Connor and Arianna recently joined JC who is the Director of Reef2Reef Foundation at their protected marine park. At their marine park is a coral garden with hanging trees, Reefballs, and they are testing Mineral Accretion Technology with the support of Coralive.

Arianna is our intern from Arizona State University, but the intern title does not do her justice — she’s incredibly smart and has been leading our 3D coral printing project. Arianna and Connor were invited by JC and some of his special guests who are post-doctorate marine biologists. We observed them clean the coral nursery during our visit. Arianna snorkeled and Connor free dove and then at the end, Connor joined the marine scientists on the seafloor. Reef2Reef is a very close partner of ours and we’re excited to test a lot of our 3D Coral project in their protected coral garden. Reef2Reef has acquired a “concession” which is a special permit that allows them to operate in marine protected areas. In this case, they operate a coral garden.

Mineral Accretion Technology is the use of applying low voltages of electric current directly to coral fragments, thus accelerating the generation of calcium carbonate. Aki from Coralive and his team have led this for the last eight years. Recently we’ve been grateful enough to collaborate with Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands, where a marine ecology researcher has been working with Coralive, and Coralive has been sponsoring Reef2Reef’s testing of MAT in Playa Huerta.

Now, Ocean Builders is blessed to work with such experts in this field, so when we deploy our 3D Coral project and begin testing MAT, it will be under the leadership of brilliant marine scientists with proper experience. We can’t thank these incredible partners enough and we are sure that we will be able to change the world together!

Also, we want to give JC, Javier, and their team the credit for all of the beautiful underwater pictures and videos that they have provided for us to use.