Ecology of cubes artificial reef of pantai damas, East Java, Indonesia

Damage to the coral reef ecosystem in the Damas coastal region is associated with various things such as large sedimentation due to mangrove deforestation in the upper area, destructive fishing practice, tourism activity and increasing temperature and organic material in the seawater. Fragile coral as main reef builders can recover themselves with slow rate mode and humans introduce a low technology that can accelerate the recovery of coral reefs by using artificial reefs (AR). In the 2017 local community supported by scientists deployed 25 cubes artificial reef in Damas area. Cubes structure have the main purpose of establishing the sea substrate to attract coral juvenile and to harbor reef fishes. The result from underwater video and photographs showed that 3 ARs missed and 22 ARs found with various conditions: 15 ARs buried with sediment; 1 AR covered by a net; 3 ARs in a tilted position and 4 ARs in good condition. The density of sessile organisms on the AR surface consists of 16 sessile organisms with a total density of 6.94 individual/ m². The abundance of reef fish in the AR area comes from 16 families with a total abundance of 1.73 individual/m².