Blue Kai Aquatics Is Back!

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

Hi everyone! I’m Joey, owner of Blue Kai Aquatics in North Texas. Some of you may remember us from a few years ago, when we were working with and selling gigantea carpet anemones. After some time away from the business, I’m bringing Blue Kai back, and I thought this would be a great place to share the journey.

Our focus will be Stichodactyla gigantea. These anemones have always been a particular interest of mine, and I want to build a small, specialized business around giving them the attention they need from arrival through recovery and out to all of you.

I’ve been putting together a dedicated holding and treatment room, and my next step is a trip to Indonesia in November to meet with exporters and visit their facilities firsthand. With their permission, I hope to share photos and videos along the way so you can follow what I’m seeing and learning.

My goal for this thread is to document the whole process: the facility setup here in Texas, the exporter visits, preparations for the first shipment, and how the animals settle in after arrival. I’ll share the challenges along with the progress.

I’m targeting a first shipment in December, depending on availability and readiness. Once the animals arrive, the priority will be their care, recovery, and an extended observation period before any are offered for sale. I’m giving myself time to assess each animal rather than rushing toward a sales date.

For now, I wanted to say hello and introduce what I’m working on. I’d love to hear from other gigantea keepers—what would you most like to see from the Indonesia visits or the setup here at home?

Hey admins—I know I’m a vendor and want to get things set up right. I haven’t been able to DM some of you, so if you see this, please message me about sponsor options and where this thread belongs. Thanks!

Thanks for following along!

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

Good news! My post has made it past moderation and I can start talking to all of you, haha! Over the past month I have basically spent everyday building out an insulated 12' x 12' room in a tandem spot of my garage complete with AC and all the electrical/plumbing needs for treating gigs. My prior treatment area back in SoCal was inside my house.... which wasn't ideal to say the least. I learned a lot about the needs of this animals during that time and wanted to make the new treatment room very specific to give them everything they need to be conditioned, settled then available for everyone. I'm going to post some pictures below with descriptions so all of you can see what I'm planning. I'm almost finished but I'm sure there will be things that come up during the process. I leave for Indonesia to meet with exporters next Monday and will be gone for a full month to give me time to figure everything out! I'm planning to document all that here. It should be a lot of fun!

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

Below is the left side of the room and will be used for treatment protocols upon arrival. The LED lights you see hanging are able to be lowered as far as needed to give adequate light spread for the animals while not being treated. I learned that keeping these lights high up (as shown below) and using them for task lighting is not smart as it messes with the thermostat of the split system cooling the room down significantly, so no more of that. I'm keeping the room at 76-77 degrees which keeps all the water in the room the same temperature. The tanks you see on the back wall are 300G, 200G and 60G from left to right. I will be making approximately 250 gallons of salt water each day during the treatment period for water changes. When the gigs are not being treated the tanks will be cleaned and remain empty until the next shipment of gigs arrives.

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

Below is the right side of the room. This is our gigantea post treatment holding trough area. The holding trough is a 120 gallon Pentair marine line that I had no idea existed until recently. The idea for the trough was to make it as modular as possible allowing me to break it down and clean it if needed between stocks of gigantea allowing the sump to exist independently of the main holding area. It can also remain running full time too, just an option. I also wanted everything to be accessible from the front to maximize space in the room for treatment. The Frankenstein plumbing job on the back rim of the trough limits bulkheads on the trough and should (hopefully) provide enough flow inside the trough without needing an internal powerhead. I will be running 3 250 watt halides on this trough (one installed). I found that the gigs react much better to this lighting source. Very simple Berlin Method system that has never failed me before.

 

[bradleym]

Amazing idea!!! I hope this does well for you, and I’ll be very interested in your progress.

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

Amazing idea!!! I hope this does well for you, and I’ll be very interested in your progress.

Thanks! A few years ago when I started doing this I was frustrated by not being able to find healthy gigs (or anything) available anywhere. I hope I can help change that!

 

[Ocellaris123]

cant wait to see progress on this, best of luck, will be following along

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

This is an idea of what I am seeing so far. It's kind of a mixed bag depending on location in the country. Indonesia is made up of 17,000 island and different color morphs appear to come from different places. I had one exporter I was working with for a little while who's fisherman was only able to get the brown/tan morph. Learning a lot.

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

An example from another exporter in another region. I love the tan ones, but I'm not sure if all of you do too, HAHA!

 

[Ocellaris123]

Any color would sell with gigs. Maybe you will see some reds.

 

[Blue Kai Aquatics]

Any color would sell with gigs. Maybe you will see some reds.

I'll make sure to ask specifically. In conversation with exporters I learned that science has one name for gigs, the fishermen have another name for the gigs, the exporters have another name and the hobby has another. Sometimes (all the time) wires get crossed and you might (will) end up with something you didn't want. That's half of the reason I'm making the trip. Sometime next week I will be in the ocean with the fishermen, crazy!

 

[D-Nak]

Glad you're back. Thanks for sharing your adventure--very cool.

My understanding is that gigs are not rare in the wild. I've seen videos of people eating them.

It sounds like the biggest hurdle is getting the export license/paperwork completed in a timely manner. I've heard that anemones can sit for weeks in holding as the paperwork is done. This is typically where problems begin. The shorter the period in holding, the better.

All of the gigs in the videos seem healthy. Their twitching tentacles can be clearly seen. It you can get them into the US quickly, you may not need to treat them at all.

 

[D-Nak]

Any color would sell with gigs. Maybe you will see some reds.

I agree. And if you see any red haddoni, definitely check each and every one to make sure that they are indeed haddoni (which I'm sure you're already doing).