Tony and I installed a small artificial reef on the sand at Long Beach on 20 November last year. We checked on it after 10 days, and again after nearly 4 weeks, and then did not visit it for an extended period of three months during which the visibility was very bad. Summer diving in False Bay is an exercise in patience!
We visited it again recently, but my camera battery had given out after too much diving and photography for one little camera for one day. We returned to the artificial reef on Saturday 19 March, after it had spent 119 days in the water (4 months).
The reef itself is now so covered with sea lettuce that we almost swam right past it. The PVC pipes are almost completely buried in the sand, and algae encrusts almost every surface except for the cable ties. Feather stars seem to have taken a particular liking to the sponges, which have retained their shape (if not their colour) remarkably well.
The reef is populated by lots of (shy) klipfish, many of whom take cover in the sea lettuce. One, however, was very friendly and I almost got left behind playing with him on the sand.
We found a very fat pipefish, and a whole bed of hermit crabs going about their business. At least one warty pleurobranch was in residence, sitting on the wooden box.
The sign requesting divers not to mess with the reef is completely encrusted with sea squirts of various sizes and descriptions – larger ones as well as the smaller colonical ascidians. It’s not legible any more!
We were amazed by how thoroughly the sea has taken over the various items we laid down four months ago. What was originally quite an ugly collection of pipes and other random objects has become a thriving little oasis on the sand. We purposely placed the artificial reef away from other rocky outcrops or detritus that housed copious marine life – out on the sand, we’d be able to see who passed by, and know that the reef was seeded from scratch and not from an adjacent underwater feature.
For a before and after comparison, I’d recommend you go and check out what the reef looked like in these prior posts:
