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After Reefs Aquaculture – Main Tank Intro

By After Reefs on

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Speaker: In this video, we'll introduce you to the main display tank here at After Reefs Aquaculture, a homegrown aquaculture project. Now that the tank has been up and running for several months, the corals are starting to thrive. The tank is a mixture of SPS, LPS, and various softies like mushroom, zoas, and other similar things.

The tank is right about 200 gallons and it was made by Custom Aquariums.

The tank is pumped into an additional several hundred gallons that run out of a separate room. That's where we keep our macroalgae system and grow our tanks. Running the tank runs around 400 to 500 par at the top levels and drops down to around 100 or so at the floor. It comes from a variety of black box LEDs for main lighting along with five Kessil A360Xs. Some with the additional depth penetration lenses, some with just the standard disbursement.

The water flow in the tank is right around 50 times total system volume using two Maxspec XF350s and an MPQ-40 along with supplemental other pumps to avoid dead spots. The frags are still pretty small where others really start to take off. One of my favorite corals of the tank is this OG-bounce mushroom. It started as just about the size of a dime. I also love these moody tubes and skittle sips in the back.

Some of the stranger things, at least for me, are this logo and a different-colored ricordea along with the branching GSP, which is a great solution if you like green star polyps but don't want them everywhere. This dragon soul torch is starting to color back up as well. One of the great features of a Custom Aquariums tank are these overflows, which if you have the right sockets into them, they'll be virtually silent.

They don't have some of the usual risks of clogging. Do make sure you keep them clean inside though. You could see that ours are ready for a cleaning. Probably my favorite SPS of the tank is this Wolverine Acropora, but you still can't beat some of the classics like this green Acropora that has no name but has great polyp extension. Both of these clams started out at just about one inch and they've grown quite a bit in a fairly short amount of time.

Same sort of thing with these digis, a forest fire in a bubblegum. They've really also taken off. Here we have our mushroom rack, including a sunkist bounce and a kryptonite jawbreaker and then, of course, a grafted cap in the back along with various acros and chalices. That's it for now. Stay tuned for future videos from After Reefs Aquaculture and we'll introduce to you how we keep our duty under control through a macroalgae setup and also all of the other components of this tank.

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About After Reefs

After Reefs is an aquaculture, research, and advocacy group focused on promoting coral reef longevity through sustainable aquaculture.

Between the recent decline in coral reef health across the globe, the rise in limitations on coral export, and the growing demand among coral hobbyists, aquaculture is essential to the future of the reefs, both the ocean’s and our living room’s. No coral enthusiast wants to live in a world “after the reefs,” and After Reefs’ goal is to help ensure that day never comes. AR also works to assist the everyday reefer through its research and advocacy efforts.

After Reefs got its start with help from CustomAquariums.com, which built the display tank in our 1000 gallon system. AR’s founders are two brothers, a lawyer and a biologist, who have a passion for saltwater aquariums. After Reefs does not buy coral from the ocean: it acquires them only from aquaculture operations. AR has never purchased wholesale, and it focuses on culturing the most spectacular and unique pieces in the hobby.

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