UNDERSEA VENTURE: 'FARMING' ROCK TO GROW MINIATURE AQUARIUM REEFS

BYLINE:    Susan Salisbury, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
DATE: June 15, 2002
PUBLICATION: Palm Beach Post, The (FL)
EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: BUSINESS
PAGE: 10B

People can't believe it when Scott Bielecky tells them he wants to be a rock farmer.

They're even more incredulous once they learn he'll be placing rock 75 feet deep in the Atlantic Ocean, where it will attract coral, algae, plants, sponges and other sea life. The rock is ultimately harvested and sold to the aquarium trade. But Bielecky, a Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue lieutenant who operates an aquarium business on the side, says he's onto a great business opportunity. He is the first person in Palm Beach County to apply to the state for permission to operate a commercial venture to farm "live rock," as the miniature reefs are called.

His application to lease an acre of state-owned underwater land for $50 a month has been recommended for approval by the Florida Department of Agriculture's Division of Aquaculture, said Mark Berrigan, the division's bureau chief.

After being reviewed by other agencies, including the Palm Beach County Commission and the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the lease application will go before the governor and the Cabinet.

A final decision could be made by late summer, Berrigan said.

"I saw that more and more live rock was being used and realized this would be a good business to get into," said Bielecky, owner of FantaSeas and a lifelong aquarium owner who has eight large fish tanks at home in West Palm Beach.

Rock farmers, or mariculturists, as they are sometimes called, are required to use rock that's not indigenous to the area. Bielecky plans to transport rock from the Bahamas, where it's discarded as a construction byproduct.

Then he will scuba-dive off his 25-foot boat and position a few hundred pounds of the Bahamian rock on his leased underwater land. Typically, the rocks used vary from the size of a baseball to several feet long.

Once the rock is down below, nature takes over, with nutrient-rich waters bringing a variety of plants and animals to the infant reef.

"The longer it is down there, the more valuable it will be," he said. "It's sort of like wine aging."

Palm Beach County Commission Chairman Warren Newell said he likes the idea.

"I suspect that growing it here helps reduce the importing and damaging of reefs around the world," Newell said.

The cultivation of live rock began as a way to stop the destruction of Florida's natural reefs. As the demand for live aquarium rock grew, millions of pounds of natural, wild rock were being hauled off by individuals and commercial enterprises. Florida officials banned wild rock harvesting in state waters in 1992; the federal government followed suit for national waters in 1997.

The state began tracking the commercial live rock industry in 1990. After the state ban, rock harvesters moved into federal waters off Florida to continue their work. The peak harvest was in 1994, when 1.13 million pounds of rock, valued at $1.4 million, was taken.

With both bans in effect, the harvest of live "farmed" rock last year was less than 250,000 pounds off Florida's coasts.

Today, the state and federal governments lease a total of 62 acres to 40 leaseholders off the Keys and the Gulf Coast.

"Since they banned taking the natural live rock in state and federal waters, live rock farming is the only option you've got. It's eco-friendly, and you're not destroying any natural reefs," said Bill Falls, who heads Hillsborough Community College's aquaculture program in Tampa.

"There's plenty of opportunity in the market. It's nowhere near saturated," Falls said. "If they stopped the exports from elsewhere, the companies here could not meet the demand."

Much of the rock in the world's aquariums is imported from parts of the globe, such as Fiji and Indonesia, that still allow reefs to be chipped away and even blown up. Although environmentalists would like to see an end to that, it's not likely as long as the United States permits the imports, industry sources said.

"The Canadians and the Europeans don't allow it in," said Michael Nichols, owner of Triton Marine Inc. in Palm Harbor, which farms about 1 million pounds of rock in the Keys and the Gulf of Mexico. "This is the world's coral reefs they're destroying and selling for a doctor's office tank."

Premium rock brings as much as $10 a pound when shipped to other states. In Florida, it retails for about $5 a pound.

Bielecky, 42, a married father of two toddlers, figures he missed his calling and should have been a marine biologist. He grew up in Lake Worth and has been snorkeling since age 5, when there was a reef off Lake Worth's beach.

Bielecky started FantaSeas in January 2000 and has about 30 clients paying $100 a month and up for aquarium maintenance. He's put much of the revenue back into equipment for the rock farming business.

Once the bare rock is placed on the sea floor, it will face some of the same difficulties as conventional crops - fluctuating market prices, foreign competition and even oil spills.

The biggest threat of all?

"A hurricane could wipe out your entire farm," Bielecky said.

susan_salisbury@pbpost.com