Longevity

I have been a marine aquarium hobbyist for over 40 years! I started keeping freshwater fish in the early 1960's and started my first saltwater aquarium in 1968. I have been involved in this hobby/industry ever since. Our business, Pacific East Aquaculture started about 9 years ago.

I recently found some old literature from the company that I first worked at in Chicago, Marine World. I visited the store in 1969-1970 as a customer and then when my family moved just a couple of blocks away I started working there during my high school years. I did everything from cleaning tanks to packing wholesale orders. Marine World was the premier saltwater shop in the US at that time, they imported fish several times a week from locations around the world. I remember seeing Pinecone fish for the first time from Australia as they glowed in the dark and in those days fish such as Flame angels were considered somewhat rare to be seen in captivity. At the time I had many aquariums, a 30 gallon with anemones and spawning clownfish, a 55 gallon with angels and butterflyfish, a 100 gallon with a Zebra Moray Eel and other larger fish, and an 8 foot long freshwater Amazon river tank with all sorts of rare wild collected fish. I enjoyed my years at Marine World, Don Sporleder the owner and his brother Bruce taught me a lot about the love for the animals.


Here are some photos of the old Marine World wholesale catalog and brochure.

This is a photo from a brochure that shows the retail side of Marine World. Each tank had a diorama behind it and this was loaded with corals and other decor that gave the tanks a deeper look while still allowing easy catching of the fish. The store had freshwater tanks on one side and saltwater on the other with live plant tanks below the freshwater fish rows and invert tanks below the saltwater fish rows and a section of cubes with individual inverts such as shrimps.



This photo shows the wholesale side of the business. Fish that were imported throughout the week were quarantined for at least 7-10 days before they were either shipped out to other stores or moved into the retail store.




Marine World's wholesale catalog published in 1976.



Dr. Mac, yes that is me in the mid 1970's packing wholesale orders.

Limited Edition Corals

We offer the widest variety of corals available anywhere including a huge selection of our Collector's Reserve Limited Edition Corals. We proudly feature the corals of Jason Fox, our own LE frags, and LE frags from other local coral farmers.

http://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com/ShowProductCategory.aspx?CategoryId=83


1. What makes a coral "Limited Edition"?
For us it means these corals were acquired by us as captive grown frags and grown into colonies or were collected personally by us at the origin and then brought back and grown into colonies, a process in many instances that has taken many years. We have been acquiring and growing these corals for many years and just recently added them for sale on our site. These corals are unique and we house them at a separate location. We take a very limited number of frags from the parent colonies, for some of the slower growing chalices we only offer 1 or 2 frags for sale each year. All of these corals have been grown in captivity and many have been grown for multiple generations in captivity.

2. How do you grow these corals?
Our Limited Edition corals are grown under 1000 watt metal halide lamps (on light movers) or 400 watt metal halide lamps with rapid alternating water flow. We strongly promote the use of natural saltwater parameters for the proper growth of our corals along with intense light levels for most corals. You will note the individual conditions recommended for each coral.

3. Why don't all the frags look exactly like the parent colonies?
The parent colonies have been grown for years in one spot in the systems and when we take frags they are housed in the same system water but in a frag tank and often for a period of time some types of frags will in fact change color, not all types--just some. This is a natural fact of the process of captive propagation of these corals. Our Blue Monster Echinopora parent colony is bright blue with a pink rim, often the frags tend to brown out a bit when first cut. With intense lighting and natural saltwater parameters the frags color up in a few weeks. This same process holds true for most of the Acropora frags. These frags should be looked at as seed stock, the type of corals that you intend to grow for years in your tank and all corals regardless of their origin will change color and growth patterns depending upon each individual system. Often folks will contact us that their frags are actually more colorful than our parent colonies after some time in their systems. Every coral will react differently as it adapts to your husbandry and tank conditions and this is part of the fun of reefkeeping and collecting Limited Edition corals.


Parent colonies of Blue Monster Scroll Echinopora, Fireball Monti cap and Green Monti cap.



Parent colonies of Palys and Zoos



Parent colony of Green Goddess Bird's Nest



Parent colony of our Glowing Green Tabling Acropora



Parent colony of our Joker's Wild Chalice

An overview of a few of our tanks with our LE corals.


The 1000 watt MH lamps are on light movers.


Chalice corals tend to be very slow growing, we have many new ones we hope to be able to offer for sale this year.

Acropora and Montipora corals are faster growing, but we still only offer a limited nuber of frags for sale from each parent colony.

Cherry Pickin'

Dr. Mac Hand-Picking Corals at the Importer

Every few weeks I travel out to Los Angeles to hand pick livestock. I usually spend 2-3 days there visiting all the importers and wholesalers. The trick with this is to have the relationships with these companies so I can be there as they are unpacking their shipments because within minutes all the nice corals are picked over and gone in different directions and unless I am standing there myself I can not work for my customers to get the top 1% of the coral coming into the US. Of course with this type of venture I am only in LA for a few days at a time and so one never knows what might be available at any given time, but I always wind up with some incredible livestock. On this trip I picked very few fish as the selection at all the supplires was poor and corals were scarce as well, but a few nice shipments arrived and there I was on the spot hand-picked as the shipments were being unpacked.

It is a detailed process to pick just the very best corals.

Relationships are critical in the process so that I can get in when the shipments are unpacked.