Scientific research is currently attempting to analyze the amount os such stress that reef colonies can withstand. Reefs have been compared to underwater cities. Wispy cleaner shrimps dance about to attract their more-than willing finned hosts. Moray eels, spiny lobsters, deflated porcupinefish, and crimson squirrelfish spend their days holed up in reef crevices. At night, the city is transformed into an eerie nether world where octopuses slither about and parrotfish seek protection resting in their veil-like mucus cocoons.
Coral polyps emerge from stony skeletal homes, stretching their tentacles out to feast on plankton.
Throughout both day and night, lacy-looking sea fans, sea whips, sea plumes, and other soft corals undulate in the current. They create the appearance of an underwater garden, but nothing could be further from the truth. This is a garden that cannot afford even the slightest damage. The fastest growing corals add only two to three inches per year, and large brain corals are hundreds of years old. Carelessly placed anchors, an errant flipper, and excessive sediments running off newly cleared slopes can devastate reel life.