Reef Balls so thick all I could see were fish. As we approached the Reef
Balls emerged where the schools split to give us a view. Below were
hundred of fish, especially the flounders, groupers, lizard fish,
snappers, Spanish mackerel, king mackerel and a 6 foot barracuda
apparently interested in eating the schooling bait fish. Once again the
growth was fantastic….it looked so much better than the culverts that I
could feel my chest swell with pride. The culverts had been down for 10
years, and these Reef Balls only one, but the Reef Balls actually had
better growth! When we found the main group of Reef Balls, the story was
the same and again I was proud. I followed 3 huge jewfish, one of them
almost 6 feet long as they went back and forth between the Reef Balls and
the culverts obviously claiming all of the reef as there own. I noticed
some experimental Reef Balls with concrete poured inside with secondary
domes and noted that the smallest of fish seemed to like this idea....I
made notes to pass along to future builders of Reef Balls.
Monitoring helps managers, scientists and designers alike to build better
and better Reef Balls....send us your monitoring reports...They are
valuable aids in shaping the future of our world's aquatic habitats!
NOTE: Mr. Barber will be in Guatemala until the 23rd....if needed contact
him through the Reef Ball office.
www.reefball.com
2) Tampa Bay Watch purchased 6 Reef Ball molds yesterday for a sea wall
program in Tampa. The molds will ship this Friday.
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