Reef Research

[tim8111]

If you wanted to see a scientific experiment or research project or other beneficial plan to help the reefs and better our understanding; What would you like to see?

Thanks,
Tim

[pledosophy]

I would like to see a study done on how fast anaerobic bacteria colonizes in the interior of dead rock and under what conditions it does best in. Would not be to expensive but would take some time.

Another idea would be to see how ceratian corals or algaes do under different photoperiods. Algaes would be the cheapest and fairly easy, just need some tank.

Might also be nice to see if feeding fish foods with higher proteins leads then to digest more protein, or just poop it out.

Another fun one coudl be to see if after a coral bleaches you could introduce other colors of zooanxthele algaes to change the color of the coral (making a green coral blue) and if future growth would keep that color.

HTH

[greenbean36191]

Another fun one coudl be to see if after a coral bleaches you could introduce other colors of zooanxthele algaes to change the color of the coral (making a green coral blue) and if future growth would keep that color.

Most of the experiments you mention have already been done. When corals bleach they can and do take up different strains of zooxanthellae, but zooxanthellae are brown. Aside from shades of brown, coral color isn't a result of zooxanthellae.

So is the original question a hypothetical or are you actually planning to do the research? If you plan to do it, what kind of resources do you have? If I had infinite time and money I'd want to see if crown of thorns starfish have substantially higher recruitment in outbreak areas during outbreak years. Any easier, but still interesting question would be how does light acclimation affect the tolerance of thermal stress in corals?

[tim8111]

Originally posted by greenbean36191
So is the original question a hypothetical or are you actually planning to do the research? If you plan to do it, what kind of resources do you have?

It is not hypohetical, I am in the process of converting my for profit retail into a nonprofit research. I had a friend of mine donate about $100K plus a small 27' boat that is less than a year old, to start the nonprofit.

I will be done with the website soon. I want this to be a great nonprofit, of course the only way that can happen is by the support of the general public and grants.

I am currently looking at a larger boat to conduct longer experiments at sea. But until then we are concentrating on more captive based experiments.


On another note, I know a lot of these experiments have been done. I plan on using the scientific method and then publishing the results on the web in a pdf document. This way these experiments are uniform in all aspects.

Thanks,
Tim

[useskaforevil]

there was something about very low electric currents stimulating coral growth. would be cool to have some replication, or even better a better explenation as to why that happens. and if/how we could get the same benefits at home.

[pledosophy]

Originally posted by greenbean36191
Most of the experiments you mention have already been done.

Links?

If I had an unlimited amount of money I would research the cause of Gas bubble disease in seahorses. It occurs only in aquariums and there is no known cause. They don't even know what the gas is, just many many theories.