A basic experiment of coral culture using sexual reproduction in the open sea

Coral larvae, produced from a mass spawning event, were successfully settled on special stone settlement sticks and raised in situ for eventual transport to other reefs. The test area, Sekisei lagoon, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, is located close to the warm Kuroshio current and is surmised to be the source from which major Japanese corals are derived. A total of 131 settlement sticks, with small holes in their sides to increase protection from grazing (4 mm in diameter and approximately 5 mm deep), were deployed in the lagoon the day before the coral’s mass spawning. After 3 months, 61 sticks were recovered containing 71 corals, mostly in the holes. After 1 year, three corals were confirmed to be growing well and extending outside the holes of the three sticks out of 70 sticks left in the water at the lagoon site. They survived two potentially lethal conditions, that is, high water temperatures with associated extensive coral bleaching and continuous grazing pressure from predators. This procedure is applicable for large-scale coral transplantation, not only in Japan but also in other tropical countries.