Coral restorationKey Largo, FloridaSince 2011

Florida's reef has lost most of its living coral in fifty years. We grow new coral in nurseries off Key Largo and plant it back on the reef by hand, ten fragments at a time.

Plant a coral, from $10 How it works
25°05′ N · 80°26′ W 12,400 corals planted · 9 reef sites Scroll to dive

01 The problem

The problem, in three numbers

50% of the world's living coral cover has been lost since the 1950s.

Global estimate from published reef surveys, 2021

90% of the living coral on Florida's reef has disappeared since the 1970s, to disease, heat and storms.

NOAA, Florida's Coral Reef

101°F: the water in Florida Bay, July 2023. Coral starts to bleach at about 87°F. That summer, reefs from Miami to Key West turned white.

NOAA buoy, Manatee Bay

02 The good news

Coral grows back.

Here's the part that gets us on the boat at six: coral is an animal you can garden.

Snap a branch of staghorn and both pieces keep growing. Hang a fragment in clean water at thirty feet and it can add four to eight inches a year. We've done exactly that off Key Largo since 2011, and the reef is taking it back.

03 How we plant a reef

Five steps. No shortcuts.

Coral gardening isn't a metaphor. It's fishing line, PVC, marine epoxy, a lot of early boat mornings and patience measured in years.

  1. 01

    Rescue

    We collect storm-broken pieces and small samples from corals that came through the 2023 heat alive. Each one gets a genotype number, so the reef we rebuild is a crowd, not a clone.

    38 genotypes on file

  2. 02

    Hang

    Fragments hang on fishing line from coral trees: PVC frames tethered thirty feet down. Off the bottom and out of reach of snails and silt, staghorn can grow up to eight inches a year.

    640 trees in 6 nurseries

  3. 03

    Cut

    Slow boulder corals go to our tanks at Mile Marker 99, where we cut them into one-centimeter micro-fragments. Healing as they grow, they cover ground far faster than a whole colony would.

    1 cm to a fist in 18 months

  4. 04

    Plant

    Divers carry the corals out by boat and fix them to bare reef with marine epoxy, in clusters of ten set a hand-width apart. Within about two years, a cluster fuses into one colony.

    10 corals to a cluster

  5. 05

    Watch

    Every cluster is tagged, photographed and checked at one, six and twelve months. The good years and the bad ones go into the same public dataset, shared with the state's reef monitors.

    71% alive at twelve months

04 So far

12,400 corals planted

corals planted on Florida's reef since 2011, every one tagged and photographed.

Each dot is 100 corals

The Reef Line's own figures on this concept site are illustrative.

A healthy coral reef in clear blue water: table corals, branching coral and small fish, lit by sunbeams

This is what we're planting toward.

A healthy reef, crowded and loud with fish. Our oldest clusters are starting to look like this.

A diver in a white wetsuit photographs a coral wall with an underwater camera, bubbles rising above her
Celia on a twelve-month survey

05 One diver

Celia
Marrero

Science diver and survey photographer, with us since 2016

People ask if it's sad, photographing a reef that's struggling. I photograph the ones that made it. Last August a cluster I'd shot as ten little stubs spawned on a night dive, right on schedule. I had to surface. My mask kept fogging up.

Dives logged with us
1,412
Survey photos
21,860
Deepest nursery
34 ft
Favorite cluster
K-114 Pickles Reef

06 Where the money goes

88¢of every dollar goes into the water.

We publish our budget every spring, line by line. In 2025 we spent $2.1 million. This is how each $100 of it was spent.

Each $100, fiscal 2025Total spent: $2.1M
  1. Growing coralNurseries, tanks, the genotype bank$46
  2. PlantingBoat, fuel, tanks and dive teams$22
  3. Monitoring and scienceSurveys, photos, public data$12
  4. Volunteers and schoolsTraining, gear, 40 school visits$8
  5. Office and auditRent, insurance, the accountant$7
  6. FundraisingIncluding this website$5

In the water: $88Keeping the lights on: $12

Illustrative figures for a fictional organization. Full financials and our Form 990 on request.

07 Give

Put coral in the water.

It costs us about $10 to grow one coral and plant it on the reef. Give once or every month. Either way, we'll send you photos of what you planted.

Choose an amount

$25 a month comes to about 30 corals a year on Florida's reef, each one tagged and photographed.

A freediver glides down toward a coral head surrounded by small orange fish, sunlight streaming through the water
Volunteer days run year-round, weather allowing. We'll tell you by 6am if the boat isn't going.

08 Volunteer

Get in the water with us.

Certified divers help us clean nurseries and plant coral. Not certified? Fragment Fridays at the lab need steady hands too, and so do our beach days.

Nursery and planting dives need Advanced Open Water and 25 logged dives. We supply tanks, weights and the coffee.

  • Nursery cleaningCarysfort nursery, 30 ft · Advanced Open Water3 spots left
  • Fragment FridayThe lab, Mile Marker 99 · no certification needed8 spots left
  • Planting dayPickles Reef, 18 ft · 25+ logged divesWaitlist
  • Beach and mangrove cleanupHarry Harris Park, Tavernier · all agesOpen

Save me a spot

Questions about a dive day? Tasha Pinder runs our volunteers: [email protected]