Hello! The second week of my Pinhead Internship here on Moku o Loe has gone by so quickly. This week another intern named Miranda Lentz and I have been setting up and preparing for our coral flow experiment. Miranda Lentz had previously done an internship in the coral nursery last year with fellow pintern Alannah Wister. This year we are doing a very similar experiment. This week we were able to collect 8 different samples of coral from the reef around Coconut Island. In our experiment we are working with three different species of coral including the corals, Montipera Capitata, Pocillopora Damicornis, and Pocillopora Meandrina. So far we have collected four genotypes of both the Montipera Capitata and the Pocillopera Damicornis. The species of Meandrina is not as abundant around the island and will needed to be collected for us on another reef. We are planning to put four different genotypes of each type of coral on our plates in each tank in the flow experiment. All together, there will be 12 fragments of coral on each plate, one plate per tank, and fifteen tanks total. So far we have labeled, put fishing weights in, and expoxied all of our montipera and damicornis corals. Once we are finished with this part of the experiment we will have 180 fragments of coral to look after. We have begun setting up our tanks where the experiment will take place. Rob Toonen has been very kind and helped us with setting up the ‘irrigation lines’ for each tank which will hopefully provide constant flow of seawater into the tanks. We have found that these lines get clogged very often and will need to be checked to ensure proper water supply. We will also need to ensure all of the electrical around the tanks is working to plug in pumps that will provide different levels of flow for 5 different sections of the fifteen tanks. 
The Island of Moku o Loe itself is very enchanting. On my way to the coral nursery everyday I am able to see 5 baby hammerhead sharks, a puffer fish, and a moray eel kept in a lagoon area near the coral shack. I am still amazed to be here and very excited for what the next few weeks will bring. 
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