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Bali Aquariums Mariculture


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Earlier this month I had the immense pleasure and fortune to visit and tour the export facility of Bali Aquariums while I was in Bali on vacation. I was given a persona tour of the facility with the manager, Vincent, who had a masters degree in marine biology and had over 20 years of experience in the industry.

 

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For an export facility in a poorer country, I was impressed by the cleanliness and exceptional care of the animals in their possession. Though Bali Aquariums may be best known for their excellent maricultured corals, they also appear to export a large volume of fish as well. The fish are probably taken better care of in this export facility than many import facilities in the states. All the fish are quarantined upon arrival, acclimated with water that has been adjusted to match the pH of the water they arrived in, and prophylactically treat the fish with Prazipro, formalin, and copper medications. If any fish arrive injured, they are treated with methylene blue and antibiotics and kept in a separate holding area. The facility the fish are kept in is kept clean at food safe conditions with UV sterilizers and bleach buckets to walk through coming in and out of the facility.

 

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The fish are fed fish eggs and the tangs are fed seaweed harvested fresh from the ocean. They do not feed the fish several days before export to prevent them from spoiling their water in the long trip overseas. The fish are not separated by species, but intermixed to encourage more shy fish to eat prepared foods.

 

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I was not fortunate enough to have time to visit a coral farm, but they have several coral farms scattered around the island. Indonesia has strict rules concerning coral collection, farming, and export. For every mother colony of acropora, only 10 frags are allowed to be cut from it per year and they must heal on frag plugs for 4-6 months before collection. Euphyllia brood stock can create 4 frags and they must heal for 8-12 months. LPS corals such as lobophyllias, favias, and blastomusas, can only create 2 frags per mother colony and they must heal for 2 years in the ocean before collection and export.

 

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Bali Aquariums has a great business model to help sustain the reef environment it depends on and we all love. It has an agreement with the Indonesian government to replant 30% of the coral they grow to help replant damaged reefs. In his 20+ years in Indonesia, Vincent has noticed the rapid decline in reefs due to the ravaging effects of global warming. Bali was hit especially hard during the El Niño of 2016. Bali Aquariums suffered significant coral losses during that event, even experiencing complete losses of farms on the northern side of the island. Luckily for Indonesia, the coral reefs are so diverse the reefs have been able to survive and begin recovery.

 

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Bali Aquariums will continue to produce some of the most amazing maricultured corals on the market and are even working with the government to eventually farm and export the highly coveted teardrop clam. Currently the Indonesian government allows only 3rd generation clams and beyond to be exported, so we likely won't be seeing any cultured teardrops any time soon.

 

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That's incredible. Once in a lifetime. What are the upside down cups in the second to last picture?

We went on a conch farm tour while in Turks. It was pretty neat to see how maricultured conch can be grown faster and larger due to less competition for food and environment.


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That's incredible. Once in a lifetime. What are the upside down cups in the second to last picture?

We went on a conch farm tour while in Turks. It was pretty neat to see how maricultured conch can be grown faster and larger due to less competition for food and environment.


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The cups had fish in them. Probably fish prone to jumping.
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Could be, although I've seen the same thing in wholesaler warehouses with fish or shrimp that jump or hide really well.

I'll default to the guy that's been to more wholesalers and distributors than I can even name... [emoji4]
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Awesome pics.  Wierd observation here....Looking at that last pic, the panoramic, I immediately in my imagination could "smell" what I would guess it smells like in that room.  

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3 minutes ago, Bpb said:

Awesome pics.  Wierd observation here....Looking at that last pic, the panoramic, I immediately in my imagination could "smell" what I would guess it smells like in that room.  

Haha, you know it really didn't smell all that bad. Not like an old skimmer cup or anything like that. Honestly I can't even remember if it smelled like anything in particular.

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