{"id":2625,"date":"2024-07-05T22:14:17","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T22:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juarascubaacademy.com\/?p=2625"},"modified":"2024-09-15T08:18:54","modified_gmt":"2024-09-15T08:18:54","slug":"underwater-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juarascubaacademy.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/05\/underwater-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Underwater Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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With so much beauty under the waves around Tioman Island we thought we would talk a little about one of the things that makes our little island so very special, it\u2019s coral Reefs!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Surrounded by Captivating Coral<\/strong><\/p>

We are surrounded by fringing coral reefs that can be found at many locations around the coastal waters of Tioman. Here in Juara we are lucky to have shallow coastal coral reefs, sloping coral gardens, secrete coral spots, Drop offs, bouldering coral outcrops and deeper water pinnacle reefs. Each collection of coral houses specific species that have adapted to live in each unique ecosystem.<\/p>

The many different hard coral species create the structures, the building blocks, of these underwater cities exploding with life.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Our NGO Reef Tribes has set up a coral resilience and education project, taking corals of opportunity, broken fragments of coral, from the reef and attaching them to our underwater structures that stimulate growth. We clean, measure and monitor these pieces before replanting them back onto the reef system. In the afternoons I will pop down to our coral nursery to check on our coral \u2018babies\u2019 often taking interested divers with me on this shore dive.<\/p>

We love our nursery as it has turned into a thriving ecosystem within itself. There is so much macro there we can often get distracted by beautiful nudibranch, exciting little shrimps and coral crabs as well as larger species such as cowtail rays, Trevally, puffer fish and groupers that now call this new site their home. We often get visits from large schools of squid and had a nesting pair of cuttlefish choose this site for their eggs last season, soooo fascinating to watch the whole process!<\/p>

Conservation is one of the core pillars of our business and so we focus heavily on coral resilience, reef monitoring, workshops, and education courses to highlight the importance and fragility of these complex ecosystems so crucial to ocean health.<\/p>

Through Reef Tribes, our reef resilience NGO, we work with the local community and our wider \u2018family\u2019 spreading information about these ocean \u2018life-spots\u2019 and the ways in which we can help their survival long into the future.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Complex Colonisation of Coral<\/strong><\/p>

But today we wanted to start at the beginning and talk a little about what a Coral Reef actually is!<\/p>

Coral has two ways in which it reproduces, sexually through Coral Spawning events and asexually through individual polyp cloning. This interesting secondary reproduction method makes this animal quite unique.<\/p>

Upon settlement of a coral polyp a magical process starts. The coral polyp starts to sequencer Calcium Carbonate from the water column and begins to form an exoskeleton, this hard outer layer is crucial to the survival of the coral, its colony, and acts as the base of the WHOLE coral reef.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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Coral has two ways in which it reproduces, sexually through Coral Spawning events and asexually through individual polyp cloning. This interesting secondary reproduction method makes this animal quite unique.<\/p>

Upon settlement of a coral polyp a magical process starts. The coral polyp starts to sequencer Calcium Carbonate from the water column and begins to form an exoskeleton, this hard outer layer is crucial to the survival of the coral, its colony, and acts as the base of the WHOLE coral reef.<\/p>

The single coral polyp builds its exoskeleton for several reasons:<\/p>