PSEUDOREEFER
Premium Member
As a few of you know I've built an aquarium at my school Centaurus in Lafayette. Following the donation of a tank I was able to recieve a few grants (The ASK and "classroom mini" grants from Impact on Education as well as a grant from AMGEN). From there I built the aquarium pictured below. It's proved to be a very valuable teaching tool. Between this year and last year (This year when the tank is fully running and last year when the tank was still being built... not that it's not still being built more) there was a nation wide drop of 20% in individual student visits to their school libraries (most school's take statisics on this). At Centaurus there was a 150% rise in student visits 
Concurrently while building the tank I was doing a project on coral bleaching. I found aquarium corals to be more tollerant to bleaching and through my experiments I'm proving why as well as indroducing some techniques that could spread this tollerance to wild corals (ie very good for protecting wild reefs from bleaching).
First off this is a picture of the main aquarium. This houses many of the mother colonies of coral.
Equitpment, Testing and a 150 frag propigation tank are housed in the adjacent room
Here's a picture of the two test setups I used for the tests I've done so far. The first one was a failure in that there was too much water to accurately control the conditions. The second one is the one that was used for the majority of the tests done so far, but it's to be rebuilt again so that I can more accurately control the temperature.
Here's some pictures from Science fair. The first is of my display and the second is of me with the "Best of Show" Trophy.
In short, here's what I've learned from my testing and research (I've learned some great stuff )
From Research
- I don't have time right now to post the original sources (too much writing... plus I would have to walk up and down stairs to look at the board and then write it up here :lol: )
-Coral bleaching tollerances are directly correlated to the Zooxanthellae strain present in their tissues.
-Zooxanthellae and coral distribution coralates to water temperature and Ocean currents
-The Carribean harbors a greater variety of Zooxanthellae while Pacific reefs harbor mainly clade C zooxanthellae strains (there are several clades of Zooxanthellae - BTW - Zooxanthellae is not the correct term. The correct term is Symbiodinium sp. - not symbiodinium Microadriaticum either b/c there are likely over 100 strains and species .... just a random side note).
-Carribean corals experience more frequent, but milder bleaching episodes while Pacific reefs experience less frequent, but far more severe events.
-There are no ocean currents that allow what could be benificial transference of zooxanthellae strains between the Carribean and the Pacific.
-Corals can adopt new Zooxanthellae strains by either absorbing them as planulae from the water column or eating them. Certain recognizer molecules prevent the digestion of zooxanthellae. Instead they are transported directly to the coral's tissues.
From testing
-Aquarium corals are far more tollerant to bleaching conditions than wild corals
-Corals often contain multiple strains of Zooxanthellae (this is from research, but the next part is my own ), but they can sometime preferentially expell weaker strains of Zooxanthellae so that they are better suited for the conditions present
What this means
-Because aquarium coral's (only some aquarium corals btw) bleaching tollerances are so far above any other wild coral it is likely that aquarium coral have a new strain of zooxanthellae that allows them to have these higher tollerance (as corals tollerances are directly related to their Zooxanthellae strain). I will be confirming or denying the existence of a new strain with upcoming DNA tests.
-Strains of zooxanthellae that allow corals to be more resistent to bleach inducing conditions could be cultured (they can be cultured outside of coral btw - done in another project... don't want to walk downstairs to get the name... I'll probably post them later :lol: ) and then indroduced into a coral reef that may be prone to bleaching by adding directly into the water column following a coral spawning event making it likely that the coral planulae present would adopt this new strain and therefore it's bleching tollerances. This will hopefully be tested in practice this summer
Concurrently while building the tank I was doing a project on coral bleaching. I found aquarium corals to be more tollerant to bleaching and through my experiments I'm proving why as well as indroducing some techniques that could spread this tollerance to wild corals (ie very good for protecting wild reefs from bleaching).First off this is a picture of the main aquarium. This houses many of the mother colonies of coral.
Equitpment, Testing and a 150 frag propigation tank are housed in the adjacent room
Here's a picture of the two test setups I used for the tests I've done so far. The first one was a failure in that there was too much water to accurately control the conditions. The second one is the one that was used for the majority of the tests done so far, but it's to be rebuilt again so that I can more accurately control the temperature.
Here's some pictures from Science fair. The first is of my display and the second is of me with the "Best of Show" Trophy.
In short, here's what I've learned from my testing and research (I've learned some great stuff
)From Research
- I don't have time right now to post the original sources (too much writing... plus I would have to walk up and down stairs to look at the board and then write it up here :lol: )
-Coral bleaching tollerances are directly correlated to the Zooxanthellae strain present in their tissues.
-Zooxanthellae and coral distribution coralates to water temperature and Ocean currents
-The Carribean harbors a greater variety of Zooxanthellae while Pacific reefs harbor mainly clade C zooxanthellae strains (there are several clades of Zooxanthellae - BTW - Zooxanthellae is not the correct term. The correct term is Symbiodinium sp. - not symbiodinium Microadriaticum either b/c there are likely over 100 strains and species .... just a random side note).
-Carribean corals experience more frequent, but milder bleaching episodes while Pacific reefs experience less frequent, but far more severe events.
-There are no ocean currents that allow what could be benificial transference of zooxanthellae strains between the Carribean and the Pacific.
-Corals can adopt new Zooxanthellae strains by either absorbing them as planulae from the water column or eating them. Certain recognizer molecules prevent the digestion of zooxanthellae. Instead they are transported directly to the coral's tissues.
From testing
-Aquarium corals are far more tollerant to bleaching conditions than wild corals
-Corals often contain multiple strains of Zooxanthellae (this is from research, but the next part is my own
), but they can sometime preferentially expell weaker strains of Zooxanthellae so that they are better suited for the conditions presentWhat this means
-Because aquarium coral's (only some aquarium corals btw) bleaching tollerances are so far above any other wild coral it is likely that aquarium coral have a new strain of zooxanthellae that allows them to have these higher tollerance (as corals tollerances are directly related to their Zooxanthellae strain). I will be confirming or denying the existence of a new strain with upcoming DNA tests.
-Strains of zooxanthellae that allow corals to be more resistent to bleach inducing conditions could be cultured (they can be cultured outside of coral btw - done in another project... don't want to walk downstairs to get the name... I'll probably post them later :lol: ) and then indroduced into a coral reef that may be prone to bleaching by adding directly into the water column following a coral spawning event making it likely that the coral planulae present would adopt this new strain and therefore it's bleching tollerances. This will hopefully be tested in practice this summer
