Nursery Maintenance and Monitoring Please always budget/plan/schedule monthly maintenance and monitoring trips for your nurseries! Depending on growth rates at your sites, corals must be trimmed every 6- 11 months or else they become very heavy and compromise the nursery. Regular maintenance includes checking the stability of structures and cable ties. Cable ties can become brittle over time and need replacing (especially on ID tags). Algae removal from corals/nurseries is essential, especially in warmer months. Use a lobster or gardening glove, and cover up, as stinging hydroids also grow on the nurseries (non-lethal, but uncomfortable itching!) A great job for volunteers!
J Monitoring (photographs and underwater slates for data collection) includes survivorship, growth rates, bleaching and/or disease events, recording biodiversity (macro and micro fauna recruiting to or utilizing the nurseries) and in-situ temperature loggers. Nursery monitoring details follow on next page with photos: survival, growth, bleaching, disease, biodiversity, and in situ temperature. Figures 1. Removing algae from ropes, 2. Macro-algae on table.
Materials Camera (software, laptop, external drive) Slate and pencils Ruler or small measuring tape Gloves Knife, and wire or tooth brush Cable ties/clippers or scissors Temperature loggers (and shuttle and software) 1 2 Macro-algae should be removed from the nurseries, even if it is not around live coral. Mariko Wallen removing algae growth from ropes with a lobster glove. 11