I really couldn't figure out why the copied reef ball was even at the coral farm site on Olango Island near Cebu.
There was plenty of live coral in the vicinity, including beautiful and enormous tabletop Acroporas. There were giant Pocilloporas and Porites colonies all about. The "reef ball" had plenty of algae, sponges and coral growth on it. It didn't seem to be serving as much of a fish shelter as there were already lots of natural structures around it, as mentioned. Given its proximity to the coral farm (about 50 feet away) it may have been more experimental than functional.
Mike King declared the coral farm "abandoned", but that didn't make complete sense to me. The coral cages contained a good number of grapefruit-sized Tridacna clams, and there were a few corals within them as well. Lots of algae had accumulated on the cages and that did give it a unkempt appearance. There were corals that were obviously cultured alongside the cages. These were arranged on the seabottom with the look of a backyard garden.
The fully-enclosed wire racks were at 15-20 foot depth. We were snorkeling; and when I went down to examine these cages I could see that the clams looked pretty healthy. I continuously scanned the water for jellyfish, which were plentiful. We had been warned of occasional box jellyfish which are terribly dangerous, and the idea of that kept me hypervigilant.