Destroyer Becomes Longest Artificial Reef

The USS Arthur W. Radford as of yesterday has become the longest artificial reef in the Atlantic Ocean at 563 feet. After 26 years of service, the decommissioned ship took 3.5 hours to sink to the floor 130 feet down. It is located 25 miles off the Indian River Inlet in Delware. A witness to the event that also did a tour on the destroyer had this to say: "She always put up a fight for a lot of things when we were under way. She always had her own way of doing things, but the mission always got accomplished. It's the same with this — she put up a fight, and then when she finally decided to let go, she did."


USS Arthur W. Radford - Photo Credit: AP Photo/Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, Gary Cooke

Ex-Navy destroyer now East Coast artificial reef

 

That's very cool. Should look great once it is covered in coraline algae.

 

So I live just up the coast from Indian river in Delaware, am I just going to be able to go out to the wreck to get new corals for my tank? It looks like the local fish shop has 563 feet of competition now.

 

If you would rather pay fines for corals instead of retail prices haha

In a few years this should be pretty interesting. Apparently there are a lot of healthy thriving deep water reefs off of the Delaware and Maryland coast

 

You starting a cold-water tank?

 

Do you have any links that give info on the 'deep water reefs'? I live in MD and have never heard of this.

I don't think this is going to be the type of reef filled with coral.

 

It should have corals, anemones and other inverts, but the kind that live in cooler water. Also, they will likely be non-photosynthetic varieties. Not what we typically keep in our tanks.

 

That is pretty neat i heard one of the reasons that they decide to sink these is there is a bacteria that thrives off the properties in the steel.

 

Eyewitness account from a dive master very close friend of mine. He has no reason to make this up lol
He is much more interested in deep dives so that is what he does most of the time. Not many people know about the reefs at all and I was quite shocked when he told his stories!

 

Very cool!