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Vincent Chalias
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Vincent is a coral passionate aquarist with extensive experience in the industry, travelling the world to learn about corals. His background is a master degree in Marine Aquaculture. He set up the first Indonesian Coral mariculture farms at the beginning of the century and spent over 20 years in Indonesia running them. He's been extensively diving and documenting corals all over the Indo-Pacific.

Acropora striata, a Skinny Version of the Beloved Tenuis Acro

For many years, we’ve been intrigued by an Acropora tenuis look alike, a convincing impersonator with skinny tapering branches. This is a coral we occasionally encountered from time to time, in many different places around the Indonesian archipelago but for…

Another Crazy King Bicolor Angelfish scored by Bali Aquarium!

It’s been a while since we documented a crazy looking Bicolor Angelfish and weird Angelfish are one of our favorite marine life topics. Even if Centropyge bicolor is a very common fish, Xanthic or aberrant morphs of that particular species…

Bali Aquarium Pushes Mariculture to the Next Level

20 years ago, Bali Aquarium was the first company to start commercial mariculture in Indonesia and 3 years ago, it created its own reef restoration and reef education program, called Ocean Gardener (www.oceangardener.org). Since then, they have put the tremendous…

Update on the Mysterious ‘Zebra Tang’ from Bali Aquarich

Several weeks ago we were reported on a mysterious ‘Zebra Tang’ hybrid that came out of Mr Su farm. News from the Mysterious Zebra Tang: Last weekend we returned to Bali Aquarich to check on this fish again, and we…

Micromussa amakusensis, the Original Small Polyp Micromussa

Micromussa amakusensis, was once a regular import from Indo and Tonga, and now that Indonesia has reopened for wild coral exports, we can expect to get our hands on a few of these amazing corals again. In general the ‘classic’…

Indo Gold Torch are Back and More Colorful Than Ever

Indonesian coral farmers have been waiting for a very long time to be able to ship some gold torch corals again. Classic Australian gold torch corals, or ‘glabs’ as they call them, are very nice, especially the ’24 karat gold…

The Shape of Corals is Linked to How they Feed

It’s been over 20 years since I started culturing corals in the ocean and in dedicated aquariums. I always believed that the shape of a corals was mainly determined by trying to expose as much surface to light while withstanding…

Is Acropora convexa the Next Holy Grail Acro?

It’s been a while since we wrote about Australian corals but with all this down time, we finally can find the time to write about things that inspired us in our previous journeys.During our Ultra Coral Australia trips on the…

Mysterious ‘Zebra Tang’ Created by Bali Aquarich

During our most recent monthly visit to Mr Su at the Bali Aquarich facility in North Bali, we were greeted by the cutest little juvenile tang we’ve ever seen. This single individual is a one of a kind fish, a…

The Quest to Create an Enormous School of Golden Sweepers

Aquamarine Fukushima, Japan, 2008: While doing a pre-tour before the Shanghai 7th IAC (International Aquarium Congress), we discovered a fascinating biotope aquarium, in which a school of several thousand of golden sweepers were swimming. Ten years and a tsunami later,…