Velaa House Reef South

The reef is home to the resort's Biorock project, with electrified structures that promote coral growth and provide shelter for the reef's fauna. The marine life includes ambush predators such as the bluefin trevally and, on top of the reef, the Maldivian anemonefish hiding in its anemone. At Velaa, anemones are placed on the Biorock structures and attract clownfish, damselfish and invertebrates. Biorock has accelerated coral growth by up to tenfold, as well as improving survival and species diversity. The Biorock area had the highest abundance of life, followed by the transplanted areas, while degraded areas had lower biodiversity.

The coral restoration project on Velaa's house reef began after the 2016 bleaching, which hit reefs still recovering from the global bleaching of 1998. In 2019, the project had one of the first large-scale midwater floating nurseries in the Maldives, and, at full capacity, its five nurseries could hold more than 10,000 corals. Also in 2019, more than 3,000 corals had already been transplanted to the house reef, with a survival rate of about 80%, and coral cover in the transplanted areas rose from about 10% to almost 17%. In 2019, coral cover around the island had risen by 3% since 2017, with more fish in both the transplanted areas and the adjacent degraded areas, a sign of spillover from the restored sections. Velaa has already transplanted more than 11,000 nursery-grown corals, covering 25% of the reef around the island. The house reef has corals of genera such as Pocillopora, Acropora, Heliopora, Pachyseris, Diploastrea and Astreopora, along with other massive species.

Encounters with manta rays and turtles on the house reef or on nearby islands are recorded and sent to organisations for identification; in one year, 10 turtles and 11 mantas were identified, 3 of them never recorded before. In Noonu Atoll, the best season for manta rays usually runs from October to January. Velaa means green turtle in Dhivehi, because females typically nest on the island during the nesting season, between March and August. The island's over-water villas were built in the shape of a turtle's head.