Corals at The Aquatic Wildlife Company

When I visited The Aquatic Wildlife Company's facilities in Cleveland TN, and met with John Walch and Dana Riddle, I also had the pleasure to meet with the major funders of AWC, Mr. and Mrs M. Clark.

The facilities of AWC are about 15 000 square feet. They house grow-out systems and aquariums holding nearly 25 000 gallons of water. This is surprisingly large for a facility of this caliber in view of the large investment required to equip all systems with top-of-the-line equipment and instrumentation. Notwithstanding that cost, AWC is equiped with the latest and very complete systems to monitor all water quality parameters that need to be measured and controlled.

Marc and Vanessa Clark were extremely kind and assured me that I had total access to all parts of the facility for as long as I wanted to.

I was therefore able to view not only the public areas, the grow-out systems but also the experimental areas, the laboratory, the quarantine area, packing and storage, conference room, retail store, and so on and so on. There even is a special area for growing plankton.

AWC is not just like any facility I have ever seen. This is a truly state-of-the-art operation where no dime has been spared to make it that way. The intent was, obviously, to have a facility where success of coral propagation was maximized and practically assured by setting it up in such a manner that with expert staff overseeing the whole process, just about any coral could be raised in captivity.

This is indeed what AWC has achieved.

AWC is also the manufacturer of the ecoReef ™ System, an integrated aquarium that comes complete with everything you need. All you do is add animals and water. The aquarium and everything needed comes as a package and in various sizes (at this point 100, 200 and 400 gallons). It incorporates everything AWC have found to be needed to ensure a successful reef tank. And successful they are. I have seen several in operation. The animals in those tanks look healthy and vibrant, and the whole aquarium has that reef-like look that we all so much strive for.

All systems are set up in such a way that the actual water quality meets the same parameters as what one would find in a well mainttained home system. As such, corals bought from AWC really would not need acclimating since the differences in tank conditions would be minimal. This was confirmed by Dana Riddle. He suggests removing corals received from AWC as soon as they arrive and adding them to your tank (see article on Care of SPS corals).

Are there any magic tricks used at AWC? Do they know something we do not know?

In reality they do but they have made it a policy to share that information with hobbyists. This is very unlike other coral propagating facilities that make access extremely complicated to hobbyists, and even to authors. Even when they allow access, they restrict it to certain areas of their facility. This was not the case at The Aquatic Wildlife Company. In fact, after a while, I just toured around on my own, took photos and inspected the systems and equipment used.

The key to the success obtained at AWC is obviously in the combination of using the right lighting and the right manner in maintaining a high water quality with sufficient nutrients for the corals to grow. Lighting is important for pigmentation and growth and so is nutrient availability, calcium levels and so on. Check the other documents in this series for full details on how to maintain a system similar to the ones at AWC.

Other documents in this series describe the various topics discussed and the details of the set up at AWC. I will be adding graphics to this one to give you an idea of what the inside of the facility looks like.

Check this document again.

Thank you.

Go from here to Other AWC Related Articles and read the transcripts of my interviews with Dana Riddle and John Walch.

Albert J. Thiel, Copyright 1997