Scuba-Blue-13
Contributor
While I am impressed with Cousteau's involvement, and I sincerely hope that I am completely wrong about the 3D printed reef's effectiveness, I notice that I can't find anything referring to the success of the only existing 3D printed reef already deployed.
The article linked above references Bahrain, and in researching a little more, it sounds like they printed a single coral structure made of sandstone, and deployed it among several hundred other sandstone pieces. I can't find any literature or documentation that it has attracted or grown any coral since 2012.
The premise is great, "if we make it look like an established reef it will attract other coral, fish, inverts, etc." and I suspect that it will attract fish and other life, I'm just not so sure it's going to attract coral in any more rapid or successful fashion than dropping a $4 cinder block would.
The article linked above references Bahrain, and in researching a little more, it sounds like they printed a single coral structure made of sandstone, and deployed it among several hundred other sandstone pieces. I can't find any literature or documentation that it has attracted or grown any coral since 2012.
The premise is great, "if we make it look like an established reef it will attract other coral, fish, inverts, etc." and I suspect that it will attract fish and other life, I'm just not so sure it's going to attract coral in any more rapid or successful fashion than dropping a $4 cinder block would.
