About Us
What sets us apart
Southwest Aquaculture is "a coral lover's dream."
A core component of our business is aqua-culturing healthy, beautiful corals in a sustainable manner to satisfy the desires of the average hobbyist, as well as the avid collector.
The corals we propagate consist of established brood-stock that has been fully acclimated to captive environments. Corals offered on our website are never fresh cut, wild pieces from the ocean, ever! We believe our integrity, and commitment to sustainable practices will set us apart in the coral trade, as we deliver vibrant and healthy corals to aquariums nationwide.
How we do it
Our current coral facility is located in Mesa Arizona. We house multiple systems totaling several thousand gallons allowing us to quarantine new arrivals, condition and house our brood-stock, and ultimately grow the frags that we eventually retail to you, the customer. We employ the latest technologies available in the industry to not only reduce the burdens of maintenance but to provide the best environment possible for the corals in our captive systems. Multiple Neptune Apex systems provide monitoring, redundancy, testing and logging of key systems, while Kessil AP9X and A360X lighting is employed throughout the facility to provide the photosynthetic energy required to maintain and grow healthy, beautiful corals.
Filtration is handled by massive 600 gallon sumps and RK2 skimmers, along with an as-needed regimen of mechanical and chemical filtration. Everything from evaporative replenishment, water changes, to dosing is fully or semi-automated. In addition, a comprehensive water testing schedule aids in keeping elemental parameters within optimal ranges. We find that close to NSW is best, with some exceptions.
Brood-stock is imported direct from only a few trusted sources, in addition to acquisitions made through trading with reputable coral farmers and hobbyists. Regardless of the source, all corals go through multiple quarantine stages, inspections, and dipping procedures to eliminate pests and nuisance algae, and when ready, frags are cut to healthy sizes promoting faster healing and low mortality. No pinky nail sized frags here!
What to expect
Most frags are mounted to black 1.5" ceramic discs. These discs are much larger than your standard frag plug so keep that in mind when you are trying to determine size. We intentionally DO NOT crop the disc out of our photos for this very reason. We also do our utmost to guarantee that phots are accurate representations of your WYSIWYG items. Corals are photographed under Kessil AP9X fixtures set to approximately a 20k spectrum. We do not use heavy 'orange' filters but rather custom white balance settings to show the true colors of the corals. It is very likely that corals will look even better in your tank, especially if your lighting is heavy on the blue spectrum.
Corals at our facility certainly 'feel the love' and so will you when you purchase from us; go buy some coral!
We look forward to meeting you at the next coral swap, or trade show, as we expand our calendar to hit as many events possible in the upcoming months.
Happy Reefing!