Introduction

[mojorizn]

Any info on store hours?
I live right around the corner and have gone by a few times...no luck.

[MRSBIGBIRD123]

They're Grand Opening is the 25th of July.....hours from 12pm-4pm.

[DrMark]

We are discussing store hours. Will likely be Saturday and Sundays to start from 11am - 5pm. Officially will be opening July 25th, biut unofficially open sooner.
I am happy to give interested people a preview if I am there. Text me (better) or call 361-549-0027.

Mark

[mojorizn]

Today I had the pleasure of being the first paid customer over @ Gulf Coast Reef.
I highly recommend Corpus locals swing by and drop some $$.
GCR has a quality selection, good pricing, and exceptional service.
3802 Saturn...way out Weber across from Bill's Casino.
They are still getting inventory, but the curent selection is outstanding.
Two large island tanks for main coral stock are super clean and the corals all look fantastic.
They have additional tanks set up for fish and are awaiting inventory.
Store hours for now....open Sat / Sun....spotty during the week.
Thier web site, not functioning as yet:
http://www.gcreef.com/
Swing by and show some support for a great up and coming LFS........

[DrMark]

Thanks for coming by. We really wasnt planning on selling anything just yet, but oh well.
There is a lot of coral here and more coming later this week.
The fish tanks are for our breeding program, while we will be able to get fish for people that want something specific, we d ont plan on keeping a selection of fish for sale. We will, eventually, be offering a variety of our own captive bred fish and shrimp for sale, however.
While we build up the breeding program, we will focus energy on the coral side.

Mark

[Richard]

What fish are you planning on breeding commercially?

[DrMark]

We either have or are aquiring brood stock of: Picasso clowns, Onyx clowns, Platinum clowns, Orchid dottybacks, Brazilian Sea horses, Cleaner shrimp, Fire Shrimp.
Mark

[cpreefguy]

How about rare Pygmy Angelfish?

[Richard]

Have you bred seahorses before?

[bjgf15]

How about rare Pygmy Angelfish?

Have you bred seahorses before?

I figured this might be a good time to chime in… My name is Brad and I’m Mark and James’ business partner at Gulf Coast Reef and Aquaculture. This is great to see such strong MAAST support! We are really excited about this place and we think you guys will like what we are doing.

Let me answer a few questions about the fish breeding program;

No, we don’t have any immediate plans for pygmy angelfish right now. I’m sure as many of you know, they are actually quite easy to breed in aquaria but because they are broadcast spawners, the eggs are very small compared to those of clownfish or gobies and their larvae are subsequently also very small. This means they will not take traditional ‘first foods’ you would feed to a clownfish for example. Rotifers are simply too large for the fry to take as a first food and no commercially available microplankton has proven to be the answer. Some breeding facilities have raised these angels successfully but the technique (food source for the larvae) is a closely guarded secret. Also, most commercial breeders need around 60+% survival to make breeding a certain fish large scale a viable option, and as of yet survival of most captive reared angelfish is well below 10%. Through my PhD work I have observed some plankton that can potentially function well as a first food so in the future we may attempt some pygmy angels.

I have successfully bred and raised 3 species of seahorse (H. reidi, H. zosterae and H. kelloggi) as well as several clownfish species, gobies, cardinal fish and a couple basslet species.

We hope, if all goes well with the species Mark listed previously, to add bluespot jawfish and also helfrichi firefish to our list of broodstock.

Cheers!