News

Someone asked "O I thought Unique Corals was around for a lot more than just four years!"

Which is true!

Here's a bit more background.

Unique Corals was the brain child of Joseph Caparatta.  At the time he was living in New York city and operating Manhattan Aquariums retail store, which is located at 522 W 37th st on the Westside.  As online shopping was gaining popularity, Joe thought it would be great to branch out and reach more customers through this platform - and UniqueCorals Inc. was born.  

Los Angeles is the hub for coral important and exchange activity.  Joe always wanted to move to a sunny locale, so why not marry the two passions and start a facility in LA?  Joe formally started building out the 6000sf facility in 2011 to the highest standards, and as they say, the rest was history.

So, if you happen across an old logo or banner of Unique Corals from 10 years ago, you are looking at a piece of history!

We all know how important it is to maintain proper levels of the major ions in saltwater.  Things like Alkalinity, Calcium and Magnesium should always be on a good reefkeeper's radar and adjusted quickly if they should ever fall out of line.  But what about the lesser understood ions?  How do we best address ions like Molybdenum, Iodine or Vanadium? One way to check, adjust and maintain these important trace elements is through corrective and maintenance dosing via Triton.  It is way easier than it seems.  Using the data reported back to you via your Triton Lab ICP test, you can easily correct issues on ions as mentioned above.  

What I do is this-  I set up my laptop next to the computer, pull out my triton trace element bottles, grab a 1 ml dropper and a 50 ml dosing cylinder and a pair of latex gloves (can never be too safe).  Then I go down the dosage chart on the report and make a simple list of all the dosages needed to get me back to NSW levels (Natural Sea Water).  This list typically has 4 or 5 things on it with dosages ranging from 4 ml to 200 ml depending on the ion.  I then write down what will be dosed today, tomorrow and the following day if necessary.  The data sheet provides all this information in a very easy to use format.  Doing this also makes me feel like a mad scientist.  Dosing exotic elements is quite empowering too I must admit.  I go down the list one at a time, double checking everything, dosing everything for that day until I'm done.  It is a way more precise way of dosing only what is needed, based on actual data, rather than simply blind dosing, doing water changes or dosing based on how the coral looks.  

Oh and the best part is that the corals will really thank you for it too!  Happy reefing.  

MACNA San Diego this year was chalk full of activity, there was not one dull moment.  

JoeCap is the authority on Triton in the United States, and who better to conduct a workshop than Joe?  It was informal yet very informative.  In case you weren't around at the booth at 1:30pm on Sunday, here's a recap:

Video  url: https://www.facebook.com/tritonLA/videos/1452004078149531/

We were fortunate enough to host the first ever Jim Welsh's alkalinity monitor at this year's MACNA, at the Triton booth for the large space it provided.

It was a very successful and informative demonstration, see for yourself!

Such a great product, we can't wait to have one to play with!  It is patent pending.

It is discussed on Reef2reef here.

Follow up:  Neptune System has announced Aug of 2017, of their collaboration with Jim Welsh in brining the Alkalinity Monitor to market, to be used in conjunction with their Apex controllers.  We can't wait to get our unit!

link to video:

https://www.facebook.com/uniquecorals/videos/1238803476161517/

Core7 Base Elements and Reef Supplements from Triton

Core7 Base Elements and Reef Supplements are two new lines of reef aquarium additives which take potency to a whole new level. Although Triton Elements have only been out on the market for a few years and they are about on par with the concentration of most major additive line, the Core7 elements and supplements crank the concentration up by a factor of seven!

Core7 is seven times more concentrated than the previous Base Elementz and they also no longer require to be diluted with pure water into 10 liters of solution. We know that there’s some trickery involved for Triton to get their solutions so concentrated while avoiding precipitation; while we weren’t told what that new mixing method is, our (totally unsubstantiated) pet theory is that ultrasound waves are involved in getting everything to dissolve, but this is probably wrong.

Interestingly, the new Core7 additives comes in two different lines of supplements to cover all types of reef keeping methods. The Core7 Base Elements is designed for subscribers of the pure Triton Method, with the addition of no other supplements. The Base Elements of the Core7 additive line has the full suite of macro and trace elements for complete management of balanced reef aquarium chemistry.

Meanwhile the Core7 Reef Supplements is intended to be used in conjunction with other schools of reefing, such as Zeovit, 2-part, 3-part, Balling and DIY supplements. The Core7 Reef Supplements is high in essential elements but has slightly reduced trace elements in order to prevent the unwanted buildup thereof.

Furthermore, in an effort to both be kind to the environment and encourage customer loyalty with retail partners, Triton is also launching the new Core7 Refill Station. As the name implies, the Core7 will be a refill station for each of the four parts of either the Base Elements of Reef Supplements which customers will be able to refill themselves.

The concept of purchasing bulk additives premixed at the local fish store is already well established in some progressive North American reef stores but it has yet to gain much momentum in Europe. The new Triton Core7 additives and Refill Station is just a small part of a new multi-pronged strategy from the company to make it as easy as possible for reefers to be successful using one of the purest and most balanced line of supplements so stay tuned for a couple more new releases from Triton.

Article was presented by Jake Adams on Reefbuilders.com

Top 10 Best New Aquarium Products of InterZoo 2016

Ca you spot which of these are represented by UniqueCorals?

originally published in ReefBuilders, by Jake Adams

InterZoo 2016 was a huge event for new aquarium products, and we could have easily spent an additional week walking the halls, checking out all the new gear, and telling you all about it. This year more than ever saw some significant improvements and innovations to every piece of reef gear that we hold dear.

Some products such as the Aqamai KPS controllable pump and Direct Current SDC Syncra and PSK pumps are innovations that we could have expected from these major companies, and both Hydor and Sicce executed beautifully on these. But right there with them, Rossmont also raised the bar for controllable pumps with their Mover and Waver, and the AquaBee Wavemaker is a very interesting new take on how to get water moving too.

Sicce gets another nod on this list by manufacturing the Seachem Tidal power filter, perhaps one of the most refined new designs on the traditional filter system this decade. And who could have foreseen the magnetically levitated Stream 3 pump from Tunze? All in all there was a lot of action in the water pump segment but other categories saw some huge innovations as well.

For devices that fall mostly under aquarium accessories, Ultra Reef and Pacific Sun both had some really cool new Reef Toys. The Ultra Reef media reactor is super cool and novel, and the fact that it can transform into an easily serviceable macroalgae reactor is just an extra feather in its cap. Last InterZoo DaStaCo definitely got our attention with their new direction for a calcium reactor, but this year it was Pacific Sun who took that idea a step further and introduced a much more practical automatic calcium reactor with more features, and fewer moving parts.

Best of InterZoo 2014

We have no idea what sort of black magic Triton used to make their Core7 supplements so much more concentrated than anything we’ve ever seen, but this is sure to give them an edge in the market since users will get more mileage from each bottle. Speaking of Magic, the Lupyled definitely brought the Walt Disney factor to LED lighting with their ‘painting with light’ feature that allows users to easily dial in the color and intensity of any one of the 1200 or so LEDs in their fixture.

This is just the cream of the crop of the new products announced at InterZoo 2016 which will make their way around the world in the coming months and year. This was by far one of the most exciting conferences for new aquarium products and we cannot wait until reefers put this next generation reef gear into use on their own home aquariums.

TRITON CORE7 SUPPLEMENTS

AQUABEE WAVEMAKER PUMP

SICCE SMART DC SYNCRA AND PSK PUMPS

ROSSMONT WAVER

ULTRA REEF MEDIA & MACROALGAE SCRUBBER

PACIFICSUN CALCFEEDER PRO

AQAMAI KPS NANO CONTROLLABLE PUMP

LUPYLED THEONE LED

SEACHEM TIDAL POWER FILTER

TUNZE STREAM 3 MAGLEV PUMP

Panta Rhei made it’s first public appearance at MACNA 2014 in Denver, Colorado and with it, the first public display of their forthcoming HydroWizard Small which will henceforth be referred to as the ECM42. As a German company with an impressive capability to build their own motors, Panta Rhei has designed the HydroWizard ECM42 to be one scary water mover with tons of functionality that can be controlled via a computer or aquarium controller.

The HydroWizard ECM42 will push 5,000 gallons per hour of laminar water movement while using only 22 watts! The small body size of the ECM42 betrays its enormous water moving potential but it also has smarts baked right into its controller system.

In addition to its nifty magnetic control knob, a separate controller interface will also be available for controlling a number of all three sizes of the HydroWizard. The new interface for HydriWizard pumps connects directly to a computer for programming various flow intensity and timing functions as well as serving to install firmware updates and more programs in the future. The software that Panta Rhei demonstrated at MACNA 2014 was running on a PC but hopefully we’ll see a version for Macs as well, although you’ll still be able to get a whole lot of added support from controlling with a 0-10v connection to aquarium computers.

The HydroWizard ECM42 and ECM63 is available now at UniqueCorals.com.

The Small HydroWizard still hasn’t been seen by too many aquarists but those who do are stunned to witness the incredible amount of water movement it produces and we expect that Panta Rhei will become a serious contender in the high capacity propeller water pump market.

Our Joe Cap is the guest speaker for the SCMAS meeting this Friday, if you are interested contact SCMAS and attend the talk! Joe will be speaking about "Pax Bellum chaeto reactor and other new products." including the Abyzz, UltraReef, and other exciting new things we've used and proven to be great assets to our hobby.

Raffle prizes include Triton Test Kits, and a Neptune Systems controller.

See you there!

For more info, click HERE

From Reefbuilders:

Panta Nouri Sponge & Nouri Polyp specialty foods for angels & butterflies

Nouri Polyp and Nouri Sponge are two new specialty foods from Panta Rhei which are aiming to be some of the most natural diets ever produced for marine aquarium fish. As you might infer from their names, the headline ingredients of Nouri Polyp and Nouri Sponge are specifically targeted at marine butterflyfish and angelfishes.

Better known for their hot rod water pumps the Hydro Wizards, Panta Rhei has actually been trickling out very novel products and additives for discriminating freshwater hobbyists. The Panta Nouri line of aquarium fish foods are very unique in that all the recipe consists only of ingredients that fish would encounter in nature. So there is no soy, no legumes, no cereals and of course no warm blood meat (aka mammal protein).

The recipes for all the Panta Nouri foods are finely tuned to the special needs of the specific group of fish which they are dedicated to. For example, Panta Nouri Sponge is made with sponge skeletons, mainly horn skeletons, but also carbonate skeletons, together with the nutrient containing materials.

In the case of Panta Nouri Polyp, the specialty is the content of polyp tissue which is produced out of jelly fish. So both foods are developed for reef fish, one for the sponge grazers like angel fish, moorish idol and similar species and the other for polyp feeders like butterfly fish orharlequin filefish, and species with similar feeding preferences.

Aquarium author and friend of Reef Builders Tanne Hoff is one of the first reefers to get his hands on the new Panta Nouri Sponge and Polyp foods. Since Tanne has a home reef fish population consisting of some great butterflyfish, angelfish, and even harlequin filefish, he tested the new pelleted Panta Nouri Polyp and Nouri Sponge foods on video and you can see they eat it with gusto.

Granted, these fish were all already trained to eat aquarium foods, and the real measure of Panta Nouri’s new Polyp and Sponge formulation will be in the long term success of specialized feeders over the long term. Although the sponge and jellyfish ingredients of these two foods may be exotic compared to what we’re used to, the resulting foods are not that expensive, about 6€ for the 55 gram container and 12€ for the 130 gram jar.

Panta Nouri Polyp and Nouri Sponge are available in Europe from thePanta Rhei shop and will be available from Unique Corals in the U.S. in a few weeks.

Update: now it is available here

Full article: https://reefbuilders.com/2016/05/02/panta-nouri-sponge-nouri-polyp/

From Reefbuilders:

Truncatoflabellum veroni, this unseen azoox coral makes reef aquarium debut

May 2 2016, Jake Adams –

Truncatoflabellum is a genus of Azoox corals so obscure, and rarely documented (alive), that we never had hope of seeing specimens in our aquariums. Thankfully, Cairns Marine, purveyor of so much exotic marine life from Australia has scored again by bringing this unseen coral to the surface.

The bony side of a Truncatoflabellum

You wouldn’t know it by looking at aTruncatoflabellum skeleton from the side, but this weirdly appressed corallite actually belies a bouquet of sparkling coral tentacles. The reason for this oddly squished coral body plan is that it lives partly buried in mud or silt, with its nonphotosynthetic tissue extended to catch passing prey items.

The rare Truncatoflabellum veroni from Australia. Photo Joe Caparatta/Unique Corals

Cairns Marine collected a few of these oddball Azoox corals, tentatively identified as Truncatoflabellum veroni, in an equally strange habitat. The ‘Trunk Coral’ was discovered not all that deep, in a silty, muddy bottom habitat at a depth between 15 and 20 meters (49 to 69 feet) deep. The unique adaptation of the Trunk Coral allowed to to live in a habitat where no other corals were observed, although in an extremely low density of corals per area.

Side view. Photo Joe Caparatta/Unique Corals

The rare Truncatoflabellum joins a very elite group of large, solitary NPS Corals which command almost mythical status in reef aquariums.Flabellum, Javania and Rhizotrochusare the other large polyped, solitary NPS to grace our photosynthetic reef tanks, with Hanapapa’s masterpieceso far being the only ode to this peculiar group of corals. Along similar lines, the Walking Dendro or Knuckle Coral Heteropsammia is also an unusual mud-loving LPS coral but this species is granted the power of photosynthesis by a resident symbiotic algae population.

Despite the extreme rarity of this coral species, a few specimens of Truncatoflabellum have been shipped to Unique Corals and will be available for sale for a relatively mild price of under $300. If you are an NPS or Azoox coral junky, you definitely cannot miss this opportunity to fill out your Azoox coral biotope and hopefully, this won’t be the last we see of the unusual Trunk Coral from Cairns Marine or Australia in general.

The rare Truncatoflabellum veroni from Australia. Photo Joe Caparatta/Unique Corals