Mission & Project Info | NOAA’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory
Mission Blog

Do you use any media for scrubbing CO? If so, what do you use?

We use sodasorb to remove CO2, but do not actively remove CO. We take steps to prevent CO from getting into the air supply, monitor for CO in the habitat, and continuously flush the habitat atmosphere.

When I mention that I’m a field marine biologist, I often get ribbed about being paid to vacation. Sure, my study sites read like a list from the Beach Boys song ‘Kokomo’, but it’s really not as glamorous as it sounds. Admittedly, there are times when we see dolphins, manta rays, and the rare whale shark, but when you have 20m of survey left to do and 1000psi of air, you can forget about frolicking with that hammerhead shark. It’s heads-down and collect data all the way, baby.

Despite my cynical nature, I was intrigued when I received the summons to embark on an Aquarius mission. To live and breathe underwater for 10 days is pretty amazing, and I wondered what kind of cutting edge science we’ll carry out, to make all our mindblowing discoveries about sponge biology. Visions of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea swam across my fevered imagination.

I soon discovered that the main advantage of an Aquarius mission is that in a short period of time with little manpower, it is possible to accomplish all the various little tasks that usually take weeks and a full lab team to do. Tasks that although necessary and vital for the successful completion of our experiments, are rather unfortunately mind-numbingly tedious.

Consider a typical work day. 6 + 2 hours of pounding 8” galvanized steel stakes to mark out barrel sponges (Xestospongia muta for you spongephiles) and 2 other species within our survey plots. Sometimes, we spice things up a little by pounding nails to attach 160 cage bases to the reef bottom (also for 6 + 2 hours). For a real treat, we can choose between scraping biofouled tags clean and attaching cage tops glove-free in a fire-coral filled environment. Live dangerously. Now, I could expound on the delights of a well-balanced 3 lb sledgehammer, but I wouldn’t want to bore you with all the technical details.

Of course there are other perks (a nicely balanced sledgehammer is still important though!). Being on the reef 8 hours a day affords one views that a diver wouldn’t normally see. Such as the school of a gazillion (okay, ~50) French and Gray angelfish hanging out over our survey plot at 90ft. Puts paid to our hypothesis that there are fewer sponge predators at the deeper depths. Watching the goliath groupers hunt at night, and then having one of them within petting distance hanging out in the poop house (a.k.a. the gazebo in local parlance). Well, maybe that was a little creepy. Swimming with Southern rays and eagle rays that honestly don’t give a hoot about whether we are there at all. Watching Agelas conifera and X. muta spawn on the reef. But most of all, being surrounded by bazillions (that’s more than a gazillion to you) of our beloved sponges in all their multi-colored, water pumping, secondary metabolite-producing glory. It’s a wonderful thing to see.

P/S: Our fine hab techs do an admirable job keeping us sane. That and copious amounts of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.

The waters around the Florida Keys were once rich with sponge beds which contributed to the economy of the Keys through the sponging industry (circa late 19th century). The sponging industry collapsed due to over harvesting and a Sponge fungus which killed off much of the sponge population. Although sponges have made some sort of recovery, they do not appear to be quite as healthy (personal observation) with bleaching, spots, etc.

In your observations do you see a lot of “health issues” with the sponge population? Do you feel that there could be a resurgence in the sponge fungus that killed off the sponge beds in the late 19th & early 20th century?
What effect do the ocean warming and acidification have on sponge populations in the Keys?

Only a few species of sponges are harvested commercially and are suitable for the bath and other purposes. These species are found primarily in shallow seagrass beds, not on the reef. Commercial sponges in Florida were decimated in the early 20th century by disease, which was probably imported from elsewhere. We have observed diseases on several reef sponge species, but they appear to be sporadic, and have not resulted in mass mortalities. These diseases are probably unrelated to the one that affected commercial sponges. We don’t know if these diseases are new to Florida’s reefs, or if their incidence is increasing. Sponge populations, however, do appear to be increasing over time, so the impacts of disease seem to be limited up to now.

Our monitoring program is designed to answer the question about global climate change and ocean acidification, but will require years of study. Unlike corals, sponges do not have calcified skeletons, and should be less impacted by ocean acidification. Based on this, we would predict that sponge populations would continue to increase as corals decline.

How do you get oxygen down to the habitat?

We have compressors on a buoy above the habitat which pump air down to storage bottles around the habitat. We then have a steady vent of air from these storage bottles into the habitat which displaces habitat atmosphere out of the wet porch. We like to say that the wet porch ‘burps’ as it exits the habitat. We also have carbon dioxide scrubbers in the habitat and therefore the habitat could be described as a ‘semi-closed circuit rebreather’.

Air contains 21% oxygen, so as the air flows in it adds oxygen to the atmosphere. Of course, the Aquanauts are continuously metabolizing oxygen and as a result, a balance develops between the rate of oxygen addition and the rate of metabolization which results in a steady state oxygen content of approximately 20%.

We don’t quite understand the predation experiment. Can you tell us about the setup? Besides just starting to learn about marine science, we are also currently discussing scientific testing processes.

A series of platforms is set up on the reef. On each platform there are two sponges. One sponge sits in the open, exposed to the marine environment (including predators), while the other sponge is protected from predators by a cage. Numerous sponge pairs have been deployed in this manner and by comparing what happens over time to the protected and unprotected sponges we can see what effect the predators have.

Do you have television there?

We do not have television in Aquarius, but we could easily add this if it was ever needed or requested using special network encoders and decoders.

A student is asking about oxygen and/or nitrogen in your tanks. Can you tell us about how your tanks are set up on individuals?

When diving from Aquarius we always breathe compressed air. Each Aquanaut who SCUBA dives from the habitat wears two large SCUBA bottles on their back with redundant pressure regulators and supply hoses. Sometimes we also dive from the habitat with air supplied from an umbilical connected back to the habitat. In this case the Aquanaut wears an emergency bottle on their back.

When diving from our surface boats, we usually use air in single SCUBA bottles, but sometimes we use “Enriched Air Nitrox” which is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen which contains a greater percentage of oxygen then that of normal air.

Can you Skype underwater? How quick is internet access?

We can Skype from inside Aquarius. We also have the capability to Skype (but text only) from our underwater stations if we needed that ability. Aquarius internet access is very high speed thanks to the Motorola Point-to-Point bridge between the Life Support Buoy and our Base of Operations in Key Largo. We have DS3 (45 Megabits/second) which provides extremely fast connectivity to the internet.

As a new habitat technician, my primary focus is on the safety of our users. Hovering at a close second is the acquisition of knowledge. My goal for this mission has been to soak up as much useful data as possible regarding the safe, efficient, and effective operation of this awe-inspiring research and training platform called Aquarius.

Though the days down here can fly by, not diving during this mission has provided ample time inside Aquarius to get down to the “nuts and bolts.” Hours spent every day studying her systems hands, referencing detailed schematics, and tapping the vast knowledge and experience of the Lead Technician and our Watch Directors has provided me with a depth of knowledge and understanding of both myself, and of Aquarius, that I could not have achieved elsewhere.

Some would call this my first full mission as a habitat technician, but I would call this my first glimpse into the world of the ELITE. Elite divers, elite scientists, Astronauts, engineers, and explores. Only peek at all of the expertise, dedication, blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into this community to bring us to where we are today.

The scientists that I have had the pleasure of sharing close quarters with through the duration of this mission have taught me a few things about sponges and the nature of the reef. However, the biggest lesson that they have taught is one of dedication. They approach everyday with a cup of coffee (or two) and a desire to continue. A willingness to persevere through whatever obstacles they might encounter in order to gain knowledge that may, one day, benefit us all.