Thursday, January 14, 2010

Dan the Pieces of the Reef man

If you've ever been diving on a wild reef, you know that what you see isn't a coral here, a coral there, with lots of space in between. It's a solid mass of corals growing right up next to each other and mixing together. This is the look and feel that we try to recreate with each of our unique Pieces of the Reef, as if we had taken an entire section from the reef and brought it to your home tank.

Dan is the creative mind behind many of our Pieces of the Reef creations. One of his favorite hobbies is pottery, and he brings that same artistic bent to his work on these coral combinations. He carefully selects pieces of liverock that will make interesting and sturdy bases for each Piece of the Reef. Then he decides on the frags to use for that piece, chosing those that will combine to be both attractive and to coexist as peacefully as possible.

Once selected, frags are cleaned up and mounted one by one.

Completed Pieces of the Reef are then placed in one of our holding vats. They will be allowed to grow and fill in a bit to make the piece look more natural before being sold, a process than can take anywhere from a week or two to several months depending on the types of corals being used.
Now the Piece of the Reef is ready to be sold. They are ideal for jump starting a tank as you can place two or three and be well on your way to having a mature, natural looking reef without the long wait for individual frags or corals to begin filling in on their own. We have lots available so make sure you check them out, you may just find one of our carefully constructed pieces is the prefect complement your own tank!