215 Reef Balls were deployed in 2001 off of Venice Beach, Florida by Coastal Reef Builders, Inc. (modules built by Reef Innovations Inc.). According to Dale Minnick, "the deployment when perfectly, seas were very calm." The Reef Balls are in the very center of the M-11 artificial reef site and offer the first deeper water Reef Ball location in Sarasota County (70 feet).
Monitoring Report:
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”
215 Reef Balls were deployed last weekend off of Venice Beach, Florida by Coastal Reef Builders, Inc. (modules built by Reef Innovations Inc.). According to Dale Minnick, "the deployment when perfectly, seas were very calm." The Reef Balls are in the very center of the M-11 (M17?) artificial reef site and offer the first deeper water Reef Ball location in Sarasota County (70 feet).
