| The Super Sucker is helping marine researchers clean up 3,000 pounds of algae a day. |
In the battle against invasive algae taking over coral reefs, marine researchers in Hawaii have a new weapon—a vacuum cleaner.
Called the "Super Sucker," this giant underwater vacuum cleaner is deployed from a 13-by-25-foot specially built barge and requires a five-person crew to operate. It can remove up to 800 pounds of alien algae in an hour.
The idea for the Super Sucker came out of a partnership between the University of Hawaii, The Nature Conservancy, and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources' Division of Aquatic Resources.
The problem researchers were facing, says Eric Co, marine program coordinator for The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii, is that alien algae overgrow coral reefs at "very high rates," resulting in corals being smothered in "a sprawling blanket of marine algae." One of the areas hardest hit by the algae overgrowth is Kaneohe Bay on the island of Oahu.
The partners first began tackling the algae problem through a community outreach effort that uses volunteers to clean the algae off reefs.
While the initiative helps educate the community and volunteers successfully remove tons of algae, the process is limited and labor intensive.
Then they had the idea of vacuuming the algae off the reef.
Built and piloted in Kaneohe Bay, the Super Sucker is essentially a modified gold dredger that has been outfitted with a 40-horsepower diesel engine that runs on biodiesel fuel.
The pumping mechanism has no "grinding blades of death"— to ensure the algae stay intact and that no other species are harmed, says Brian Parscal, operations supervisor for the Super Sucker at the University of Hawaii.
Two divers, equipped with a 4-inch-round, 100-foot flexible hose, work in the water directing the suction hose. Aboard the barge, about 300 gallons of seawater a minute is dumped onto a mesh-screen-topped sorting table. Sorters look for native algae and other marine life inadvertently picked up by the vacuum.
Once cleaned, reefs will be seeded with native sea urchins to help control the alien algae's reinvasion.
The Super Sucker is helping marine researchers clean up 3,000 pounds of algae a day. Once collected, the algae are provided to local farmers to use as fertilizer. The group also is monitoring the reef for algae regrowth and reef health.
The partners are currently working on a Super Sucker Jr., which can be deployed in shallower waters outside Kaneohe Bay.
Tony Montgomery, aquatic biologist with the state's Division of Aquatic Resources, sees the potential for the Super Sucker to have broader applications.
"The technology could easily be tweaked or maybe even directly transferred over to address other coastal management issues," he says.
"Plenty of people were skeptical when we started this," adds Eric Conklin, a graduate student in the University of Hawaii Department of Biology. "When they see what we've accomplished, they've become a lot less skeptical."
For more information, contact Eric Co at (808) 587-6270, or eco@tnc.org; Brian Parscal at (808) 271-1266, or parscal@hawaii.rr.com; Tony Montgomery at Eric Conklin at (808) 218-4366, or econklin@hawaii.edu.
