Reef Ball Foundation Photos and Project Description Database

Opps....a little too fast, that's okay we have lots of volunteers that want to get messy to move the concrete to the other molds.

Starting on mold #2

Now we are getting into the grove...the wooden board keeps fast flowing concrete from jumping over the mold and spilling.

Works perfect.

Ben goes behind the finished pours and adds more #8 rubber stoppers to the top of the mold so that corals can be planted on the top of the Reef Balls too.

Ben goes behind the finished pours and adds more #8 rubber stoppers to the top of the mold so that corals can be planted on the top of the Reef Balls too.

Now it's time for the big mold.

Concrete starts to flow and the consistency looks perfect.

It's actually much easier to pour because of the big opening.

Finishing off the big mold. We are casting it on a trailer so we don't even have to lift it...we just tip it over the next day and cast another one until the trailer is full then go straight to the beach to deploy the units from the same trailer.

We signal the driver using universal hand signals to stop the pour as the mold is full.

A view from the front of the line.

After the truck leaves, we use the concrete in the wheel barrel to adjust any short pours in our molds and finish the cleaning and addition of top coral plug adapters.

The overfilled mold will have to be rinsed with the water hose so that we don't have a mess when the concrete hardens.

That's want a perfectly poured unit looks like.

We got a little too much water in the top of this one when we cleaned it up. We also did not quite inflate the top side balls enough so the center bladder shifted a bit...it will still make a usable Reef Ball but it might have a thin top.

Cleaned up and ready to sit for at least 4-7 hours before it is demolded. In this case, we left them overnight because we poured at 3:00 PM in the afternoon.

We were nevious about the base we built for this one because we used old wooden signs instead of new plywood so we added some burlap along the bottom mold seams for extra security against a mold blow out. Turns out we did not need the burlap this time.

Next day, we start demolding to reveal our Reef Balls.

Everyone is excited to see how they all turn out....

Using the water hose to rinse them off to reveal the rough surface texture is the fun part.....but a little messy.

Volunteers put all small parts in a plastic bucket to make sure nothing gets lost...everything will be re-used over and over again.

A finished Reef Ball...the surface texture on the first balls is never fully developed because the molds have a bit of wax on them from their initial manufacuture.....next batch will be fully developed as the first casting takes care of the wax.

The second casting we were not so lucky with our shakey wooden sign base and did have a blow out....we had to clean up all the mess and rebuild the base to make it stronger.

Washing down the concrete that leaked from the bottom of the mold.

We also had a flat tire on one of the trailers and had to fix it before we could take the trailer for cleaning.

Fixing the tire did not take very long...we just got new ones because the sidewall had been damaged by a nail.

And off we go to clean up the mess from the bad pour.

After a 3rd day of casting...it rained just after the concrete truck left...this was nice as it helped clean up the molds! (Rain after a pour does not affect the reef balls setting up).

4 castings later...everything moves like clockwork! The Department of Environment will take over now and keep casting long after the volunteers are home and the project will grow and grow.