Another's reef program

There are reef programs all over the place. Maybe we can all learn from each other.

Here an article from Florida:

Lee County's reef sites a haven for anglers, divers

Pinpoint local reefs on a map and search database to see what fish were documented at a given reef

Like a pale-yellow, cat-eyed ghost, the 7-foot lemon shark rose eerily along the radio-tower artificial reef at Lee County's ARC Reef site, saw the diver and dissolved beyond the 30-foot range of visibility.


It was an adrenaline-stoked and rare sighting: According to the county's Reef Fish Database, the June 4 encounter was only the second time a lemon shark had been documented at any of Lee County's 21 artificial reef sites - the first was Oct. 7, 2001, on the Doc Kline Reef.

Thirty-four of Florida's 35 coastal counties have artificial reef programs, but only four have any kind of fish database.
Lee County's is considered the best. Its artificial reefs are important fishing and diving sites, and the database shows at which reefs 129 fish species have been documented during each month of the year. Volunteer divers help provide the information for the database.

"It is very easy to use and offers many searchable options," biologist Bill Horn of the state's artificial reef program wrote in a recent e-mail. "I would think anglers would use it to look for reefs that have shown species that they are targeting. Divers also would use it to find species they are interested in shooting, either with film or spear."
Early reef history


Lee County's artificial reef program didn't start as a source for a database.

In fact, it grew out of a Florida Sea Grant program of the early 1980s, which grew out of reef-building efforts by recreational fishermen, which, in turn, grew out of the need for structure in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many fish species need structure, which provides shelter and food, but most of the Gulf off Southwest Florida is barren sand.
In the 1960s, local fishing clubs were putting structure in the nearshore Gulf; those early reefs consisted of such environmentally unfriendly material as tires, car and truck bodies.
By the early 1980s, Lee County Sea Grant agent Max Puckett had become involved with reef making.

"Max assisted the fishing clubs in building reefs: He helped them do it the right way," said Steve Boutelle, a Lee County marine operations manager. "He got them to go through the proper permit applications and procedures and focused on putting good material down."

In the lead


Lee County took the lead in 1989, and the program took off.
Today, the county has reef sites ranging from the Cape Haze Reef in 18 feet of water in Charlotte Harbor to Charlie's Reef in 90 feet of water 30 miles offshore and from the Collier County line to the Charlotte County line.

"We want to make sure we distribute reef sites through the county so we're serving a variety of users," Boutelle said.
Deciding where to put a reef is more complicated than throwing darts at a navigation chart.

County scientists talk to shrimpers, for example, to make sure reefs don't interfere with shrimping activities.
Physical characteristics of possible reef sites are also important.
The county won't put a reef on a hard bottom that already has a living community.
Sand is another issue: If the sand is too deep, a reef will sink into it; ideally, the bottom will have a thin layer of sand over limestone.
Once a site is chosen, the county applies for the proper state or federal permits.
Lee County reefs


Lee County's reef sites all have multiple reefs made from different materials. The ARC Reef site, for example, has 14 deposits, including concrete culverts, a barge, the steel hull of 58-foot sailboat, and two 25-foot-tall radio towers.

Many of the county's reefs are made from what Boutelle calls "materials of opportunity" such as unused concrete culverts or demolished bridges that would have ended up in the landfill but were donated to the reef program.

Money to buy reef material and to have it transported to a reef site comes from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration Program, state saltwater fishing license revenues and private contributions. The combined state and federal money is $700,000 a year.
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For years, a driving force behind the county's artificial reef program was Chris Koepfer, who died April 23 at the age of 48.
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"Chris was doing experimental things," county environmental specialist Justin McBride said. "He was trying to see if certain fish species were attracted to certain material.

"We found that, for goliath grouper, you need overhangs, and the more relief you have, the bigger the goliaths. For gag grouper, the structure doesn't have to be tall, but you need vertical surface. Red grouper like hidey-holes. They're territorial and shoo people from their front door."
The county also has experimented with prefabricated concrete tetrahedrons and Reef Balls, which are supposed to be real fish magnets.
"A lot of counties say those designs hold the most fish," McBride said. "We haven't found that they hold more fish than other material. You can throw a beer can out in the Gulf, and it will hold fish."
Monitoring the reefs


When Lee County sinks a reef, the structure is not abandoned; weather permitting, county scientists or members of the Volunteer Scientific Research Team (recreational divers trained to gather scientific data) dive reefs once a month to see how material is holding up and to conduct fish surveys.

"What we don't want to see is a situation where you dump stuff offshore and don't get any feedback about if the material is meeting the objective," said Jon Dodrill, Florida's artificial reef coordinator. "If the state or the feds are spending money on artificial reefs, we want reefs that are going to last several decades, not break up with the first tropical storm."
Since the first reef fish survey - Sept. 18, 1990, 1991, on the Power Pole-2 site - divers have documented 129 fish species, from the very large (goliath grouper) to the very small (pygmy seabass).

In 2000, Koepfer started the Reef Fish Database, entering every species seen during surveys; also included are the abundance of each species, water temperature and visibility.

For years, a driving force behind the county's artificial reef program was Chris Koepfer, who died April 23 at the age of 48.


"Chris was doing experimental things," county environmental specialist Justin McBride said. "He was trying to see if certain fish species were attracted to certain material.

"We found that, for goliath grouper, you need overhangs, and the more relief you have, the bigger the goliaths. For gag grouper, the structure doesn't have to be tall, but you need vertical surface. Red grouper like hidey-holes. They're territorial and shoo people from their front door."

The county also has experimented with prefabricated concrete tetrahedrons and Reef Balls, which are supposed to be real fish magnets.

"A lot of counties say those designs hold the most fish," McBride said. "We haven't found that they hold more fish than other material. You can throw a beer can out in the Gulf, and it will hold fish."
Monitoring the reefs


When Lee County sinks a reef, the structure is not abandoned; weather permitting, county scientists or members of the Volunteer Scientific Research Team (recreational divers trained to gather scientific data) dive reefs once a month to see how material is holding up and to conduct fish surveys.

"What we don't want to see is a situation where you dump stuff offshore and don't get any feedback about if the material is meeting the objective," said Jon Dodrill, Florida's artificial reef coordinator. "If the state or the feds are spending money on artificial reefs, we want reefs that are going to last several decades, not break up with the first tropical storm."

Since the first reef fish survey - Sept. 18, 1990, 1991, on the Power Pole-2 site - divers have documented 129 fish species, from the very large (goliath grouper) to the very small (pygmy seabass).

In 2000, Koepfer started the Reef Fish Database, entering every species seen during surveys; also included are the abundance of each species, water temperature and visibility.