A coral export business in the Northern Territory has been forced to relocate its stock because of power issues caused by Cyclone Marcus.
While Monsoon Aquatic's buildings escaped reasonably unscathed from the Category 2 cyclone, the Humpty Doo site lost power for several days, which is critical to pump water and run filters to keep the "livestock" alive.
Company director Dan Kimberley said even with a generator, the business could not operate at full capacity, so the decision was made to relocate about 10,000 pieces of live coral and other aquarium species about 20 minutes up the road to Pinelands.
"The business is expanding so we had planned this move, but we wanted to do it gradually and slowly and not lose any income," he said.
"But because Marcus damaged our shed and we had no power, the boats couldn't go out [due to the cyclone] and we had all the staff sitting around, [so] we thought now is the time to do it."
Coral joyride
There were only two casualties from the move and they were two raceways, which are 7-metre long rectangle plywood tanks that house the livestock.
"Thankfully everything is looking really healthy. We haven't lost any livestock," Mr Kimberley said.
"Coral is quite resilient. All of the coral just got put into plastic trays with a lid and was filled with water.
"Moving the coral hasn't been the hard part. The hard part has been preparing and setting up the tanks."
Big job to move thousands of live coral pieces
Mr Kimberley said it had been a massive task that required all hands on deck.
"We are about half way through the move. We have all the live animals moved over, all our coral, invertebrates like snails and starfish," he said.
"But we left the fish at [our] Humpty Doo [site] as we have got power back there and we are waiting to build a dedicated fish system before we move them over.
"We have our divers from Cairns who have flown to help us, all staff, my dad has come from Sydney.
"We probably bit off more than we can chew, but I think my motto is bite off more than you can chew and chew like buggery, and that is what we have done."
Mr Kimberley said the business hoped to be back to normal by next week, and admitted the fast-tracked relocation had come at a significant cost.
"Lost income for the week we are probably looking at $100,000-plus for the whole exercise."
He said the expansion to Pinelands would allow the business to double its capacity.
