Pengaruh Pemberian Artemia Sebagai Pakan Terhadap Pertumbuhan Karang Lunak Sarcophyton Sp. Pada Kolam Terkontrol

Abstract

Now days, the coral utilization is getting higher, even excessive. In other side, coral reef ecosystem is very susceptible to disturbance whether from human activity or natural phenomenon and need a long time for a full recovery (Burke et al., 2011). Transplantation of Octocoral (soft coral) like Sracophyton sp. as second main constructor of coral reef after hard coral (Manuputty, 2008 dalam Utama, 2010) can be one good solution to fix the broken coral reef ecosystem. The Transplantation has been a popular method in a soft coral conservation activity until this time. This method is usually done in the sea which is habitat the soft coral itself. Unfortunately, doing transplantation in the sea has some difficulty due to uncontrolled natural situation and will be expensive. Torrential current, temperature fluctuation, competition, predators, food supply, and others unpredictable condition can be a problem for propagating the coral in the sea. Therefore, there’s had to be a transplantation method that is applied in a controlled system so the natural troubles, including food supply, can be handled. Food is one of important factors that is also effecting the succeed rate in propagating the coral. Soft coral itself is a member of Cnidarian that is carnivorous and eats micro organism. Based on that fact, Artemia sp. which is included as zooplankton should possible to be used as soft coral food. Further research is required to understand how much Artemia affecting the soft coral growth. According to the research result, the living rate of the coral reef in the treatment vessel and control vessel show the same value, it is 100%. This means that the soft corals already have good adaptation with new environment. The variants analysis shows that the food doesn’t much influence the growth. It means absolute growth and growth velocity of the fragments that is given Artemia as additional food do not show enough difference compared to the fragments that do not get additional food (control).