Welcome to our newest sponsor Unique Corals!

[revhtree]

Please help me in welcoming our newest platinum sponsors to R2R, Unique Corals!

Welcome Unique Corals and thank you for your support of our community.

Members please visit their website and check out all the goodies they have to offer. And as always please shop R2R sponsors first!

 

[ritter6788]

Welcome!

 

[Saltgator]

Awesome and welcome!!

Country Boy using tapatalk on his EVO

 

[skinz78]

Welcome!

 

[Troylee]

Welcome back....

 

[Dowtish]

Great Coral selection from these guys. Welcome!

 

[mnat]

Welcome back....

Different guys

 

[wysiwyg]

welcome

 

[stan13ag]

Welcome.. I've been checking often to see what kind of PNG maroons are getting brought in..

 

[Rmorales13]

Welcome!!

 

[Gamble]

Different guys

Same company, but moved to Cali as far as I know.... Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[uniquecorals]

Thank you so much everyone, for the warm welcome! We are thrilled to be here, and look forward to interacting with many of you! Please check back often, as we'll be updating our forum page regularly with the latest news, stories, and of course, awesome livestock!

A little about us.

Our story is a classic “follow your passion” story. Unique began in 2009, when Joe Caparatta, owner of Manhattan Aquariums in New York City, thought it would be a real cool thing to offer the same great quality corals that he offered in his shop to clients all over the country via the internet. After building out a nice little propagation facility in the basement of his store, Joe realized that space was becoming a challenge, as was sourcing the best possible corals. If you are looking for the best new coral imports and really want to be “on” it, you need to be in Los Angeles. Joe set his sites on relocating to sunny So Cal to take unique to the next level.

While attending Reef a Palooza 2011 in Orange County, Joe bumped into me, Scott Fellman, when I was giving a talk at the show. I’m a native Los Angeles resident who had recently relocated to the East Coast to work for one of Joe’s competitors. After striking up friendly conversation and sharing his vision of a bigger, better version of Unique, the seed was planted. Ever the homesick So Cal boy, I fell immediately in love with the idea of coming home and taking Unique to the next level.

Within months, our facility was under construction. We wanted to do things in a big way, to shake up the status quo in the marine livestock industry. Our 5,000 square foot facility features over 14,000 gallons of capacity, and employs the principle of horizontal gyre flow in each of our 29 foot coral raceways. To our knowledge, a gyre this large has never been created before in the ornamental aquarium trade. Our corals absolutely thrive in the massive, yet efficient flow that our systems provide.

We’re building what we hope will be your favorite source for aquatic livestock. In addition to offering sustainably sourced, high quality corals at prices that are fair, we strive to create lasting relationships with you, our customers. We want to provide a great customer experience. We want to inspire, excite, share, learn, and grow with you.

By rejecting corals from collectors who employ ecologically unsound practices, and embracing suppliers who utilize conscientious techniques and philosophies, we hope that we are able to do our part to create a sustainable, responsible ornamental marine trade and hobby for many years to come. You’ll also find some amazing aquacultured corals from people who love coral as much as you do.

We’re excited to feature “eco-labled” fishes from Dan Navin’s EcoAquarium in Papua New Guinea- a model for sustainable ornamental fisheries. These fishes are fabulous, healthy specimens that every hobbyist can feel good about buying.

We feel that our combination of experience, passion, unbridled enthusiasm, and plain old geekiness will help inspire you, our fellow hobbyists, to fearlessly try new things and further your involvement in the hobby.

We are looking forward to a long and rewarding relationship with members of the Reef2Reef community! Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding our company, and what we can do to make your hobby experience more rewarding. Please visit our website, join us on Facebook (facebook.com/uniquecorals), and follow us on Twitter!

Be bold. Be passionate. Be unique.

Joe Caparatta and Scott Fellman
Unique Corals Home Page

 

[BeakerBob]

Welcome to R2R! That's a great background story and I look forward to seeing some of your corals listed on this site.

 

[Kawicivic]

will you be posting any photos of this huge facility or keeping it under wraps?

 

[uniquecorals]

Welcome to R2R! That's a great background story and I look forward to seeing some of your corals listed on this site.

Thanks, Bob- it's one of those classic "fish geek" stories that we all have. It's really fun to be able to travel around the country speaking and getting geeked out with local hobyists about reefing. It's been even more fun to be able to tell fellow fish geeks, "Look what we've got here! This is insane!"

 

[skinz78]

I too would love to see some pic's of your setup! I know you guys have some awesome looking clams and I hope to be seeing some of them in my tank in the near future!

 

[uniquecorals]

I too would love to see some pic's of your setup! I know you guys have some awesome looking clams and I hope to be seeing some of them in my tank in the near future!

Hey Guys, I'll definitely get some pics up of the facility soon! I need to find the hard drive with some of our raceway shots and so forth. It's funny, we place so much emphasis on the livestock that we tend to forget that we ARE fish geeks, and it's fun to see builds and equipment shots! With all of the press we got about our facility when it came out, and our decided lack of photos of it, someone only half-jokingly referred to it as "Area 51", which I thought WAS kind of funny.

We did put a lot of work into the facility, and we're quite proud of it, so we will definitely put up some pics real soon! I absolutely deny, however, that we are back-engineering extraterrestrial protein skimmer technology, or creating hybrid Acros at this facility. In fact, what facility are you talking about? :crossedlips:

 

[FishLipz]

I'm most interested in the sustainable collection of fish from PNG. I'm thinking a gold nugget wrasse may be in my near future :bigsmile:

 

[revsgirl]

:clap2: Alright!! Welcome to R2R!! Great to have ya! May your business be ever prosperous here on R2R!!