Growth rate and survival rate of montipora coral transplant on faba material in Baluran National Park

Abstract

Coral transplantation is one of the rehabilitation efforts that can be applied to accelerate the coral reef recovery process. FABA (fly ash bottom ash) is an environmentally friendly material and is declared suitable for use as a coral transplantation medium. This study aims to determine the growth rate of transplanted corals as an effort to rehabilitate damaged coral reef ecosystems and restore coral reef habitat and biota associated with coral reef communities in Bama waters, Baluran National Park, East Java. The corals studied were Montipora sp. The research location has a salinity range of around 31-34 psu, temperature 28-30°C,100% brightness, turbidity (turbidity) 1.2-1.6 NTU, current velocity between 0.07 m/s to 0.31 m/s, and sedimentation ranged from 2.81 mg/cm2/day to 5.92 mg/cm2/day, nitrate 0.004-0.026 mg/l, ammonia 0.048-0.189 mg/l, and orthophosphate 0.008-0.028 mg/l. In general, the water conditions in Bama are still in quite good condition for coral growth. During the 4 months of observation, the achievement of growth in length and height of coral species of Montipora sp. reach 60.56 mm and 21.31 mm, respectively. The growth rate of the average length and height of Montipora sp. respectively reached 15.14 mm per month and 5.33 mm per month.