Mr fan fine what a delight it is to have

you in the reef Builder Studio I've been

a fan of your work your content for over

a decade and you know definitely someone

I take inspiration from so it's a real

honor to have you in the flesh here in

the studio thanks so much for having me

for a very rare in-person interview on

Reef therapy nice nice glad to be here

so a little kind of a uh

Oddball question or is what is your

version of reef therapy when you're

working on your tanks or you want

something to

I don't know just kind of give you some

of that catharsis so I would say there's

like two things if we're talking about

just

what goes on at tidal Gardens

the real simple like Zen thing is for me

to zone out and just scrape the glass of

algae because that's one of those

activities that

um

a lot of my higher value employees don't

typically do because they're doing more

important stuff and I actually don't

mind going through and scraping because

it is a legit brainless activity I'm

already doing so many other things it is

nice to just veg out you clean all your

glass tanks and when you're done it's

really nice to have a facility that

looks sparkling clean it raises

everybody's morale it's so much easier

to do work in and around the tanks when

you can actually see into them and it's

just having that unobstructed view of

the aquariums is just really really nice

so when I'm just over just over it when

it comes to like actually running the

business and doing all the other stuff

yeah that that's definitely the number

one thing that I look to do it's just

the most brainless activity that

delivers like some pretty good results

um and the other thing that I like to do

when I'm in a more social situation is

to talk shop with other store owners and

people in the industry because sometimes

it's hard to I guess commiserate over

just you had a bad interaction with a

customer you had a bad interaction with

a supplier some nonsense is going on and

so just yeah just sitting back and just

talking shop is really helpful that was

a really great answer bro that was a

really awesome answer it's a great way

to warm up and I I really uh identify

with what you said about as far as

cleaning the glass because Evan and I we

both like to do it but Evan does it more

often and he's been out of town for a

couple weeks

and so you know in preparation for your

visit I wanted the place to look like a

museum like you described and um it's

it's a way to synchronize with your

aquarium you know not only is everything

presentable but as you're

cleaning you know areas of the glass

you're seeing that Coral you're seeing

that coral and every time you scrape it

off it's just incredibly rewarding

you can see your tank a lot better

um and now for me it's always in the

back of my mind of how I think it was

Julian sprung articles way back in the

day talked about how basically wiping

down your tank is like feeding your tank

phytoplankton you know it's there's some

nutritious aspect to that glass but that

you couldn't have come up with a better

answer as far as uh you know wiping down

the glass

we have a substantial tool set here for

different glass scraping needs I don't

know if we got a chance to show you that

but what are some of your favorite uh or

preferred uh glass cleaning tools you

know are you a scrubby pad kind of guy

or a blade kind of guy I

um for me to get the job done the

absolute fastest it's a metal blade

against glass we don't we don't have a

ton of acrylic so we can go pretty hard

on like just like the regular metal

scraper blades I think that like the

Continuum brand I think is what we

typically use lately I've given given

Julian sprung's scraper a try

it's and that's really nicer for a

couple of our show tanks which tend to

be deeper and when to get to that little

bottom bit of a 24 inch deep tank you

need to be putting in some some good I

guess like Leverage against the glass

right and some of the other scrapers

aren't quite as rigid as like the the

stainless steel one that that Julian has

so we've been messing with that there's

always a magnet Scraper on every single

tank just in case anybody feels

motivated to use one and we're currently

using like The Flipper Max floats which

we're pretty happy with so far

um yeah I mean we use depending on the

thickness of the glass and what grows on

it we use just about every kind of

magnets definitely uh linked towards the

um flipper Brands and the toonsy care

magnet Brands and also mix and match so

we'll have the external of one and the

internal of the other recently I had to

take the floats off my tunesy care

magnets because some of my corals are

getting so close to the glass in

anticipation for your visit I had to

really wanted to clean in between those

corals that were getting close so I took

the float off and I was watching down

the edge but I don't want to talk just

about scraping I would be remiss if I

didn't mention paint scrapers this is

something that that Mark has mentioned

many times as like a long not quite

razor blade that you can get but it's

really wide and it's going to give you

you know just really broad feel so

that's for Marco is uh not participating

this one he's going to get to enjoy it

but I know in the background he's gonna

be like paint scrapers bait scrapers for

maybe next time one thing that I did

notice though one last little point

about scraping is when it's like really

heavy Coraline and stuff like that

sometimes it'll actually go with the

razor blades but I've noticed that razor

blades do scratch glass tanks so we've

got to have them in a real you know high

angle you can't a real small angle so

they're not catching because they

there's definitely that scratch

potential we pump the brakes on doing

that because it's like you know what

this isn't good so we went back to the

our regular methods I do want to spend

most of uh our session of uh therapeutic

Reef discussion talking about your stuff

and your efforts and tidal Gardens

um but just kind of warm up a little bit

you know you've had an orientation day

at the studio yesterday and on your back

today very nice very nice you know what

are some descriptive things you could

say about the studio

so where to begin I'd like well first of

all good job cleaning

very nice very spotless

one thing that I did notice is

that there are

themes to certain tanks there's clear

themes and one of the things that um I

don't know if boredom is the right word

for it but there is this aesthetic

sameness that I see in a lot of reef

tanks because usually a person only has

one reef tank and they fill it with

their favorite stuff that they've ever

seen they have neighborhoods

right they might try but and sometimes

well in a three foot long tank I mean

it's four inches away you know like what

what could really be you know separated

out but when you have nine ten different

show tanks you can creatively separate

things so just looking around here I can

see like there's like a more SPS

dominated tank there is an anemone tank

there is a non-photo tank there is one

that's like very heavy in like the

affiliate fimbriophilia yeah just

looking around there's there's certain

pockets of just a a very clear aesthetic

Vision going on and even there's like a

super high end lower light lower

temperature

um

tank filled with like uh the heck are

those like yeah basically like a

smorgasbord of like high-end LPS like

very cool stuff

um especially like the sign Arenas and

the endophilias things like that so that

was like the the thing that jumped out

at me on the less tank related things

I noticed how quiet those the space is

and that obviously is like a big deal to

me I've talked about it

ad nauseam I remember the one video you

did specifically about it and I was just

right there like amen preach up preach

brother and in in a space like this that

is essentially a rectangle it's very

challenging to control sound

uh and another thing sound related

that's super different about uh the

wreath Builder Studio versus tidal

Gardens is that Jake is constantly

listening to music

constantly he he actually installed a

really advanced audio system sounds

great uh playing music through here it

has a very chill Vibe music is

essentially banned at tidal Gardens

because no one will agree on what to

play no no well definitely that too

because you know that okay I'm not a

country music fan I don't want to hear

it but but the the the main reason is we

have like 10 000 devices at any given

time one of them is failing and melting

down go find it and so I let the guys

use like headphones if they if they want

because if they if they want to

sacrifice their ears for the cause fine

but I can't have you eliminating

everybody else's ears also I understood

so yeah headphones are okay but no just

like turning on your phone and just

blasting music as you walk through the

whole place there's there's plenty of

opportunity for us to be in the studio

without any music but I I could I can

hear the smallest little thing I can

tell you if it's a fan I can tell you if

it's a pump I can tell you if it's a

skimmer slurping or something but this

is something that's because you can't

put enough definition to it and explain

it to someone when you really know your

tank

um you know what sound it's supposed to

make it's making some sound and it's

going to have a certain amount of volume

and a certain amount of detail and if

either of those two are off that is one

of the first like key identifiers that

something is needs servicing oh yeah

it's like that does not sound right at

all and and the way that our place is

you can hear you can hear the odd

sounding thing from very far away at

that point it's a matter of like

tracking it down and everybody has like

the same reaction to the weird sound

whenever when we walk in so like if for

example we have like a lot of DeWalt

tools and there's like a DeWalt charger

one of the DeWalt Chargers has like a

little fan on it and when you you know

you're charging a little battery that

fan comes on it sounds so alien because

you're not used to hearing it's like

what's wrong what's wrong find it you

know there's something wrong so yeah

it's when I leave town for a week or

more or I just got back from Australia

and New Caledonia for like three weeks

when I walk in

I'm using my ears I'm less than my eyes

you know you think you want to come and

live my first thing is just like kind of

close my eyes and and just really listen

to the soundscape and I can hear I know

certain things are going to be gargling

from needing maintenance or whatever but

yeah use the sound first and it's always

like does it sound right

okay then we're good now we're good the

worst thing so the thing that comes in

before song you really don't want is the

smell oh yeah that is absolutely

unacceptable oh God you know what

there's a small subset of the population

that will appreciate the smell of

healthy acropora

you know some mistakes right here that

are full of acros if we're working on

them a little bit there's a good Acro

smell coming off of them it does

but it was like almonds or just close to

arsenic but on the flip side a couple

weeks ago I got an order of of corals on

behalf of someone else the coral the the

water was you know opaque and it was

brown and it was the right temperature

when I opened it up it was the opposite

of that smell and that smell lingered

for like two days until we took the

trash out it was really bad but yeah no

smells it's not something yeah when your

place smells wrong oh you know it's bad

bad yeah very very bad

um

so I'm going to do the same thing for

you when I come to visit but it's it's

impossible it's not even challenging

it's impossible to encapsulate any space

it doesn't have to be my studio it

doesn't have to be your farm but it's

hard to show it off all at once and give

people that full experience so I'd like

to think that you've watched a few

Rebuilders videos ever you know and you

must have had some impression of what

the space was like when you walk in and

you see it all together how is that

different from like the picture that you

paint

it's surprisingly close I think that you

did a pretty good job of capturing what

it does look like because a lot of your

footage you do a lot of handheld work

and moving through the space you get you

get an idea it wasn't a situation where

it's like oh I didn't realize that tank

was here in my brain I thought it was

like way over there no I didn't get that

okay occasionally like because sometimes

in my videos I hyper focus on a certain

tank and I will just you know talk about

this tank this tank this tank this tank

and I don't often show it in the context

of the rest of the building so

occasionally people do say you know what

I really thought that this the entire

floor layout was different

there are a couple of like walk through

things but no as far as like your studio

here goes uh I pretty much got an idea

of where and what everything was going

to look like I am surprised though at

the number of fresh water tanks in here

like I typically don't pay a ton of

attention to the freshwater content so I

was like kind of surprised to see

there's like an angelfish tank there

looks like what rainbows that's a tank

in development that's going to be discus

okay just slowly you know what I'm so

picky about my discus I haven't been

able to

just pull the trigger on the discs that

I want to grow out you know for like

four months

I haven't kept fresh water in well over

20 years I'm I I pointed to one of his

things like is that a beta and he's like

nah it's a beta macrostoma Brunei Beauty

the male it's funny because normally the

males just looks like a picture and he's

just right up front he happens to be

holding eggs in his mouth for the first

time this is the first time I've been

able to get him to hold eggs more than a

day he'd just I don't know if it's

female stresses them out yeah so now

he's hiding but um the the reason for

the freshwater tanks is I think you'll

appreciate this

saltwater aquariums are my life they're

my career through my job fresh water I

can do whatever I want I don't have to

share I don't have to show off the

unboxing I don't have to show the

development of the tank I can just do

and along those same lines you know I

started as a freshwater aquarist and

just being so hyper Avid about aquariums

in general I feel like it's incredibly

important for us to learn from every

discipline that is parallel to what

we're doing you know hydroponic plant

growth bonsai trees freshwater aquariums

planted aquascapes koi ponds even a

little bit of aquaculture you know you

want to find the latest

keys and and tricks and breakthroughs

one Community is not going to come up

with all those tricks and I think one of

the best examples of that is the

automatic filter roll I fell in love

with those in 2010 when I first saw some

large versions for pawns

and that's something I've been dreaming

about hitting the reef aquarium scene

for so long or the general aquarium seed

and it's kind of strange to me that

a really high-end canister filter on a

fresh water tank is going to cost you

400 something dollars and it's it's

incredibly I mean minimum for high-end

like removable fs6 or oize with a thermo

plus all the things and it's just really

it's a modern take on a very old

technology but for around the same price

or less you can have the automatic

collection of the waste so I'm really

shocked that

automatic filter rolls haven't taken

over fresh water before saltwater

yeah you would think that going from

like the pond industry to fresh water

tanks would have been a

yeah faster

adoption yeah and I think the freshwater

guys now are going to benefit from The

Saltwater uh automatic filter rolls but

I use automatic filter rolls onto my

freshwater tanks and I have six other

other filter rolls in my saltwater tanks

and so that's that's the reason for the

fresh water and you know when you look

at Super highly fluorescent colorful

just bombastic Photoshop looking real

marine life it's just kind of refreshing

sometimes to see some Goldfish or some

discus or some plecos or some angelfish

it just really it's almost the same as a

reef tank

if your reef tank of everything in your

reef tank is three colors super Neon

super fluorescent it just Blends like

zebra stripes you know unless you're

looking at it with a macro lens

and so that's something you mentioned

also about the reef tanks like I am very

happy with like a single brightly

colored corals that just really catch

your attention from across the room and

I've always said it's important to have

some supporting actors

right if everything's super blitzy you

know just burning your retinas

it everything doesn't blend but you have

a couple Browner corals or gray corals

or single color corals among your

rainbows it breaks it up

yeah I forget the phrase but it's like

uh

the the sum is greater than the

individual Parts something to that

extent and yeah sometimes like the the

monochromatic corals just root

the the entire Aquascape yeah because if

you had a five color rainbow everything

the entire thing yeah just Blends

together

it's brown right all those colors mixed

together just kind of Blended from far

away it's kind of brownish you have to

get closer and closer and closer to see

those yeah those uh smaller details and

it's funny because I was

I've been I've really been a fan of

yours you have a lot of respect for you

for a long time and I was thrilled when

I you know started kicking off the

studio for as a deliberate place to

Showcase corals and aquarium and

equipment and you started doing the same

thing about the same time I think you

started building your building

beforehand and that took longer than you

thought always but you started setting

up the tanks at a similar timeline so I

was watching some of your videos about

soundproofing about doing this but when

I was cleaning all the displays I was

thinking to myself huh I I'm not really

coming up with like a mental a memory of

your display tanks on purpose because

you're a farm you know primarily a farm

and there's lots of ways to enjoy corals

and uh so yeah I was really thinking

about that it's like man I want to see

more the title Gardens displays

um they're okay

I wish that my displays were better but

unfortunately with tidal Gardens the way

that it is it tends to push off some of

like the creative fun aspects

to like the end of the line so there's

all these I guess more boring day-to-day

things they just take priorities so it's

going to be like the actual aquaculture

and farming aspects it's going to be the

maintenance on

pretty much all of those aquariums all

that equipment and only if there's like

a little bit of extra time let's fiddle

with with a display tank and

unfortunately it just becomes like

pushed off as this afterthought so we've

never really said you know what this is

going to be this amazing uh aquarium

we're going to like dedicate a lot of

resources to it it's probably like

eighth on the list of things so we we do

have a few

um show tanks here and there but I don't

think that there's any one system that I

would be like flag plant in the ground

this is what tidal Gardens is really all

about this is our aesthetic and artistic

um like Flagship statement thing that

describes us I think that if if there is

anything like that it's the it is the

entire facility as a whole but it

doesn't manifest down into a show tank

specifically

like you know what you can you and I can

really commiserate because when you're

setting up one reef tank there's it

comes with a certain amount of uh you

know challenges and effort when you're

setting up a dozen tanks be they display

or for culture you almost have to think

really holistically about the whole

system so I feel like the reef aquarium

The Reef Builder studio is the most

complicated reef tank I've ever set up

because everything kind of works

together we've got the supporting tanks

over here we've got you know the water

vets and the water purification systems

in a certain way and uh that's something

I really I know you feel me on this you

know because like you're trying to set

up a space and you're trying to make it

quiet and so it's just so much more than

setting up a farm because we're both set

up a space that is also you know uh

finely tuned for creating content yeah

you and I also have the similar

motivations we're not here to win

YouTube

we're not here to get a million views

this or that we're not here to go viral

if it happens you know I'll accept it

but we're here to create just really

compelling content that someone can

listen to or watch or take away 10 years

from now they'll be able to take this

content and apply it to their aquariums

and so yeah no it's just been really

fascinating it's uh really awesome to

have you here is there anything else you

want to

uh remark about the studio before I

start diving into your side of of like

what you've been up to I always like to

come into anybody's

uh show tank or whatever they have going

on and look to see how healthy the

corals are because sometimes when I'm in

my own place it's really easy to get

into the mindset of this is just how a

certain Coral looks

and that that Comfort level needs to be

challenged every now and again and it's

really nice to like go to somebody's

tank and see something that

that is doing way better than what's

going on in my systems and then that

starts the the the question and answer

period it's like okay well let's start

at the beginning how are you doing this

that and the other thing and it's it's

just going through that little

diagnostic because it's like I want to

do stuff better generally right and

certain some sometimes like the answer

isn't all that helpful it's like I get I

get the answer it's like well I cannot

follow you down that path in the

structured facility that I have what's

an example of what you're describing

doing weekly icps on 15 tanks and trying

to hit specific numbers

elements and trying to micromanage

everything but and I can't micromanage

because here's um this is going to be a

little into the weeds I I apologize

let's go dude that's what therapy is for

sure title Gardens is what I would I

think is described as a second order

problem

so

I cannot act as a tyrant

to make sure everything is exactly the

way that I want it to be

there is a way that I would like it to

be but I can't

um

but I can't approach it as me

micromanaging everybody and everything

there's just entirely too much going on

it's like steering a ship exactly you

know you have to hope it's going mostly

in the direction you want the speed that

you want but if a couple portholes are

open or if you know just a couple things

are out of whack you you just have to

push forward so tidal Gardens is a

framework and an infrastructure for

success in what we're trying to do but

the individual people that work there

have a lot of leeway to get those jobs

done so I can't always be on top of them

every little bit and in some cases it I

shouldn't be doing that because honestly

they might even be quite a bit better

than you might be getting in their way

exactly exactly to the point where they

were joking that um because we were even

talking about aptasia farming for a

nudie bronc culture right and I was like

well I can just do this and they're like

no no why don't you not do this you

don't think I can grow aptasia like are

you freaking Kitty do you know who I am

you know okay guys I I can handle this

okay I can I can do this at the very

least they're like why don't you settle

down I want you to go back to your

office but yeah but again going back to

that whole second order of stuff

um

I you can only control so much and you

can just kind of have to like again put

in the the systems in place and

hopefully you have the people doing the

right things in the right place in time

for everything for me retirement looks

like having one or only two or three

tanks right and be able to make those as

good as possible I am a little bit

envious of the folks who can be very OCD

about certain metrics and certain

parameters and yeah same here I'm just

trying to bring the overall average of

every tank and coral and fish in a

general direction of health and vitality

and just well-being so I totally

understand that I also understand you

know like there's certain things that

your staff has been doing more and more

longer and more repetitively than you

once in a while you're like no why are

you doing it like this and you're

thinking a couple steps ahead and you

might you know chew them out a little

bit and then when they you give them the

opportunity to explain themselves

they're like three or four steps ahead

you're like you know what let me just

back out of the kitchen here you guys

are cooking this this Special Sauce let

me just get out the way yeah there's

definitely some instances of that where

like I have an idea of like for example

there was a situation of we were putting

together calculus or dosing systems

and the real real simple thing but

um it's where does the intake line go

into basically a trash can does it go

into the side of the trash can towards

the top or does it go into the lid

and the correct answer is it goes into

the lid because oh it it does because

our yeah he's shaking his head no it

goes into the lid because the way that

we would be doing this activity is we

would have multiple trash cans and so we

would actually pre-mix the next one the

day before so when it comes time to

transition from the empty one to the

full one you just take the lid and then

you plop it onto the next one and you

roll that other one 50 feet away back to

the auto fill up and you make the next

batch okay so you're making a yeah a

bulk batch that's feeding multiple tanks

no just one we do 20 gallons a day into

one system because I have one barrel of

fresh water that's feeding all the calc

reactors so my impulse yeah no it's

stuff like that you know what stuff like

that this is a great opportunity to uh

get show a little respect for all the

uncelebrated algae scrubbers out into

the world whether you work at aquarium

store Service Company Coral farm and

you're listening to Reef therapy while

you're doing some you know therapeutic

algae cleaning We Salute You guys we

started there I know I did working at

aquarium shops and uh I want you to know

that you guys are celebrated and you're

loved and you're valued we are all like

glorified dishwashers right really what

it comes down to like I think that

people that are uh that look up to a

really really really nice Studio like

what we have at Reef Builders or like a

coral Farm like what I have and they

think that it's a glamorous thing it's

really not it's not at all it's a lot of

it's a lot of elbow grease it's also a

lot of like balancing a lot of plates

right and it's just one little plate

falls off man you could just lose that

balance and it's not as precipitous as I

described right now but it's just you

know because you got to have a this uh

autopilot mindset where you're never not

thinking about it to some degree right

just it's it's very rare to just

completely walk away so we've talked a

little bit about the reef Builder studio

and I I don't really know the complete

history of tidal Gardens you know it

strange there's certain companies that

provide Coral frags that have been

around for a really long time and you

know their names you know you know the

cherries you know the tsas you know the

Dr Max now Pacific East Aquaculture the

vivids the uniques

but I don't know if you're you're

client base is a little bit more

localized but it's only really in the

last couple of years that I've heard

more from people across the country who

are getting orders from tidal Gardens so

where do you start telling the story

about TG like because you have you

started with a farm an outdoor farm

right yeah well I think that the tidal

Gardens is a is a really different thing

depending on when you're talking about

it let's just let's let's let's wind it

back to the beginning so when did you

start your Coral farm right your first

Coral Farm the nursery the was it a

greenhouse yeah it's way back in 2002

that's when you started yeah years ago

yeah it's 20 years ago title guards is

20 years old but title Gardens of even

10 years ago is practically

unrecognizable from what it is now

and for the longest time

it was just this background noise side

Hustle

it was no joke I I would only go back to

the greenhouse to do anything with the

aquariums three days a week for two

hours each time like it was just a

nothing thing

for five to ten years and so we weren't

going to be like big on in like the

mental like ethos of the aquarium

industry because simply we weren't big

time at all it was this this might

completely fail and blow up sort of

situation it actually did blow up a

couple of times it blow up good or bad

horrifically blow up like for example in

um I think it was like in

20

17. should I I forget but basically what

happened was the entire Greenhouse the

heating system failed and I wasn't even

able to get to the the greenhouse

because the the roads were so destroyed

from like the snowstorm that it took me

three days to get back out there the

heater failed everything died

an entire Greenhouse five years ago you

lost everything uh was it five years no

I think it's it's 2012 maybe okay 10

years ago you had to start all over

pretty much yeah yeah but like and that

that's when like I was ready to quit the

whole thing and my parents actually

talked me back into it and they were

like no let's try this again we have the

greenhouse we'll improve some things so

this this situation doesn't happen again

and yeah that that you know got me back

into it

um but the other thing is we were only

able to scale up once we started

bringing in

help and that was like the biggest thing

because before it was it was just like a

one-man show and eventually you know I

got some little bit of help from family

and friends but then it was really when

we started to add staff that things

started to take off and the the biggest

step would then be the new facility and

that changed everything because now

you're able to recruit like real deal

employees not just like a backyard side

project and then that's been only only

going on for like the last like four

years you know I think a lot of people

knew about you and they knew who you

were I think you're still a little bit

isolated and you're just

more local more Regional than like

National but then when you start putting

out your videos of your like Mega

massive on-site like new facility that

was just it was built

there's something else in mind it wasn't

just like pure like how little can we

throw down to make the most corals

possible and that's that's really kind

of something I really relate with you is

uh you know like the sound system that's

not helping me in any way as far as

producing content it's just this is my

my peace of mind so I've appreciated

some of your videos are really like just

going out of your way to drop you know

major coin on your uh you know modular

aluminum stance you know or your your

electricity switcher or you know

silencing those things so right because

you're spending at least eight hours a

day at this point it shows a certain

level of commitment when you're taking

things to the nth degree

several degrees past what is required

for like pretty good operation

um so I'm curious you know uh before we

talk about kind of like the the big

facility and what it's like now which I

haven't seen other than on video what

are what are some of the Stark

differences between when you set up the

uh Greenhouse is that is it called the

greenhouse yeah let's call it the

greenhouse and then the new building

yeah so what you know like because I

imagine you set up the greenhouse I mean

imagine you set up the greenhouse with

available technology you know metal

halides and Reflow pumps and power heads

and kind of just basic calcium reactors

so and then you know but so tell us what

it was like what's the difference really

between when you set up the nursery and

then now we set up the new facility

which needs a casual name yeah yeah I

wouldn't call it the tide pool we're

like we're like bad at naming stuff like

there's like an outside uh cat that

comes by and we named it outside kitty

like we're bad at naming stuff so it's

not my fault for all the colorful Coral

names definitely it wasn't us can I just

we have the euphilia garden

the kitchen sink the jewelry box the

Chalice Palace the shroom room the

flagship the hard lines way better than

something that Cube yeah we try to

because I don't want to make it

descriptive and I don't name corals

until like I'm about to frag it and have

a bunch of pieces that's funny

um anyway back to yourself how is it

different

um the greenhouse originally started

with stuff that we could afford so it

was like what is the cheapest cost per

gallon containers you can get that are

robust it's going to be a Rubbermaid

sock tank all day every day they're 67

cents per gallon you can stand on the

rim of it you can Gore it with

cow horns or bull horns because that's

what they were made for that sort of

stuff you can drill them easily

as things progressed

there's like all these different lessons

that you learn

things like being able to look down and

into a tank is great except for the fact

that there's flow that distorts the

image and you can you really don't get a

great sense of what's under under the

surface it's way better to look through

the side of a glass aquarium that kind

of stuff

things like oh well having a Triple

Decker thing is wonderful as a Space

Management thing but it's absolutely

horrific to work day to day terrible

experience it's a terrible employee

experience it's a well especially if

you're the one doing all the work it's

terrible but it's it's worse for the

employee and what will happen if you

have staff is that the middle layer gets

cleaned and the top and the bottom get

ignored things like that

um

so a lot of what happens in the new

building was based off of 20-something

years of mistakes or little things that

you thought was a good idea but just

wasn't going to work out in the

greenhouse uh things like that so it's a

lot of lessons learned and it's a highly

iterative process do you have any layers

at your new space no well I think it's

just middle okay we we have like a

Triple Decker fish quarantine system and

even that's trash like I'd go back to

like doing single layer for that that

was done like in a weekend just because

just cuz I remember that video but as

far as all of like the the coral stuff

one level period no exceptions yeah no I

I totally understand where you're coming

from and it's natural and very human

you'd be like okay let's you know

maximize the production per square foot

you know because that's going to reduce

your expenses per coral and so yeah

absolutely I'll give you an another

little anecdote about how not focused we

are on that

we prioritize the design of the facility

for people

it is it is actually not a coral Farm

first in design it is all about

people and humans working in that space

so the I think a lot of times when

people approach a floor plan they're

like how many tanks can I put into this

thing how how much square footage can I

allocate do you see that aquarium stores

right what aquarium store has a single

row of fish tanks right there's gonna be

two roads it's gonna be three rows and

just just like you you know everything

here is a display the only thing that's

multi-tiered you have like one thing of

multitude is the former quarantine tank

for fish because it just needs to be

super functional but then once I finish

it up I'm like okay anemone is at the

top LPS in the middle shrooms and

chalices on the bottom and the clearance

between one another really affects how

well we can clean them and how little we

enjoy actually cleaning yeah it's awful

it's awful but like so when I'm putting

together my my game plan slash floor

plan the stuff I'm prioritizing is like

okay how big are the walkways like the

men the main Central walkway is six feet

wide because it helps be able to like

move large objects through six foot

space

how much

space do you have between the tanks like

the walkways how much space do you have

between the tank and the workstation how

big is the workstation is there access

to a sink within six feet is there

access to anything that you want to look

and grab within five feet or else if you

have to walk across a 100 and something

foot building to find

something to work on like like a tool

for example right that's a problem like

there's all these little pain points and

so we were very human being focused when

we were putting together everything

uh and just the the number of things uh

I think that on the first floor there's

at least

six or seven sinks you must have laughed

when I was boasting about having three

sinks it's got the hand washing sink the

dishwashing sink and the skimmer washing

sink you're just chuckling internally is

like I got that many per floor

[Laughter]

yeah it's it is a matter of I don't want

you to have to walk very far if you're

trying to get something done that's

mainly it's that's real I really

resonate with what you're saying but I

guess from a little bit more of a

hobbyist point of view how did the

technology change from one thing oh my

gosh because you start you must have

started with halites in your Nursery

yeah halite well no no the whole point

of a greenhouse

was you didn't need artificial light you

have the perfect light on the perfect

timer

fill in the blank right it'll save you

all this electricity because you're not

running 400 watt halides we were even

going into the Wii like by the way when

I first started off there was no joke

five things plugged in in the entire

Greenhouse so our electrical capacity

was like

nothing a regular reef tank with just no

lights and it just happens to be in like

a 1300 square foot Greenhouse right did

you did you visit tropicorium to just

get you did yeah to get some like Cliff

Notes

yeah give or take yeah it everybody

thinks that this is like the hubris of

starting your own thing everybody thinks

oh I can do that but cheaper and better

the the important thing is to make it

actually work first then you can try to

cut costs later for anybody else that

wants to try this sort of thing you need

to make sure that you're not going to

kill everything on the worst day of the

year which happens twice on the super

hot day on the super cold day yeah but

when we were doing all of our math I

mean LEDs on a commercial scale weren't

available so all of the mathematics of

why we're even doing anything in a

greenhouse uh fell apart when you have

high efficiency LEDs and high efficiency

pumps because previous to that you know

it's it's a walkies right your so all

the the electrical calculations of what

you could save by doing this all in a

greenhouse just fell apart after a few

years we were even going as far as doing

airlifts to move Tropic worms yeah

tropicorium style to move water we had

we had you know underground piping and

everything like that for air

to then distribute to the how did that

work airlifts yeah splashy and salt

creepy I mean did it move the kind of

why you're needed it an airlift will

move a monstrous amount of water yeah

yeah enough for acros and SPS did you

still have like build up in certain

places I I can't tell you that because

we weren't able to keep acropora because

of the sun it's too much or too little

yeah it varied so much from the other

the the variation in sunlight was the

biggest problem so the greenhouse to

admit to

um to take advantage of the perfect

light on the perfect timer turns out to

be the biggest liability because you

need consistent lighting more than

anything else consistent I have visited

not tropicarium but some other Coral

farms and that was the biggest challenge

having a supplemental Lighting in the

winter time and then just lots and lots

of shading in the summertime from just

sheer exposure yeah and um so I imagine

you you like being in control not a

control freak but you like knowing what

you're getting into right and so God I

can't even imagine you know your your

place is an order of magnitude not quite

an ordinary but it's like two to three

times more scale than than the studio so

I know how much I put into mine and how

much you must have put into yours must

have been just looking forward to just a

just such a much better day when you

knew you were moving into a facility

where you knew what the flow was going

to be you know what the temperature was

going to be you know what the what the

lighting was going to be for sure before

we jump into your new facility what was

the greenhouse good at

the greenhouse what was it good at so

believe it or not it did really well

growing Coral like it it produced a ton

of really good corals the

um the the also the really nice thing

about having it be not a conventional

structure and having it be Greenhouse

based is how industrial everything is so

you could literally hose the entire

thing down and it's not a big deal

there's so much air movement it'll dry

out in like five minutes

you could do stuff you that you would

never ever ever do in a warehouse like

you would instantly get black mold and

the whole thing would be like party's

over not in a greenhouse you can get it

with a lot of like just splashy gross

what were some of the uh do you so do

you mostly a primarily culture corals

you don't fuss you know with algaes

macro algae sponges your Coral guy 99

Coral yeah okay because what are some

corals that thrived in the greenhouse

the stuff that thrived in the greenhouse

boy

again because like part of it is like

everything is so thriving because it's

still in operation but the stuff like

like back in the day when we didn't have

basically tons and tons of radeons over

all the tanks where we didn't have

blackout Shades it's basically a barely

functional Greenhouse for Greenhouse

purposes

um back then a lot of stuff that did

well what worth a lot of LPS a lot of

soft corals the sort of stuff that

basically anything that wasn't an Acro

specifically did well out of the

greenhouse I mentioned it would have

been challenging for the acroporos to

just constantly be adjusting their zozan

Deli density throughout the year just

back and forth back and forth we would

have like Seasons where we could sell

acros it would be like it's going to be

in the winter time from this month to

this month and then it's gonna like lose

its color come spring it's gonna

struggle in the summer in the fall it'll

start until I told I could have pretty I

could have guessed that yeah so we would

literally have like okay this batch of

acros we can now move at this time

certain corals were just like that there

they're kind of like this seasonal thing

for us so now you have a multi-million

dollar facility I haven't counted well

I would get some I would forget a

literal six-figure bill at this but like

oh I've totally forgot about that thanks

for the PTSD yeah like it's getting to

that all right so now you have a

state-of-the-art choral culturing

facility of your dreams why do you still

have the nursery the greenhouse so right

now okay

great question because what I would like

to actually do is to take all the tanks

out of it and rebuild it similar to what

I have in the new building

but just using the original shell right

and we can't do it because of all the

flipping corals that are still there

that are doing great and we have no home

for it took a few years to get them to

that point you can't just toss them out

on the street there's 5 000 gallons in

there packed full of corals like that

building still generates a huge

percentage of our Revenue so so this is

that sting a little bit though that

you've just now you've got the

greenhouse just really dialed in you got

this other facility but you can't let go

of the greenhouse well okay so a couple

of things when when people always ask

like why don't you just tear it down and

start over one thing is like the

sentimentality because this building

dragged me out of corporate hell which I

was not I I you know I did I did a good

job but it is not what I was meant to do

right so it got me out of the corporate

Rat Race and into entrepreneurial

um Nirvana comparatively the second

thing is

um whatever I always pose this question

like how much money would it take for

this greenhouse to justify its existence

I promise you what the real number is is

vastly more than the number in your head

like it is a highly productive thing

even though it's not ideal even though

it's rough it's 20 years old I promise

it is carrying heavy weight at tidal

Gardens nice very nice so from like not

groundbreaking but from the time like

the the structure the shell was complete

we're talking about the new facility

yeah to the time you started making some

Corals in there what did that Journey

look like

um not great so

I was the general contractor for this

build

by accident I thought we had a general

contractor we did not we had a builder

and one day he's like hey you need to go

get the plumber I'm like what do you

mean I have to go get the plumber like I

just signed the checks right that sort

of thing he's like no no no I'm the

Builder you need to get an electrician

you need to get a plumber you need to

get a so-and-so we need to do all this

other stuff and let me know when that

stuff is ready so you had to learn how

to run a job site

uh yeah literally as the building is

going up a little bit too much right you

didn't expect to be learning so much

about electrical about coming about

structure yeah about codes right this is

all happening

um while I'm also still running the

business so this is like a second 40

hour week job they just got bolted on to

my my regular day-to-day and suddenly

I'm the one that's like calling people

saying hey are you gonna show up today

to like install such and such hey the

other guy is waiting for you to get done

with such and such are you going to show

up hey there's an inspection you better

be here

for the inspector it was that for three

years and now only now are we finally

tapering off of a lot of that it's but

it's it's been like yeah it's like

development hell you started from

scratch you know it was a dirt you had

to do like the foundation and yeah

I I'm we're right at the four-year Mark

a little past four years and I just I

know that feeling now that we're like oh

I don't have to hustle to build this

thing so I can do this thing so I can

actually set up a reef tank and we're

really getting to the point now where I

can think about redoing some reef tanks

and just doing the thing we set out to

do and so I imagine

you're in that area now where it's all

it's almost there there's the little

side projects here and there always

alone you're expanding on some some

other thing maybe but yeah it is it is

the first time that I would consider

having guests over in Earnest to

actually show them a roughly finished

product

um and that is that is truly a wonderful

feeling I know that there's probably a

lot of

uh just private aquarists who have you

know one or two tanks just one tank who

are listening to re-therapy and they

might not really understand

or see the connection between just a

personal you know home residential reef

aquarium and what you're doing at scale

we're both doing at scale but when you

as a veteran of 20 plus years went

through your own aquariums went through

your Greenhouse phase and you're doing

something commercially when you say

you're going to pull the trigger on

doing dozens of aquariums in one

particular way that that should give

some feedback some food for thought for

the home aquarius so along those lines

one thing that I noticed that it was

kind of really surprised by because

closed Loops have really fallen out of

favor you know I've got double closed

loops on my eight foot tank over here as

I remember distinctively you set up a

lot of tanks with closed Loops lots of

set of power heads yeah where how did

you come to that uh realization or

decision for your undertaking yeah so

there's a couple of things in the

thought process there and just to be

clear if you're not familiar with what a

closed loop is you know in our aquariums

we put in a power head a Vortec and it's

just a dedicated piece of equipment that

will create flow inside the aquarium

separate from your return Pub the closed

loop is basically the same as your

return pump but it pulls and returns

from the tank without an open section in

yourself so just in case you don't know

what a closed loop is there you go

essentially it's two holes in your tank

one of the holes sucks water in the

other hole blows stuff out you you got

there somehow I want to know what that

thought process was okay so it's it's a

little bit better than your airlifts it

is definitely better it's certainly more

expensive I'll tell you that it's

certainly more like uh quieter can be

can be quieter definitely less splashy

most of the time

um but my thought process there was it

cut again coming down to like uh the the

human element of doing maintenance on

these things because we were doing a lot

of regular cleaning of power heads in an

aquarium because there's tons and tons

of pups but my thinking was it just it

is nice to deal with a dry pump that

doesn't have algae on all the unions and

you have to like drag it out of an

aquarium you know just dripping wet it's

you went so far

that's to create drip trays yes

underneath your tanks everywhere yes I

have to confess I judged you a little

bit for that because I thought they're

wonderful I thought they I thought it

was mostly to catch the the potential

leaks you know but as I got to know you

a little bit more I understood that it

has a wider purpose there you literally

have trays built into every place that

you have a closed loop pump so that way

you disconnect it the water can just the

excess water can just drip right there

right there you've you shot back it up

dunski it so

that must have been

quite the Endeavor because setting up a

closed loop you know if you want to put

a power head in there you put a power

head in there right it's got a hang on

bracket or it's got a magnetic bracket

boom but I'm being you know you're done

you know and it's flexible if you want

to try a different pump you try a

different pump but you want to go to

closed loop you have to think way ahead

you have to have the tank drilled or

your tanks drilled on the bottom

and that's an extra extra like you have

to make sure the Bottom's not tempered

then you have to throw all the plumbing

at it and then figure out what pump and

what nozzles that's a lot of really

thinking ahead and you know I don't I

wouldn't say that we even have figured

everything else that we're still

experimenting with it because there's a

lot of customization that can go into it

uh for example like as soon as you get

into that that output bulkhead the the

world is your oyster what would you like

to do would you like to send it up into

a five-way cross and then have like

Flock line pointed at everything do you

want it to just be one giant thing you

want to put a giant thing in a penductor

or eductor to do what's very specific

don't forget the Clover nozzle the

Clover nozzles yeah like you can do a

basically

whatever plumbing

squid thing you can think of you can do

now so there's a lot of room for for

um changing things up you customize it

you can just tweak this thing forever

right it's Plumbing but the the core is

a highly serviceable pump underneath and

again you can upsize that you can

downsize that you can you know a lot

easier I love that it it's more work

it cost more

it was all took a lot longer to install

and at the end of the day you're

probably gaining

just a lot more flexibility that is the

major major advantage right to a point

and a minor Advantage is there's no

cords in your tank

was that when you were driving forces

sure really so when you finally come and

do see my system I'm going to point to a

pump and I'm going to ask you where is

this plugged in and it in the the length

that we went to to hide cabling is nuts

did you see here a good job yeah I I

achieved that as from a different angle

but you'll see I always say all right

this is a five foot tank at four and a

half feet of uninterrupted Reef that's a

six foot tank got five and a half feet

of uninterrupted reef and there's just

little cores but yeah I do appreciate

that aesthetic and so yeah it's it's

really refreshing to see an Enterprise

like yours really put a lot on the human

interaction not just pure display not

just sheer like profit how much Coral

polyps can we squeeze out per per square

foot I want to talk a little bit more

about the livestock side of things but

um

uh tell me a little bit about how

your relationship to lighting changed

going from a greenhouse whose lighting

you needed to adjust to manipulate

throughout the year especially at the

solstices and then going into a

warehouse space where all the lighting

was provided I I do really appreciate

how many different types of light you

experiment with that my only criticism

is I think you could experiment a little

bit more you know but it's cool to see

how you have so much here your lights

are mounted so high so yeah like

stupidly high no fence just definitely a

little bit of judgment passing on how

you mount your lights three or four feet

above the tank which necessitates you

needing more lights

um but getting back to like the initial

question what was your relationship like

going from harvesting and managing

natural light to going inside you know

what are some things you thought you

were going to do what are some of the

things that you achieved and how has

that evolved over the last two or three

years since you've been in this enclosed

face so the greenhouses always already

transitioning to being mainly

artificially lit anyway I remember Souls

souls in there right there yeah there's

soles in there there was we did a bunch

of like t5s you did like good expensive

German ATI fixtures we did the 100

Amazon fixtures we did uh again yeah

they're not good

um we did the entire gamut of different

types of artificial Lighting in the

greenhouse but then moving to the new

building we just just decided to just to

go with radeons more or less across the

board

um you're I think your lighting came in

just a little bit after mine because

when I started up it was like literally

a few handful of months for the G5

dropped okay so I've got mostly G4S here

I have mostly G-Force Oh I thought I

thought I saw a lot more g5s in your

videos no like I would say that right

now well until very recently almost all

of them were G4 and we and we only have

like a handful of g5s and then once we

put this last group of systems together

it's like 50 g5s

yeah G6 I own like two sample g6s that

they said try these out yeah I'm the

same here I have uh 12 15 G4S two g5s

maybe three G sixes yeah so technically

the G4 might be the best light for our

application because of how high we have

it uh situated above the tank I will

tell you exactly why we have the tanks

or the lights that high above the tank

and it has nothing to do with the corals

it is about the ability of the staff to

get all the way over a tank and reach

down into it without hitting a light

it is clearance for a human being to get

into a tank

entirely yeah and so that means in some

tanks we have to go with double the

number of fixtures

I know this is this is what it was like

I'm thinking when I see your lights

mounted so high they're non-directional

they're I'm just like you could

literally grow corals between the tanks

there's so much like spillage if you

look at the mounting of my lights I use

almost exclusively

um you know wire hanging because you can

really adjust the height you can adjust

the angle and I can change it on the fly

but I also prioritize having a just a

minimum of light spillage on the back

these are for my old school days of like

you gotta harness every single Photon

right it was one of your most recent

videos I saw how bright it was between

the takes and I'm like no again tidal

Garden let me ask you sure total just

slight question I really

I'm trying to make a campaign for

Ecotech Marine has one like the wide

diffuser

110 120 whatever angle they're up to

diffuse lighting lens that they have up

there would you have interest in them

offering a lens cluster that would

tighten that back up again yeah

easily yes yeah uh I I I think it was

more conviction so that this can trick

back to some Ecotec Marine folks and

they're like yo we need to make a tight

angle we heard we heard staying on Reef

therapy saying we need a little bit

tighter Spectrum our time rear beam

angle for these applications sure

because it's for the for the

applications where the lights are are

hung hung higher and also you get more

power out of like the more concentrated

reflector so you can run the lights

cooler and lower and you save

electricity and you can hopefully better

control the light spillage into your

living room if that's something that

bothers you not to pick companies

against each other but you know one of

the things I love is the Kessel has 110

degree beam angle natively you can add a

wide angle that's a

55 degrees and you're going to add a

narrow angle like here you can see it's

beaming down 34 feet I think that one's

35 degrees and just you have the same

light engine and just being able to put

different tires on your car sure for

different applications I think that's

one of the things that's it should there

shouldn't be like a one Spectrum one

intensity one beam angle that's supposed

to work for everyone right and I think

that where a like a Gen 6 Radeon would

shine is in a more compact home aquarium

where you have the light four inches off

the off the surface of the water where

you can get that the entire what 30 by

30 square fluorescent lighting even

light distribution has been like

worshiped a little bit too much there's

a lot going for it but it's just not the

be all end all it's not the the last

straw yeah and again it's like the the

human element of somebody has to get

into this tank it would be nice if the

light was out of the way that sort of

thing

um

yeah

so I've noticed in addition you're

mostly Radeon man you go are you the

Radeon Pro or Radeon blue kind of guy

okay so again second order problem I

like Radeon Pro

um my one of the guys in my staff is

like addicted to Blue spectrum and he

thinks that he only wants to light a

tank with blue and so again I can't be a

tyrant all the time be like listen put

Daylights on you know

you have to pick your battles when

working with all these people around

right so I happen to like the aesthetic

of a lot of daylight lighted tanks with

a little bit of blue and some and I

think a lot of people are the opposite

they they want mostly blue with like a

hint of maybe we don't have to pick we

don't have to choose anymore my tanks

all start out the deepest blue possible

three hours of ramp up to something

that's approaching daylight spectrum

that daylight Spectrum will Peak to

close to like six to eight K like a

little too wide for almost every taste

then it goes back down then I have

another window we don't have to pick we

can enjoy that Dynamic lighting that

being said my full-on LPS tank my

chalice Palace my shroom room they're

all blue all the time and it's

so much easier for me and for the corals

like they they show better color they

don't bleach out but because it's a low

energy environment and high nutrient

condition if I have just the touch of

white lighting it's hard to to put

enough grazers and algae eaters in those

kinds of aquariums so you actually get

more algae growth with whiter light well

yeah yeah absolutely but the tanks that

I have Bluer light on are the tank the

corals that need prefer higher nutrients

right mushrooms chalices LPS's so I can

naturally keep those higher phosphates

higher nitrates that's part of the

reason that they're just all blue okay

I don't know how like the lighting math

works up because I mean back in the day

with like metal halide and vho

um when you saw like a 65

00 Kelvin Kawasaki metal halide

it's a yellow looking bulb super yellow

um that when you actually look at the

Spectrum has more blue Spectrum than an

actinic bulb of another make

but led that math doesn't translate

because it's like to make a white LED

it's really a blue LED with a white

phosphor to so you're you're really just

sending blue channel to everything and

manipulating at the last second to get a

whiter look well part of the problem

with that is that every manufacturer if

they have well have almost every single

one was they'll use a cool white LED

which is that same problem it's a big

blue Spike with a little bit of the red

and green kind of bouncing out and Max

spec was first I bring in warm whites to

the game to the table and now worm

whites are kind of standard in some of

the nicer lights and there's nothing

else that will bring up the pinks and

the purples of your bird's nests of your

Apostle pour of your stylophora then

warm white you know think of a cheap

compact fluorescent that you buy at Home

Depot or Lowe's and you plug it in I I

can remember so many situations where

like the tank bites would be off and

that light would still be Beyond and the

pink of the Stylo would just like just

be piercing and just really really

lining up

so radeons are your Baseline what are

some of the other lights that you've

experimented with and really enjoy don't

I just can skip a you can tell us about

otherwise you didn't really I don't

think I don't think that there's many

that I disliked really

um so when I say I experiment

I put them over my tank that is the end

of the experiment I mean what else is

there because like I mean I'm sure some

people might actually take a measurement

of some kind not this guy don't care oh

perfect segue

do you measure par we do but I for the

for decades I didn't went in for for

what reason so is a uh one of my staff

was is just huge on the measurement

aspect he wants he wants the data so

fine we'll collect the data but it's

it's never been a huge thing for me I

only measure par at the extremes yeah

I've only measured it in my acropore

tank where I have like six lights which

is super overlap and during the middle

of the day I'll get a peak of 650 micro

moles and then you know occasionally

I'll compare lights but then on the

really dim tank that's where I'll also

measure part just like I want to bump up

against the edges make sure I'm not

going too far high and Too Far Low

that's the only and everything else if

it's you know 150 to 350 micro models

I'm fine I'm fine like I can eyeball it

and I can watch the corals and I can

increase the lighting intensity

incrementally and get to the point point

where I want to be and a lot of corals

will simply adapt to it if you give them

a chance to yeah it's lighting is one of

those things at this point with the

stage of the technology it's a hard

thing to screw up so I think that for

the types of fixtures that we've we've

dabbled with so there's a there's a

couple of Neptune Skies that we've tried

we still have there is we use castles at

our saw station if that counts

um we have some orphics

and we we even have the orfix that are

like the the stage lighting types yeah

thankfully those are just made by

another company they stick their

products are they really oh yeah for

sure I mean there was a minute there

where gieseman Max spec and orphec had

the exact same like 1000 watt LED light

fixture and you're like yeah okay these

are the same lights with just different

control schemes slightly different

spread of LEDs and you're like all right

these are coming from Sub Factory you

put your name on it possibly yeah the

Exotic LED lights that you use on your

tanks uh the Exotic brand no that's

ecosotic but just anything that's just

kind of off the wall like a GNC that I

know you were interested in trying um

honestly the only so no out of out of

what I just mentioned nothing because

the again vast majority currently is

Radeon

um

but the GNC got on my radar only because

I'm friends with Brandy camp and like uh

and she you know works with a company

that that sells GNC stuff and I was like

I never heard of this like don't you

guys like worry about like yeah like a

Francois and Aquarium Partners yeah but

like do you guys worry about like I

don't know like patent or like try

trademark infringe because there's

another company that's called GNC yeah

it's just different industry so yeah I'm

sure they're fine but yeah that was the

first time that I heard of it I'm like

okay well there's one thing that I liked

about the GNC

uh and it plays back to the whole

Greenhouse thing is that the GNC is a

giant heat sink and an LEDs underneath

it and it's really nice to not have a

moving part fan in a harsh environment

no gimmicks no primary Optics just

488 freaking LEDs 180 Watts it's I'll

say this and everybody knows Francois

knows it's the best hardware with the

like the just crippling software and I

know they're working on the dongle

thankfully it's not built into the

fixture it's wired up externally so they

can come up with a other module to

really bring up to Modern control

standards or you know uh offload that to

a third-party controller but yeah I feel

really strongly about those so any any

other

um kind of technical things you'd want

to describe or share with us about your

you know your your your Coral Farm 2.0

that you've discovered along the way

technical

things so we talked about closed loop we

talked a little bit about lighting

um

has your protein skimmer game changed

from the no to the no we're in fact

we're using basically the same protein

skimmers which are like the uh The Reef

Octopus eight thousands for me that

skimmer is like a very very good price

point for a commercial sized skimmer of

acceptable build quality I mean I would

love just to be like Raj

I'm gonna order like 10 skimmers from

you Orca proforce but like and not even

going with the orcas I mean I want you

to put a biz 400s on this thing you know

let's go but like but at the cost of

that I mean do I want to spend 10 times

the price on when I know there is a

skimmer out there that is very up to the

task with a very inexpensive pump that's

replaceable that I've literally had to

replace once ever you know that that

sort of thing so one thing that you

mentioned is uh you're spending your

time here you remarked on how quiet my

skimmers are for sure they're all D's

all but one or DC uh sine wave you know

super silent and so you're using a

version of the super Reef Octopus 8000

with the AC uh Bubble Blaster Bubble

Blaster ten thousand ten thousand right

so you know at Magna they announced

their new super jumbo DC pump yes we've

got to give us a little bit of credit

The Reef Octopus for being one of the

very rare very few protein skimmer

manufacturers that makes their own pump

now I know their newest pump is designed

to be in line with an abyss I'm sure

someone's thought about throwing a

needle on there empowering some of these

SRO 8000s I I talked to Derek Ong who's

the the owner of Reebok was there and I

or not so I talked to

um I talked to Derek over when we were

at Magna and

um he was slightly horrified when I said

by the way I'm looking I'm wondering if

this pump here can power A Reef Octopus

8 000 because I'm trying to find ways to

quiet it down and he's like I've never

heard anybody

say our skimmer was loud what'd they see

they see compared to just DC sine waves

I I told him like don't take it

personally I'm the crazy one here oh yes

I'm the crazy one that's that's asking

for quiet equipment that is normally

loud so trust me this is not a normal

inquiry but I'm wondering if this thing

can be retrofitted onto the skimmers

that I have did he give me any feedback

uh they said we will look into it

because because it is like a it is a

smaller pump and such and such yeah but

I would love to get in a DC option again

for no other reason than sound because

the AC option for performance it's fine

yeah absolutely performance is fine you

just want to optimize some of the noise

yeah um do you subscribe to any of these

newfangled techniques that people are

doing nowadays you talked about your

reticence to send in ICP tests every

week and try to nail every number down

um but what about you know chasing pH

and CO2 scrubbing have you dabbled in it

and or have you seen Returns on that

effort so for a hot second we were

chasing pH for the last month

um only because one of our systems was

like horrifically low PH what number is

that seven three what are you sure that

that probe was working properly it was

not working properly okay in fact

there's no way it was seven three dude

girls are straight dissolved yeah so it

turns out we didn't have a pH problem

uh so that was the extent that we were

like that concerned about pH but I would

say that the the tanks are still kind of

low anyway so we were looking at you

know upping our our gas exchange in the

building itself you know I'm looking at

adding some some plants that might help

like that just to just to filter the air

a little bit because

as much

um air exchange that we try to get into

the building we live in Ohio it is

extremely humid seemingly all the time

so I would introduce a ton of humidity

if I wanted to do this air exchange and

then I would have to dehumidify it right

back out so it's just a lot involved so

we yeah we're trying we haven't done the

the whole CO2 scrubber thing exactly but

we're getting around the problem which

turns out to be not that big of a

problem anyway we just had like a faulty

probe so I want to talk I want to talk

livestock with you

but before we get there let's talk a

little bit about chemistry because you

just like me must get this question all

the time what do you keep your

parameters at and I'm always like dude

it's natural sea water like the ocean is

basically one thing which is a very

small variability so how much Focus or

emphasis do you place on hitting a you

know a target range for calcium

magnesium alkalinity temperature

salinity you already talked about pH a

little bit and it turns out your your

instrument was incorrect and that must

have changed your outlook a little bit

so tell us a little bit more about like

what is your water quality management

what does that look like

so we do test practically every day

every day every day why every day not my

choice not my choice uh what do you test

for every day uh calcium alkalinity

magnesium nitrate phosphate salinity

every I'm over here doing it once a week

I'm sorry Evan does it once a week we

haven't done it in like a couple weeks

and I'm like we do it so often that I

know what it's going to be even certain

things that might change where how did

you get the testing once a day uh and

what do you test with

uh mostly salafer and Hannah mostly

saliford and Hannah we also have Auto

testers that we don't really rely on

very much
um we've tried a number of Brands so far

and this is where like I think

automation scale up doesn't work for us

is now that we have almost 10 different

systems the amount of

um

the amount of

calibration and maintenance on those

systems to get

relatively good numbers it becomes its

own full-time job and it was supposed to

save time

uh so we end up just doing like some

some hand tests for for all this stuff

and it is because one of the guys is

um

is very very very concerned about water

chemistry the rest of the staff

um there was a time where I would test

once a month at most

but it kind of reminds me of Mark's

interview with on Reef bum where he had

the tank of the month he was like he's

like I had to test South Community I

didn't test I'm sorry you didn't test

calcium magnesium I tested alkalinity

about once a month and he was growing

acros in a way that we hadn't seen in

2001 back then

I will say though

it is better now that we're testing more

uh one of our tanks when it when uh we

like before we started to do the

hardcore testing uh what would happen is

we would grow lots of bird of paradise

seriatapora lots of it dozens of giant

unsellable sized colonies and then every

now and again half of them would just

instantly bleach out and diet

overnight just and it this is this it'll

come back and forth back and forth back

and forth and uh didn't we couldn't

really put our finger on it maybe

there's like a contaminant I don't know

uh then when we started to test more and

better uh yeah the alkalinity was like

two point something dkh that's not

possible it was bad it was it was it was

like three drops and that was it like it

was nothing

uh it was abysmally low I don't

literally mean that's not a it's not

possible I'm just saying it's impossible

it's hard to wrap my head around I could

see it's actively growing Coral sucking

that alkalinity down faster than your

you know Limestone Rock and Sand could

dissolve funny you mentioned Limestone

sand and stuff dissolving because part

of the reason is we just had a calcium

reactor that had run out of CO2 months

ago and we never filled it back up we

never like hey you didn't notice didn't

notice for months it was just one of

those things like you know what whatever

apparently there's no problem because

again all the corals are just fine we

were growing until they're not they

always they always grew back guys

we're we're not always the best at this

some of these things are like these are

some goofy anecdotes because when you

get into big systems it invites neglect

on a scale that hobbyists aren't aware

of that could possibly exist like you

have a commercial system that's over a

thousand gallons running an alkalinity

of two point something undetected for

months definitely could happen just

saying oh goodness I need to take a

breath there's so many things I want to

say like why am I even on this podcast

who is this no no no no no no no it's

not you I want to get into so many

different aspects of how you should have

just readily available pH monitor that

you trust and when the pH gets down a

certain level you know that your

alkalinity is critical we could talk

about all this stuff but I really want

to get a little spend some time on the

livestock end of things but what is you

know the question that I answer that I

asked you said you test every day but

there's you know I guess by letting me

know that your Alchemy so it was after

the alkalinity hit below three dkh that

you're like maybe we should test more

often uh no it was when I hired somebody

that really cared so it's about him yeah

you want to shout him out what's up Luke

what about the cost though the cost of

the test kits and the reagents is that

just a rounding error it's a rounding

error yeah yeah I mean

what do we spend money on

it's

okay so I used to be like hung up on

certain bills and like focus in on like

we need to reduce this bill like

especially like electricity for example

was a big Bill that was in my head and

once we started to grow uh that bill

became a non-factor compared to UPS

shipping charges and salary to the point

where it's like this you can't we cannot

be talking about this electricity bill

ever like it is not worth our time and

so like like something about test kits

that nonsense utter nonsense okay yeah

all right okay so are there numbers that

you like to see now that you're testing

all the time is is Luke

managing those and just

um how do you how do you replenish your

mineral chemistry you know for for the

studio here you know the two peninsulas

is all three part well the foundation is

calcuosser so that's giving me a bump

right there that's a big ledge then it's

a three-part dosing on top of that and

automatically every day several times a

day and then on a week to week basis I

might manually because I remember a time

when reefing was manual dosing that's

what you did and then I have one big

calcium reactor to handle the 600 gallon

system but what is your mineral

replenishment strategy look like how do

you attack that so fairly similar so for

us we are very late to the kalkwasser

party I mean we I mean I did calcuosser

20 years ago I never quit I never

stopped that's awesome but I was doing

like bad calculoster I was using like

Mrs wages pickling lime and stuff that's

like clay colored and stuff yeah I know

and and oh we were doing like that bad

cheap implementations where it was like

a bucket with a little valve and you

would it would over drip cloudy calc

which is again the clay stuff so you're

not doing calc reactors you're doing a

tub right a trash can now we are doing a

20 something odd gallon trash can that

can roll and we are delivering it with a

peristaltic pump so so the dosing is

spread out over because of 24 hours and

that pretty much we're going to get to a

point where the entire 20 gallons will

be dispensed daily to a single system to

a single system so we would have

multiple accounts that's a lot sure is

have pretty good evaporation

um and then do you do any automatic

dosing or calcium we do we do calcium

reactor as well and the last little

finishing step is if we need to bump it

up with uh like a two-part basically we

haven't needed to do magnesium because

that's something that we can put into

the calcium reactor like for example we

like the Julian sprung two little

fishies product

um

we like the the two little fishies

product but

um we were using arm aragonite reactor

media for a long time and we get it in

bulk bags so we didn't realize that the

commercial that the retail packaging

says high magnesium I remember this from

one of your videos yeah you had a

magnesium explosion we had we had

magnesium that was like topping out the

test kits for a long time couldn't

figure out what it was well it turns out

that you know these blank bags of

reactor media was like super high in mag

so we can incorporate some of that media

into our reactors and we really

basically don't have a magnesium issue

after that okay all right is there

anything more you want to talk about on

the technical side of things before we

dive in a little bit more into uh you

know the the tidal Garden corals is

there anything else you want to touch

upon before we get into the livestock do

you like ozone

I have used it on and off for years and

I have

re-revisited it in this year I found two

units that I have that are rebranded

Sanders units by aquamedic so the 400

gallon tank is getting uh 25 to 30

milligrams because it's adjustable and

this system is a it gets 200 milligrams

and that's

that's the sticker value right 200

milligrams of in implies that it's

perfectly clear pathway for the corona

discharge very dry air which we have

here naturally and so I don't know how

much of that is I really getting into

the aquarium but I feel like it's

knocking back a little bit of the

pathogeny

that you might experience when you have

so many corals and so many nutrients but

by far I mean the water's Crystal like

uh I started I do a little bit of water

change I think about a week or two ago

and I noticed the the bucket was a

little bit yellower it should be like

almost like air that's how clear it was

and we were cleaning the skimmer and I

had a Johnny gas fitting coming right

off the ozone generator it fell off fell

apart off right no tension so note to

the wise Johnny guests and the quick

fittings are not ozone safe so it was

simple fix I just took that fitting off

and put the tubing right on but I feel

like ozone is more adjustable it's more

flexible than ultraviolet sterilization

and UV is not going to clear up your

water and so I'm re-revisiting ozone

coming from in the industry side of

things we always had ozone generators on

these tiny little Cyclone

built-in protein hammers before the bio

balls you remember that the proteins can

remember fire the body balls I remember

working at plenty of shops where you

always smelled the ozone you almost

smelled it and so yeah I'm not I'm not

worried about it and I think I'm not

saying everybody should use it but on a

certain scale Marco and I were just

talking about this the other day about

the ozone use with tanks it's what is

the effect of administering 10 to 20 to

50 milligrams on you know I'll say a 300

gallon tank in bursts versus having a

two to five milligram ozonizer just

going all the time and we don't know

because it fell out of favor yeah I

think somebody knows the answer to that

but

not me I I'm very late to the ozone

party because I was so worried and

whenever you're adopting a new

technology at the scale that I have

because I don't have like one or two

smaller aquariums I mean now I do but

for the longest time the smallest

aquarium it's a thousand gallons full of

coral so whatever it is that people want

me to try you're asking a lot you're

asking a lot you're putting so much on

the line right so it's like when

people's like would you be willing to

try our salt mix I'm like

let me explain do you understand what

you're asking of me if this goes

sideways it's going to cost me a million

dollars it's like it's you're asking a

lot so I was very late to try to adopt

ozone and now that I do use it I am a

big fan but we don't have Colorado dry

air so it is a major obstacle to try to

get ozone working efficiently just for

those of you listening that are not

familiar the ozone generation process

works a lot better when you're working

with dry air so historically you would

need an air dryer before your ozonizer

or whatever's drawing that air in to

make the air really dry so the reaction

can work and I just we're naturally you

know I guess fortunate here in Colorado

that they are so dry super dry air I

can't even dry it that much more no no

you have super dryer here so if anybody

out there is like really curious about

how it works technically uh the humidity

is reacting with nitrogen in the air and

once you Corona discharge that it forms

that the nitrogen forms like this pasty

scum that gums up the works inside your

ozone unit and so effectively no real

ozone generation is happening and

getting into your protein skimmer or

reactor so what made you decide to pop

some ozone on your system uh

we're talking about it in some video and

they had like a as like a special guest

a a company representative of like in

one of these ozone people that was real

Tech it was those attack yeah who else

is there yeah well I guess there's some

on the commercial side that does it on

big scales and stuff but so ozotec um

you know their guys were there and I was

like in chat I was like asking questions

because you know it is something that

I've been curious about for a long time

and they were they actually came to my

facility

looked at everything it gave me all

these ideas answered all my questions in

person your your mileage may vary guys I

don't think Steve christensen's gonna

show up at your door just saying but

that really

um gave me a lot more confidence in

giving it a try and once we did give it

a try I'm like this water looks like

it's rendered do the crystal Clarity of

the water again what's the point of

having Crystal Clear High Clarity glass

that's more susceptible to scratching if

you're not cleaning it this is how we

started our whole conversation but then

if your water is not Crystal Clear like

air you're not really getting those

benefits that being said I don't use any

kind of water polishing on either this

peninsula tanks you know it's just good

automatic filter roll protein skimmers

and a reasonable amount of water change

about every two months but I know it's

just like a slight kiss of ozone would

just take that to the next degree but

what made you is was it just Clarity

that you were chasing is that that was

literally I would say that 95 percent of

my uh my interest in Ozone was the

clarity but I think that you do have

these side benefits of like knocking

down like you know the choral Warfare

biologics going on there

um the odor reduction was kind of

interesting

uh did you see any impact on dinos did

you do you have any experience with

dinos I never really struggled too much

with that so I know when people struggle

with with dinos they really struggle and

so it's it's like chief on their on

their mental hit list but realistically

you'd have a hard time finding dinos in

any of my tanks it's just not a thing we

have our own other issues all right

let's get firmly into the livestock

because we can't let this go on forever

and ever and I just want to relax and

hang out with you at the studio a little

bit more especially now we've really

been able to dive in one of my favorite

videos that you ever did not of all time

and not objectively going through all

your videos but one of the ones that

really stuck with me was when you did a

video

um talking about the corals that you

would never offer for sale because it

didn't make sense to farm them on a

commercial scale you know do you

remember which one I'm talking about I

know we put out a lot of videos but you

talked about a group of corals that just

date and makes sense for you to culture

I can't think of it off the top of my

head but I can think of some corals that

definitely don't make a lot of sense for

me to propagate

what are those four tidal Gardens what

are the corals that you're like now

that's not our gem okay so one that

jumps out immediately is the I guess

that people call like a panopy bird's

nest

they usually form like they're very fast

growing they form these really like

sharp points

yeah I know exactly what you're talking

about yeah so my issue with that Coral

specifically so the growth rate while

great for aquaculture doesn't match up

with the inherent demand for that Coral

also we need to have it grow to a

certain size so that it fits into a spec

like a four ounce specimen container

because

they are Pokey once they get into bag

sizes guess what they're going to poke

through the bag and they Branch like

every quarter inch they just take a you

know a 90 degree Branch here and so you

know a one-year-old Colony might be two

and a half inches across in the in the

certain circumstances it's not a so

great frag

it's it's a fine Coral it's a bad

product

so it would be things like that

um I don't have any interest in doing a

whole lot with paleothoa anymore

it's one of those things where it's not

a great seller

yeah it's some more than others but

there's like certain varieties that are

not great Sellers and if you neglect

them they will grow on the side of your

overflow box and one day when you want

to go through and remove all that that's

an ordeal that's a Hazmat situation it's

a problem yeah no every time I see

vendors stores or people online you know

selling off just regular slightly green

edged palletoas I think myself like that

should not be allowed like I only have a

soft spot for my Palace or grandis my

sun polyps they do not grow out of

control but fragging them entails a lot

of preparation a lot of slime and a lot

of blowback right so same thing with the

palathoas I'm like I'd be okay as if as

a community we all decided no let's just

not do this there's a reason it's the

last

Coral air quotes Coral standing when

someone's getting rid of their tank you

know what I mean

there's so much risk too I've heard so

many like my dog died from such and such

like I I'm I'm real I'm real over it so

like part of tidal Gardens though is

like the educational aspect of it and so

we want to have like one of every kind

of coral

and you know because when we make

content around it we do choral

spotlights but there yeah there's

there's definitely some things that's

like you know what I don't even want to

touch that stuff I can feel it in my jaw

the minute I start handling that it's

not good all right let's uh what was

something a little bit more pleasant

what are what are some of the corals

that are like your bread and butter not

as far as paying the bills but it's like

you know you grow a lot of it it's

always been part of the tidal Gardens uh

catalog so and so that the types of

corals that I tend to to gravitate

towards just for my taste are going to

be some of the large polyp Stony corals

that can be actively propagated that are

colorful and are relatively low drama

and it's ironic that the the thing

that's top of my list right now

historically has been challenging to

keep which is ganiapora

I love them right now whatever it is

with this recent uh band of of ghanis

but they are more stable than most of

the other LPS we have they are gorgeous

to look at like I really believe that

Justin

incredible had it right like almost 15

years ago that the fragging

prevents them from coming down with a

lot of troubles you know when we're

talking about the normal baseball sized

Garnier poor Stokes eye that are coming

from turbid environments just giant

fields of them they're just literally

picking up manganese nodules on the

bottom of the ocean when those are just

put in a tank left untreated there's

just a lot of stuff that gets

Incorporated the skeleton and over time

that causes an issue and I think because

now we have such an intense culture of

fragging we're cutting away a lot of

those problems and uh you know we're not

seeing people get colonies from the wild

we're not taking a whole colony and

putting in a tank if there's something

that's really nice flower pot it's going

under the knife it's getting cut down to

the bare minimum that you need and I

feel like that is half the battle I'm

not saying it's all the battle but that

is half the battle the intense uh frag

forward culture that we have but also

now with a much better understanding of

Trace elements what do you think has

changed for you

because you when you what happened what

does it look like for you when you get

new stock in are you picking up frags at

the shows are you picking up wild

colonies that you sit on and wait till

they bloom it's it's a mix so the the

beauty of having like a coral farm that

is that that's so aggressive when it

comes to aquaculture is that we so first

of all we don't even we don't import we

do work with wholesalers that do import

but I'm really only interested in like a

handful of corals like I I can I can

walk into certain places and they are

big big places and there's really only a

handful of corals in those places that I

actually am interested in so I can be

super picky choosy about like onesie

twosy things I have no problem paying

full-on retail for something I really

want because I know I don't have to like

buy this

50 times a week you know it's just I get

the I get it once I try to propagate it

forever so that's kind of like how we go

about Acquisitions I'm literally trying

to hunt down very specific uh things

that I would be interested in

propagating long term and we do buy the

stuff that you that people typically

don't propagate the trachies the

homophilia Bauer bank or sorry home

affiliate Australis all that stuff just

to have it available for a random

Shopper but like I don't really need to

be buying a ton of that stuff I don't

need to have

Acres of acanthophilia around I really

kind of laser focused on something that

hopefully will be a long-term culture

what are some things that you've failed

at so I feel plenty of things I know but

I'm not trying to put you on the spot

you know but as content creators we're

naturally putting together putting a

front you know it's just we want to put

the best foot forward we want to wear a

three-piece suit we want to look our

best for the public sure and it's just

really easy to present this veneer a

Perfection no I get it I get it I just

I'm seeing this for posterity for the

viewers and the listeners yeah so guys

at any given time something's not going

to be super thrilled because all these

corals come from very different

environments from different parts of the

world and you're putting them all into

this very homogeneous setting and most

of it I'd say over 90 of it is going to

be just fine but on the fringes you're

gonna get some stuff that hates life so

write this second for me

uh there's a couple corals that

aren't loving the tidal Gardens

experience there's some acros not all of

them I would say that about 70 something

percent of the acros are doing really

well but there's a few that are just not

having it at all so I would say that

some acros room for improvement

um blastomusa which used to be one of my

favorite corals ever for whatever reason

uh they like like for me the idea of a

long-term blast of Musa farming culture

because that's something that grows like

crazy and can eat that's easy to frag no

I'll stop you right there merleti will

grow like crazy easier frag and for the

longest time I always thought Well's eye

it was like a static Coral like you were

lucky to keep it alive that being said

today you went with me to Aquatica I

picked up a small frag grown mini colony

of red and green blast Musa for 50 bucks

and I have a colony over there that you

wouldn't believe was a single polyp I

don't know a year ago year and a half

ago it just said and all of a sudden

it's like an instant Colony I'm like how

did you get this what happened here I

just I counted them out for the longest

time we uh historically have been able

to

um

to grow the the wealthies and I mean

merleti is obviously faster than the

wellesied but we've been able to grow

well sees just fine but lately when it

comes like the long-term aquaculture of

them we would just get random die-offs

to the point where it's like we're

putting in a lot of effort and resources

into this coral and it feels like I'm

Treading Water because we like have

eight frags looking good suddenly it's

four frags what the heck happened here

that sort of thing

and strangely

long-term cultures of micromusolores

and uh uh I again it's one of those

things where like we can achieve

explosive growth and then they have

explosive die back it's like what why

why I think that's really important to

for us you know influencers to kind of

put out there that we are struggling we

do have challenges I will be open with

anyone about what I it's not thriving at

the studio at any given time people

often ask me what's my favorite Coral

I've had the same answer for 10 years

the coral that is doing the best right

now good answer that is my favorite

Coral or the one that's just doing the

best forever has always done great or

the one that I finally unlocked but my

my everyday answers is the coral that is

doing the best right now so with that in

mind like you know what is your what is

the coral that you're enjoying the most

right now at the Tidal Gardens you know

farm and what are some corals that are

on your hit list that you want to get

better at or do you want to add to your

catalog

um easily right now the the thing that

brings joy to my heart whenever I walk

by the tank is our collection of ghanis

ghanis yeah the guys are doing great

we got Bernie's the Bernies and we have

alveys when you say Gunnies you mean

specific onions specific like

specifically

Opera yeah but we actually have quite a

few Bernard pora they're doing really

really nicely too but I gravitate to the

real deal ganipora yeah Alpha they're

cool they don't have the color I just

agree they don't have the color

combinations

but if there's some really green ones

and some really pink ones or some you

know bi-colored mild ones there's a lot

of corals here that I'm sure you haven't

seen them all but when we wrap this up

I'm gonna show you a couple of birdies

and Alves my alveport are mauve at best

yeah it's probably closer to this gray

so but but I've seen some some uh some

video of some wild colored ones insanely

colored ones and then when I see that

one for sale as of what you see is what

you get uh piece it's like that's not at

all anything that's just that's gray

again so yeah I would have to see it I'd

have to see it what are some things you

think the uh contribute to success with

the Gunnies

I I I don't know if you could see his

face right now I don't know like you

actually one thing is we we uh we do try

to feed them and lately I've noticed

that they can actually grab and eat

mices that was kind of news to me

because before I was thinking like oh

it's it's I'm incredible sort of thing I

don't believe you I'll take video for

you I I would love to see that I would

love to see that in fact I think I have

a video Target fed them for years and

for me putting phosphate in the water is

everything I could have hoped this whole

weekend guys it's it's Jake telling me

about his nitrate and phosphate dosing

regimen being like the key to everything

and I'm like if you already have

phosphated nitrates yeah then you then

you shouldn't even listen to right but

in bottoming them out and I've fed and I

Target fed for years and I haven't seen

that feedback but now that I'm hitting

zero because I talked about this about

my writeria that I've had for years I I

would hand feed it once a week like or

something really chunky it did not

Thrive it did not Thrive and then once I

started really keeping an eye on my

nitrates and phosphates

that was a turning point that was a big

big turning point it's always

interesting to go to different people's

places and see how they got to the

success that you're seeing because

oftentimes it's one of those situations

it's like that Meme it's like I don't

know how you got there this is a

different formula but you got to the

right answer sort of thing right

um yeah it's always like yeah it's

always a treat to to see how how people

do things differently because

there could be like 90 something percent

overlap and you'll see that one little

bit that's not the overlap like that is

interesting yeah that that sticks out

that used to be a really important

aspect of the reef aquarium hobby this

is kind of a great place to start tying

a knot on this session of reef therapy

is you're not getting that same

experience online the person that's

telling you XYZ the whole freaking

alphabet you show up in person you you

mentioned it earlier right about seeing

the same Corals in different tanks I

have the same Corals in different tanks

and I can tell you okay in this tank it

grows thicker deeper bushier that one

grows a little faster a little lighter a

little thinner you know and that is just

incredibly informative because you have

to see these different results first and

then you start sleuthing of like what is

different between these tanks that I'm

running more or less the same but then

when you go to see someone else's tank

they have same Coral this should be such

an integral part of the reef aquarium

hobby because you would share corals

share corals not try to milk every

single polyp your Coral Farm I'm not I I

am trying to sell some some product here

yeah but no it's different but you know

still the pure love of reefing like

seeing the same corals and different is

like how are you getting that color how

are you getting that growth how are you

getting that polyp extension you put

those three different Hobbies together

and we can all get excellent growth

excellent color excellent polyp

extension and so the in-person visits is

sorely lacking in the reef aquarium

Community I will throw in a hot take on

top of that it's because of how the

internet is

you you again are separated from that

that uh that showing your work you know

I'm here at Jake's Studio I can see his

work right and so you you have to have

that part of it too because it is very

easy for somebody just to try to snow

you

because I had I had an experience

relatively recently where

talking to somebody and they were

talking about like some Next Level

analytical chemistry to take a reef to

the next level and like the technology

that they're employing for their I think

I might have got Mega I might have

gotten this email this Mega Coral farm

that they're working on and they're

improving on what I did but they're

taking it to like you know uh like

SpaceX level Tech and incorporating all

this to solve all these issues and and

I'm just sitting here thinking like

it sounds like they're making a

spaceship

and last I checked I was trying to make

a spaceship and they are like way over

my head with everything that they're

talking about and and somebody else had

another conversation later and you know

he's also in the industry and he is

highly highly intelligent I I respect

his opinion quite a lot on many matters

and he just said if you ever have that

feeling

they are probably just a fraud because

it's like you of all people

are Tip Top at this you know and if

somebody's going over your head it's

probably not real

and and I think that like

an average hobbyist

hearing stuff going over their heads

might have that same feeling if they're

not able to see the actual work product

at the end of all of the baffling all

the smoke and mirrors exactly all the

filters all the hype you know I think

along a similar line I think was earlier

this year that was included in a chain

email and someone who was just just so

thrilled that their tank was hitting a

pH of 8.5 and this and that it was

staying at 8.5 and they were doing all

this stuff to keep it from going to 8.3

and it just kept talking about the ph

and the ph and the ph and all the things

we're doing to keep that pH super high

there's no mention about the health of

the corals the Vitality the corals no

pictures to demonstrate what were the

benefits of running at 8.5 and I'm like

dude did you just do a thesis on how to

have like

Supernatural levels of pH because the

ocean doesn't crack 8.3 you know right

now that you know the average pH ocean

used to be 8.2 now because of those

acidifications close to 8.1 and so like

you're really doing backflips about

having a pH of 8.5 but what do your

corals look like what does your growth

look like what does your Reef look like

it was just a number it was just a

number on the screen and I'm like dude

you gotta you gotta bring it back bring

it back so

um Dan I want to thank you so much for

your time if you're a a reef junkie and

you've been scrubbing reef tanks while

listening to this session of brief

therapy with myself and fan for sure you

will probably already know the title

guards YouTube channel the entire

gardens website there's so much more we

could talk about I hope we can pick this

back up on a future session when I'm

come visit your space and we can talk

about some of that length then it's a

real treat to have you here thank you so

much for having me yeah no we're gonna

have some really down home Mexican food

here shortly but uh you know cracking

two hours just hardcore Reef talking I

think it's time for us to crack beer and

uh go back to looking at some Coral so

thank you I want to thank you so much

for for joining us and everybody for

listening and participating if you're

watching listening to this on YouTube we

didn't record our faces we pray looking

at a bunch of beautiful b-roll of

something if you have any questions or

comments put those down below if you're

listening right now on your favorite pot

catcher make sure to rate US and I'm

sure you can throw some questions on any

random video on title Gardens and then

we'll get around to it so thanks

everybody for tuning in and uh thank you

for participating bye guys bye everyone