SPS Sitting Under The Sun
Under Construction
I have been involved with aquariums since I was born. My parents had an Oscar tank in my nursery. I moved through a 20g and then a 60g tall freshwater tank through high school. My last two years of high school I worked at the local pet store, and spent the weekends as the top salesman of the largest fish store in Southern California (Discount Tropical Fish on Harbor Blvd in Garden Grove). During high school I lived on the water in Huntington Beach, and kept a cold water 40g salt tank with everything from pipefish to leopard sharks.
Heading off to college at UCSB I setup my first warn water saltwater aquarium. Soon I was running the local fish store. When the addiciton of 3 salt tanks became too much in college, I started a company building custom salt water aquariums, called Aquatic Dreams.
After UCSB I headed off to lawschool, and went from the aquarium design and construction to importing and transhipping corals into the United States. This went on for 2 years until my business partner gave me the shaft.
For the next several years I specialized in importing ultra high end fish for unique aquarists and public aquariums throughout the world.
From 98-2002 I took a break from the aquarium hobby/industry and just let my existing tanks (125 Reef, 240 FO) run unattended.
I finally decided it was time to get back interested in the reefing hobby, to determine if I wanted to upgrade my reef tank. Within a year of getting motivated I had over 1300 gallons of saltwater aquariums outside in my yard, and then upgraded my 125Reef to a 360 display tank.
Thanks to the negligence and poor craftsmanship of Advanced Aquarium Technologies / aka AAT / aka PlaticMart - The 360 gallon tank had to be replaced within a year. I increased my main display tank to 400 gallons, with an entirely open top. Unfortunately even the replacement tank by AAT is a disaster and they to date have refused to accept responsibility for their poor craftsmanship and negligence.
For the past several years, I have consolidated my system down about 1300 gallons. I got out of the retail / sales sides of reef keeping and now am just an extreme hobbyist who keeps waiting for the next miracle of tank disaster to occur.
In March of 2007, a rat destroyed 90% of what I had spent years of collecting and growing out. During 2007 it has been very difficult for me to get the motivation to jump back into the reef. The lights are on, the water is circulating and there are some fish swimming. But for the moment, I just don't have the heart to start gluing in all those pretty little colored sticks.
Dave B
.... And What About Those Corals
So where do I get my corals from... Online Vendors, My LFS, Friends. Well the truth is for the past 2.5 years all my corals have come from the trash or a friends tank. I visit the Wholesale facilities around LAX. Corals that are loosing tissue, have lost their color, that were crushed during shipping... these corals get a chance in my system before hitting the bleaching tanks and becoming decorations on some housewife's kitchen table.
While some are donations, some are also paid for.
And what is the success rate with these corals on their last leg ? Well when I am motivated the success rate is over 80% survival. And what do I do with the successes? Well first choice goes into my display tank. And the remainders are given away to local hobbyists, clubs, college research projects. People who have had a major tank crash are likely to be able to get a bouncing restart with just a friendly email to me.
***** This past year -2007- I have barely been able to keep myself going and have not been able to donate much.