So after the successful ‘planting’ of the cleaning stations, we started on the next phase of our artificial reef – building of fish houses. We chose a nice sunny day and grabbed our mound of bricks and started to design the ‘main’ fish house. We use traditional batako ( bricks) for the bottom and top layer of the house – this gives the house a decent weight so that it stays in position in the water. By using the ‘holey bricks’, we have created hide-outs for shrimps and little fish to live in.
As you can see from the photos Gizmo and Opo worked hard cementing all the bricks together and after just an hour or so (and a couple of disagreements!) you could really see the house starting to take shape.
Finally after a bit more hard graft and then a few days of allow the cement to fully dry, the finished article ( below) is ready to go into the water. Once the structure is in place we are also going to attached rope with small floats onto the houses to add extra height and also provide more surface area for algae, sponge and coral to attach onto and grow on. Keep an eye out for the next blog detailing the hard work of getting this structure into the water – that will definitely be a team effort!!