Live Aquaria- Diver's Den Behind the scene tour: The Corals

In case you've missed my previous posts on the facility's fish and inverts, here are their links:
Fish
Invertebrate
And for you coral fanatics here is the coral section of the facility. The Diver's Den facility of LiveAquaria is also the coral farm for this company. Here is a little background and fun facts of the place: http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=377

The coral display tank by the office in Diver's Den, very impressive and colorful.

A video of this tank:

First I want to show you this beautiful sps and lps coral display tank made of the aquaculture corals here at Diver's Den. This tank sits at the corner where the coral farm meets the offices.

Live Aquaria's aquacultured coral grow out farm

Here is a panoramic video view of the facility:

The coral farm here at the Diver's Den facility are made of numerous 3'X6' approximately 1' deep. The water is crystal clear and each bin houses a few turbo snails and a surgeonfish for algae patrol. Some of them are impressive adult chevron tangs! The corals all sit on a grid of egg crate that's boosted 4" off the bottom. I see the tangs darting back and forth from the top of the corals to the bottom of it. Some bins contain sand as they place lps or sps onto it. Some bins are bare bottom. Each of the LPS corals are carefully placed onto a ring of cut PVC pipe to prevent the sand from irritating it.
All of the corals that I could see had nice but not abnormally large polyp extensions.

A bin with crushed coral bottom housing non-photo synthetic corals

There are 2-3 bins like the one above housing the non-photo synthetic corals. And as you can see from the reflection, instead of Metal Halide or LED lighting, these bins use t-5 lighting for any misc. photosynthetic coral they need to place here. I also want to mention that one of these bins had a school of baby bangaii cardinal fish and it's a perfect environment since they feed these bins heavily with nutrient rich zooplankton to keep the non-photo synthetic corals happy.

A bin of marincultured sps corals

The bin above showcase a group of the marine cultured sps corals. As you can see they sit on a PVC ring with their sky#, price, and ID clearly labeled so you will always receive the correct item. The egg crate is 4" above the bare bottom with a chevron tang patrolling this bin for algae control. Each bin only houses one vegetarian fish, and with a turbo snail to supplement. You can see this bin features a 400W metal halide from the reflection. The halide sits on a track and is moved up and down the bin to provide the corals lighting from all angels instead of creating a "hotspot"
Here is a short "tease" of what these corals look like with the water flow and the light.

A bin with mixed marincultured sps coral and aquaculture frags

This bin also features some beautifully colored marine cultured sps coral, with some aquaculture sps & lips frags. Apologies for the really blue hue of the picture- I believe they use 20K bulbs for all the corals under metal halide.
I'm just going to post a few more photos here without much further description as they are pretty self-descriptive.

A bin with primarily aquacultures corals here in different sizes and shapes.

Amazing group of blasto frags here. I was really tempted to take them all!

How about a garden of hammers? all in different colors too!

Corals are sectioned of for pricing and ease of identification when workers here pick them for order. These lps and soft corals are under LED lighting as you can see from the reflection.

Another bin of amazing hammer corals! raise your hand if you want them all!

Group of long tentacle plates, the cutie at the bottom right is now in my tank!

And lastly a bare bottom bin featuring a garden of elegant corals!

Live Aquaria Behind the Scene Tour part 1- Fish

panoramic view of Diver's Den's Aquacultured coral display tank

LiveAquaria is an online aquatic retailer operated under Drs. Foster & Smith, one of the largest and reputable pet supply online retailers. Three times a year LiveAquaria opens up its doors for passionate hobbyist (like myself) to tour the facility in Rhinelander, Wisconsin and purchase livestock at a discount price in person. The Rhinelander location is one of the two LiveAquaria facilities, all of the Diver's Den livestock are kept and shipped out here while most other "generic" items are kept in a California facility. This facility is also LiveAquaria's coral farm where they propagate and grow out coral frags in the aquaculture corals section. If you have not been there or seen anyone posted the behind the scene photos, here is a glimpse of where your livestock was once kept and grown while you were ordering them online!
To see some fun fact about their facility, click here.

Diver's Den uses Reef Crystals exclusively, these are their massive holding vats!

Fish holding section, there are eight walls like this

The guy in charge of the fish section was very friendly and explained the fish holding, catching (they did not use net to catch the fish, which is amazing), and bagging process. I also asked some questions regarding the fish's health- The fish are held for at least 14 days before they are available, and the fish are also only available when they are actively accepting frozen food. He dosed just thawed frozen brime shrimp into at least 4 or 5 of these large tanks and I swear all the fish, even the anthias were eating like pigs! In fact I did pick up a MFF trio of bartlett anthias. The one thing I do need to mention is the fish are only lightly medicated so when you order from them I would still recommend a thorough quarantine- without the worry of getting them to eat though!

The legendary conspicuous angelfish, the most expensive fish, that I know of, in the world at $3,000!! happily mingling with other fish here in this holding tank, and happily accepting food too!

A larger group of bartlett anthias male and female mixed along with a Tinker butterfly, some rabbitfish and copper band butterfly

Two of my dream fish- Blueface Angelfish and Powderblue Tang, though I will not be having them anytime soon due to space limit in my tank

Here is another gem- the super rare candy basslet at $699 (see the price tag)

Even though the tag says "Giant Angler" this guy is really small seen in real person, about the size of a quarter. They seem much bigger in their photos online.

One interesting to note is that many of the fish does seem a bit "different" in person versus seeing them online. Most of the common items like tangs, basslets, and angels don't have much room for difference since most hobbyists have pretty good ideal what they "look like" already. But some of the rarity and novelties tend to be a bit "surprising" to see in person. For example, this angler in the photo is really tiny in real person, but it looks much larger on the photo displayed in website. I think this fish is no longer available but here is a similar fish I also saw that was tiny. That said, don't be fooled, these anglers do get big and won't thrive in a nano system.

Couple more coolfish- Achillis Tang and a Redtail trigger

An Emperor Angelfish with a half black Foxface Rabbitfish

If you purchase multiple fish of the same species, such as a trio of anthias or a group of cardinals, the fish collectors here scoop the fish out with a container instead of net (at least that's what they did with my bartlett anthias, and you know how tough and fast they are to catch), they then separate them and bag each fish individually in dark bags to reduce stress.

One of the bagging stations

Their Bagging station is kept very clean and sanitary. The floor is surprisingly dry (you would expect this place to be a swampy mess!), and each bag is inspected for the correct item at bagging. They inject oxygen, clamp the bag with metal clamp and place the bags in appropriate sized foam box with a heat pack and peanuts for shipping. I honestly cannot pick on anything about the entire process. Although the 5 layer bags you will eventually receive can be a bit troublesome to open and acclimate fish with. But it's all worth it for a stress free journey.

One of the two boxes I came home with. The larger bag has one of the anthias with the smaller bags containing corals and invertebrates.

20141024 Conspicuous Angelfish

I like to go around the web and search for cool and unusual specimens. I haven't really seen much that I think is an absolutely "must have" but for the sake of introducing something not so common, I thought I put this guys up I found at Liveaquaria.

Conspicuous Angelfish, as seen on Live Aquaria

In case this fish is still around, you can find him here
Just to prepare you, it might break your bank- it's a $3000 fish! Personally I don't think they are that attractive, at least not compared to some of the other large angels. But it certain is rare as it doesn't surface in local stores as often as most other larger angels.

20140915 Gem Tang

I stumbled upon this while doing my "daily window browsing" for aquarium live- The gem tang- zebrasoma gemmatum at Liveaquariua's Diver's Den.

Gem Tang as seen on Live Aquaria

Some please take this guy home! Chances are if you have $3K to spare, you must have a system large and fancy enough to give this guy a much deserved good life! I would if I have it, will you?

Blue Squamosa!

Even though blue squamosa clams are not as rare as it once was, it still is rare!
When I saw this blue squamosa up for sell on Divers Den I actually tossed and turned on my bed and had to put it in my shopping cart in the morning. Liveaquaria used to use Fedex for their delivery which I hated. I can still remember tracking the order last time from Liveaquaria, the shipment flew out from Wisconsin to Memphis TN, then back to Chicago, then back for delivery in Wisconsin- talk about the lack of logic in their logistics. Fedex did slightly better, it went from Wisconsin-Minneapolis-Chicago-Wisconsin.... just wondering when will they ever learn.

So obviously no one is home to sign for the package during work days, I had it sent to my office. I considered paying for Saturday delivery ($15 extra), and was like- nah!

You do get free shipping if the order is $225 or more, so I threw in a tabling acropora to go along with my clam.

the clam, did I mention seven layers of bags in my previous DD post?

The coral, again, seven layers of bags! wow!

And... here it is! it's about 2". I honestly didn't photoshop the color of this photo too much as my AI sol superblue LED does give out this much blue, and it is perfect enhancement for this little guy's coloration.

ORA Derasa Clam from Liveaquaria

Living in Wisconsin, I have known Drs. Foster and Smith's company for a long time. I attended their first ever frag swap in their homebase in Rhinelander, WI and toured the warehouse facility as well as their aquaculture lab. I have placed dry shipment orders such as marine salt, filter replacements, gravel, food, etc from them; but I have never ordered any livestock from LiveAquaria.com as I am a bit weary of the capture, quarantene, and the shipping process.

But that doesn't mean I don't check out their livestock availability in a weekly basis! This time I saw an ORA Derasa Clam available in the Diver's Den. The photo looks amazing! I conducted some research. Asked a few reefkeeping friends about their personal experience with LiveAquaria and decided to gamble on this clam.

ORA 6" Derasa Clam

Since I work a 9-5 job my only option is Saturday delivery. The Clam itself costs $150, plut $35 shipping (free shipping if your order is $225 or more), and an additional $15 for Saturday delivery plus state tax if applicable. So basically I paid over $210ish. This is the box it came with 20X18X14, quite large for what I have ordered- only one giant clam.

When I opened the box, I was really impressed with the packing process. The delivered date was one of the coldest days this winter in Wisconsin (-8F outside)! But the box is filled with peanut and a newspaper wrap. Within the newspaper wrap were two heatpacks that you see NFL QBs use to warm up their hands in the winter. I must mention, even two days after I have opened the box, those heat packs are still emitting heat! leading me to believe that they have really put some thoughts into this delivery process that even if the shipment was delayed there is still a good chance of survival for the enclosed animal.

I am acclimating the clam. As you can see, there are several layers of plastic bags (total of seven!) to keep the clam tightly sealed since some clam shells can be razor sharp and puncture the bag. This is extra security to ensure that the water remains with the clam upon delivery. When I was opening the bags, I felt like a surgeon performing a C-section, cutting through layers and layers of bags to retrieve the baby!

The Derasa was labeled 6" in the Diver's Den description. I must say you do get EXACTLY  what they posted as this gorgeous clam was exactly what I was looking forward to. The only thing is I think the clam actually measure up more like 7 inches than 6 inches. Here is the clam being shy.

Clam's mantle fully expanded after a while of acclimation. I am 100% impressed and would order with Liveaquaria again anytime!

ORA 6" Derasa Clam