Where do your frags come from?

[uniquecorals]

Hey everyone,

We get a lot of questions about our facility and what the setup looks like...So, here are a few of shots of some of our coral raceways!

We employ 6- 29' long culture raceways. We are still growing into these massive raceways, but we have literally thousands of frags in inventory at any given time, most grown right in our own facility, others from well-known propagators and hobbyists. We also have many sustainably-collected pieces in these raceways, some of which we frag out, and others which we offer as WYSIWYG specimens. We illuminate with LED's, T5's, and 400 watt 20K Radium MH on light movers.

These 29' raceways incorporate gyre flow and have massive, ultra-efficient water movement for super coral growth and health!

Just a small section of one of our raceways, dedicated to growout of frags.

We try to keep a great supply of "stock" frags on hand at all times- here are some "Meteor Shower" Cyphastrea, doing their thing! They still have a little ways to go. We are really big about only shipping fully-encrusted, super colorful frags. No fresh glue or browned out stuff.

Everyone loves maricultured Acropora, so we always have a nice inventory on hand! Here are some cool, delicately-colored deepwater species. The flash is dulling them out a bit; colors are super!

And of course, because everyone likes the WYSIWYG stuff, we dedicate a large portion of one of our raceways to them!


Just thought that you might be interested in seeing a few pics of where your corals are coming from!

Thanks again for your support!

Joe and Scott

 

[Rmorales13]

Amazing!!

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[xcorallusx]

looks great, what do you do for quarantine?

 

[bullysam]

Sweet!

What are your parameters? What salt brand do you guys use?

 

[uniquecorals]

looks great, what do you do for quarantine?

Glad you asked! We have an entire raceway devoted to quarantine! All new corals are prophylactically dipped, inspected, and placed in our QT raceway. Following careful inspections and further dips, if required, we place them in the appropriate system. Each raceway has its own dedicated filtration pallet. There is no shared circulation between raceways to avoid any pest and allelopathy issues. We are fanatical about this stuff!

 

[uniquecorals]

Sweet!

What are your parameters? What salt brand do you guys use?

I'll have to get back to you on all the specifics, but I can tell you our last water test parameters in our SPS culture raceway, for example, were as follows:

CA 460ppm, Mg 1595ppm, DKH 10.0 meq/L, Phospate 0.12 mg/L, pH 8.4, specific gravity 1.024. We use Brightwell Neo Marine Salt, and have enjoyed much success with it. We also run a few other water test parameters and use specific additives as needed. We are always testing and refining...And more important than just locking in on parameters- we carefully observe how our corals look! Sometimes careful visual evaluation can give clues and insights that even the most comprehensive water tests cannot!

 

[Redseadragon]

very impressive! Do you dose with nutrients like marine snow?

 

[Bry]

Thanks for sharing! Great looking systems.

 

[bullysam]

Thank you for the answering our questions...I'll be sure to stop by your display at RAP

 

[uniquecorals]

very impressive! Do you dose with nutrients like marine snow?

We don't really do a lot of dosing, per se. If testing dictates, we dose certain trace elements. We dose vodka carefully and slowly on occasion, along with lanthium chloride as needed for algae suppression in one of our raceways. We feed our corals regularly and well with Reef Nutrition products and other frozen feeds. We are big fans of regular water changes!

 

[uniquecorals]

Thank you for the answering our questions...I'll be sure to stop by your display at RAP

We look forward to meeting you!

 

[uniquecorals]

Thanks for sharing! Great looking systems.

Thnaks so much...What comes out of them is really important to us, and if they look good- that's awesome too!

 

[KLR]

Amazing looking systems and corals!

 

[rarelyseriousb]

Nice setup. Cool to see a vendor being so open about there process.

 

[uniquecorals]

Amazing looking systems and corals!

Thanks so much- we're working very hard to make sure that we do the best job possible!

 

[uniquecorals]

Nice setup. Cool to see a vendor being so open about there process.

Although there might be a few "secrets" we incorporate- for the most part, just obeying the rules of generally accepted aquarium husbandry has reaped significant benefits for our livestock. It's so important to share our experiences- good and bad- so that we can all learn and advance the "state of the art" for the benefit of our customers, the hobby at large- and most important- the animals we cherish. It's win/win. Also, if you know a little about the water parameters from which your livestock came, it's a lot easier to acclimate them to your own system!

-Scott

 

[buddythelion]

I haven't ordered from you guys, and yet you're one of my top respected vendors already simply for showing us how your facility is and answering all of these questions. Goes to show that you really care for this hobby and are not out there to make a quick buck. Proud that you're in CA!

 

[uniquecorals]

I haven't ordered from you guys, and yet you're one of my top respected vendors already simply for showing us how your facility is and answering all of these questions. Goes to show that you really care for this hobby and are not out there to make a quick buck. Proud that you're in CA!

Thank you for the kind words! We are very happy to support the hobby any way that we can. Yes, it's a business- but it's really more than that. It's a passion and an obsession! We have not- and hopefully never will- lose sight of the important stuff: people and the relationships we form. It's always awesome to help someone else enjoy the hobby as much as we do!

We look forward to working with you soon! Oh- and we're proud to represent Calif., too!


Regards,

Scott

 

[Amphibious]

You state...

Although there might be a few "secrets" we incorporate

And then you follow up with...

It's so important to share our experiences- good and bad- so that we can all learn and advance the "state of the art" for the benefit of our customers, the hobby at large- and most important- the animals we cherish.

If you truly meant the second quote, you wouldn’t keep anything “secret” from customers or hobbyists in general. Promoting the hobby means sharing what works and what doesn’t work so ALL can benefit from your expertise. That’s what advances the hobby! Not just selling coral or other livestock. That simply advances your agenda. In my humble opinion, that’s being very disingenuous toward your customers. I’ve met and talked with you guys at a couple of MACNAs and frankly I’m surprised at this attitude. Just my candid thoughts about it.

I’m amazed at the amount of customers I get that have gotten false information or incomplete information and struggle keeping their corals in tip-top condition. I go out of my way to help them. I keep no secrets from my customers. If they learn from me, they are repeat customers. It simply good business to educate your customers in all facets of this wonderful hobby.

Dick

 

[uniquecorals]

You state...



And then you follow up with...



If you truly meant the second quote, you wouldn’t keep anything “secret” from customers or hobbyists in general. Promoting the hobby means sharing what works and what doesn’t work so ALL can benefit from your expertise. That’s what advances the hobby! Not just selling coral or other livestock. That simply advances your agenda. In my humble opinion, that’s being very disingenuous toward your customers. I’ve met and talked with you guys at a couple of MACNAs and frankly I’m surprised at this attitude. Just my candid thoughts about it.

I’m amazed at the amount of customers I get that have gotten false information or incomplete information and struggle keeping their corals in tip-top condition. I go out of my way to help them. I keep no secrets from my customers. If they learn from me, they are repeat customers. It simply good business to educate your customers in all facets of this wonderful hobby.

Dick

Dick, thanks for your feedback. I know what you mean about keeping no secrets. And I wasn't implying any husbandry secrets. What I was implying was that I'm not going to share every aspect of my marketing strategy, proprietary financial data, future product development, etc. Husbandry and coral care benefits everyone, so we have no reason to keep that stuff a mystery! Sorry if my response seemed a bit inconsistent. I can see how you might have interpreted it as such!, which is most definitely not our way. I've spent years writing, talking at clubs and mACNAs sharing what knowledge I have. The last thing I'd want myself- or any vendor, for that matter- to do is to NOT share knowledge that can benefit others!