Geothermal Aquaculture Research Foundation

PICTURE OF THE WEEK

THESE TWO PICTURES SHOW SHOW THE 150 GALLON SPS BROOD STOCK REEF IN LEROY'S OFFICE THIS ARAGOCRETE TM AND GLUE REEF IS NOW 10 MONTHS OLD This first picture shows how the reef is growing into a stoney coral forest. Each of the 100 plus types of sps corals is growing very well. We just started making a large number of frags from this reef. LeRoy was able to plant about 80 mixed frags on the AragocreteTM live rock that Jerry Heslinga sent back to us after it's six month stay at his clam farm in Kona. This rock is covered with very nice red and purple coralline algae. The rock was sent to Jerry last Summer and he returned it a week ago. The AragocreteTM from Kona is being used to start a new 55 gallon stoney coral reef in the red room. We will have pictures of this rock and the new reef aquarium in the next issue of the reef farming newsletter. It is so fun to reach into this 150 gallon reef with a large Stainless Steel Tweezers and pull out dozens of frags that have to be trimmed to make room for them to grow. Today the fragging reminded me very much of how I trim my collection of Japenese Maples. We have found out that the best way to trim these corals is to break the frags off with the tweezers so that you do not drop the frag into the bottom of the reef.

The large coralline covered coral branch standing up on the left side of the picture shows how we glue our frags to coral rubble so they are near the top of the reef. The coral on the right side of this branch is the bluest Acropora we have ever seen. I made two cuttings of the coral today.

THIS PICTURE SHOWS HOW THE REEF LOOKS WITH SOME OF THE ACTINIC LIGHTS TURNED OFF. THIS REEF HAS 8 - FOUR FOOT VHO BULBS AND A LEXAN CURVED MIRROR FOR A HOOD.