Lionfish Solution??

[Cecil]

The above is a picture of of a 2 penny iron finish nail and if I had my wish every Lionfish in the Atlantic basin would receive one (or two) for Christmas.

Why an iron nail? It's iron so a miss is no harm to the reef, a hit and you have a stessed Lionfish and a stressed fish on the reef is soon to be an ex-fish on the reef.

I have been thinking about this problem and this is an engineer's solution. I see a semi autonomous ROV searching, searching then using optical recognition it see's a Lionfish, then a human gives the command to shoot one or two of the above. Then all depths and ares not accessable to divers could be swept of this scourge.

That's long term, short term is to develop the Lionfish nail gun. I see this as a modified paint ball gun using CO2 or air. Why not a nailgun, that is design to hammer a nail with a piston vs. shooting out a barrel. This should also be designed with an absolute safety such that it could not be fired out of the water. It would be very short ranged, a meter max, I would guess.

Now saying all that, I must also add, I have no way, time or means to do any of this and I'm just throwing it out there hoping a Bill Gates or Dean Kamen will hire me for a gazillion dollars a year to make it happen.

[larry]

Love the concept. BUT--how many of these semiautomated microsubmarine nail gunners would you need? What's the power supply for the underwater travel? And, what happens to the vehicles when the propulsion energy (CO2 charge or submarine propulsion energy) is gone? Would the solution be worse than the problem?

[Cecil]

Remember the ROVs working around the Deepwater blowout, they run on a battery and have a fiber optic cable link to the surface, they can operate very deep and do anything but make a sammich. They also cost a zillion dollars to make and operate but boy could they kill Lionfish. I was thinking more of a DIY ROV run by someone with a laptop connected with a cable to the ROV.

As far as the air/co2 supply for the gun, that's like battery power and nail supply and memory and capacitor charge (for giant squid attack), that all needs to be monitored and replenished as required.

The guns themselves would be hand built and maybe need a dozen or so. Nobody's going to make money on this gig, although a bounty on each fish could help with operating costs.

[Eric M]

I'm the Unmanned Systems Program Manager for a major scientific laboratory. His idea is a good start and some form of it is probably doable. There are many ways to keep the power supply of such a vehicle topped off, especially in the ocean. And with the unique shape of the lionfish, it would not be hard to create an autonomous algorithm to hunt them. Shape the vehicle in a way that is not threatening to a lionfish and you could get close enough to make a high probability shot every time.

Just need to get the environmental folks to convince the government of Bonaire that the problem is bad enough to warrant releasing a solicitation for a proposal to build the system. It wouldn't be cheap, but the cost would be cheaper than allowing the problem to spiral out of control.

e

[Nitrox Monkey]

The cure for the lionfish problem is simple, consider how many divers frequent any given dive site during the day. For those, such as myself, who would like to protect the fragile balance of fish life on the reef, allow us to do a lionfish hunting certificate that actually lets us go out by ourselves and do some population control. They offer a gimmick of a certification which makes you pay a significant amount of money (about $125) for the training and certification, though with current Bonaire law, you can only use this card if you are going with a dive operation, guided by a Instructor. Thus meaning you could maybe do one or two hunting dives per week. I would happily devote some of my vacation time to aid in the necessary reef conservation which Bonaire officials are calling for but not allowing an intelligent contingency plan for. The problem could be solved within a couple months, though it seems the problem is the lack of action by those calling for a means to and end.

[smits]

It’s more complicated than that.
I’ve seen a couple of certified lion fish hunters.
In their stress to get the fish, I’ve seen hands and knees on the coral.
When you hit the fish, it’s not always dead. I’ve witnessed certified hunters to turn the elf around and around with the lion fish attached to it. Unfortunately they used the coral to keep the fish steady….. and make the holes bigger.
That killed the lion fish, but what about the coral?

[Eric M]

OK, I'm going to post this and then run away for a month to avoid the backlash. But if you consider the occasional damage done by an accidental brush with the coral by a lionfish hunter, vs. the horrible damage just one of these invasive predators can do to a reef's ecosystem, I think the tradeoff is a good one.

Do I advocate touching the reef, NO. Do I think that someone that lacks the skill to minimize the possibility of contact should participate in this activity, NO. But there are tradeoffs to everything in life and I believe this is probably one of them.

For Pete's sake. If we are that worried about incidental contact with the reef, we better ban diving worldwide!

JMO

e

[Scott]

The above is a picture of of a 2 penny iron finish nail and if I had my wish every Lionfish in the Atlantic basin would receive one (or two) for Christmas.

Why an iron nail? It's iron so a miss is no harm to the reef, a hit and you have a stessed Lionfish and a stressed fish on the reef is soon to be an ex-fish on the reef.

I have been thinking about this problem and this is an engineer's solution. I see a semi autonomous ROV searching, searching then using optical recognition it see's a Lionfish, then a human gives the command to shoot one or two of the above. Then all depths and ares not accessable to divers could be swept of this scourge.

That's long term, short term is to develop the Lionfish nail gun. I see this as a modified paint ball gun using CO2 or air. Why not a nailgun, that is design to hammer a nail with a piston vs. shooting out a barrel. This should also be designed with an absolute safety such that it could not be fired out of the water. It would be very short ranged, a meter max, I would guess.

Now saying all that, I must also add, I have no way, time or means to do any of this and I'm just throwing it out there hoping a Bill Gates or Dean Kamen will hire me for a gazillion dollars a year to make it happen.

I like the way you are thinking. I have used modified pole spears but cringe when a shot goes wrong. I think I can come up with something inexpensive to build, easy to shoot, and cause little to no damage for missed shots. Thanks for getting me out of the box. I will follow up when I get done.

[DiverVince]

Just to clarify what we're dealing with..A direct hit on the lionfish with the 3 pronged ELF "paralyzer tip" will NOT kill the Lionfish (neither will it paralyze them). If you are not careful they will just dart right off of it. A knife stab to the brain when they are pinned down and a stab puncture to the air bladder to prevent them from floating away will kill them. So I suspect it would be wiser to save the nails for carpentry work.

[Cecil]

I can not prove you wrong Vince but I hope you are, they are tough little ba$tards.

How about propulsion for the ROVs.