Reef Renewal USA grows coral fragments in tanks at its Ruskin nursery, more than 300 miles from the Florida Keys reefs where the specimens will eventually be planted.

The nonprofit started its land-based operation in late 2024 after record ocean heat during the 2023 bleaching event destroyed much of its offshore coral inventory in the Keys. Nearly 90 percent of the live coral that once dominated those reefs has been lost over the past four decades, according to NOAA.

Craig Watson, a Reef Renewal USA staff member, described the hands-on process in an Oct. 7 Bay News 9 report: "We take a coral that's of a certain size, we cut it with a tile saw or a little band saw, and then we have a smaller piece and we put that in these tanks to grow into a bigger piece."

Growing those fragments to a size suitable for outplanting can take years, Watson said.

Founder Michael Echevarria told Bay News 9 in December 2025 that the 2023 heat forced a pivot from offshore nurseries. The organization needed an alternative to keeping all its corals in the ocean, he said.

The Ruskin facility also doubles as a research lab where scientists evaluate which coral strains tolerate changing ocean conditions best. Operations manager Martha Campbell oversees fragments brought in from Keys nurseries. Thousands of small fish called mollies handle algae removal, plucking growth off the coral in tanks, a job that once required scuba divers armed with toothbrushes.

State funding has backed the expansion. Reef Renewal USA received a $1.2 million grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, according to the December 2025 Bay News 9 report.

A separate state award of $830,000 for fiscal year 2025-26 came through the Coral Reef Restoration and Recovery Initiative, or FCR3, which Gov. Ron DeSantis created through executive order in 2023. That initiative distributed $9.5 million across 11 projects announced Dec. 9, 2025.

The goal is to eventually produce more than 100,000 corals a year for transplanting into the Keys.

Ruskin is not the only South Shore link in the restoration chain. The Florida Aquarium, which operates a facility in Apollo Beach, transferred 9,000 baby corals spawned there to partner grow-out sites in January 2026, WUSF reported. The state's long-term target is restoring at least 25 percent of Florida's coral reef by 2050.

In August 2026, Reef Renewal USA joined 12 partner institutes in a coral spawning initiative in the Keys, collecting eggs and sperm during a narrow overnight window tied to the lunar cycle. Some of those corals were brought back to Ruskin for tank-based rearing.

Nicole Laura Humphreys, a 12-year-old certified scuba diver from Riverview, took part in Keys coral restoration work during summer 2026 through SCUBAnauts International. The next round of Ruskin-grown fragments is being prepared for outplanting in the Keys, though no specific date has been announced.