Atlantis was amazing!!! The reef tank was simply amazing and the behind the scenes tour with Joe made the day! Anyone that missed the trip might be in luck! Joe has offered to come speak for the club in the future. He left the following message on my facebook.
Glad you enjoyed the visit, let me know when you have some speaker openings and I'll take a drive your way, with some frags in hand for an auction.
Meeting Joe was almost as nice as seeing his tank. I hope everyone gets the opportunity to meet him at an upcoming meeting. Now, whos got pics?
i have to agree this trip was awesome…includeing our scenic detour through NYC hahaha thanks courtney. but yea the place is amazing and much more than an aquarium, they’ve kinda got a little zoo attached as well with some monkeys and gators and seals and dinosaurs. ok maybe no dinos but its still sweet. the reef tank is amazing and it breaks just about every rule to reefkeeping and has been up and stable for about 10 years with some of the corals being 20+ years old.
the tour from joe was top notch. its amazing to see all the behind the scenes stuff hes got going on there. we got to walk gang planks above tanks, some of the kids got to feed the 2200 gallon nem/clown tank which was sweet. just all around great trip!
The trip was great and Joe was great,
I did get Joes cell and business number and he said would be happy to come and speak to us.
The reef tank was amazing and theres not words to describe it. The behind the scenes tour was great
This was a really great trip. The center stage reef tank is out standing! Great schools of tangs and other fish swimming about the giant corals. I cant believe the size of many of them. the acros, the BTAs, and Monti caps were bigger than most of our tanks! it really is like a bit of a natural reef. its great to see mature corals butting up against each other, rather than the usual frags on plugs gardens we keep. Let em grow before we frag. see what they really look like.
The coral colors where even better looking down from the top. no actinics, just lots of high watt MH lighting. the amazing thing is the watts per gallon is less than ONE and 6-8 feet of water! I might have to rethink some lighting schemes.
The coral fragging and fish rearing labs where full of things growing out. No corner or wall of the back rooms has been wasted. Barely room to sqeaze my belly through the aisles of rearing tanks, and pumps and piping. My kinda place, pipes and hoses criss crossing the floors everywhere. just like home!
It would be great to have Joe come on down for a presentation. He has lots to share. Im looking into the stuff he uses for PO4 control. It seems to work good for him with careful control. Im going to give it a try on one of the tanks and see how it goes.
It was a great trip, even though we too took the scenic route through down town NYC. Under the brooklyn bridge, up broadway, parkway, china town, saw the Statue of Liberty from afar. seems the GPS got brain dead as to the fastest route and ran us down town before we saw the last exit. Good thing i brought the old school road atlas to navigate out of town with.
So glad everyone enjoyed seeing that amazing tank. The trip is a bit long, but the reward is well worth it. Can’t wait to see the pics because I haven’t seen the tank in a few years.
Sad I couldn’t make it.