Why Coral Collectors Trim Corals and Why You Should Trim Them Too. 

Have you wondered why some corals look the way they do when you buy them at your aquarium store? Some with a flat base cut, some with grinding marks on them, and other man-made alterations. You might have seen this…

Monsoon Aquatics Secures $500,000 Government Grant to Spawn Corals

Monsoon Aquatics in Australia has been awarded a stage 2 Accelerating Commercialisation grant worth $528,000 to continue its work on coral spawning. The project is supported by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science and Resources through the Entrepreneurs’ Programme,…

A Day in the Life of a Coral Farmer

Going out for a drink and meeting people who ask what you do for a living is always amusing when you tell them you farm corals. It’s not often you can delve into the inner workings, hardships, and triumphs of…

How do I know if my tank’s too clean?

Stand in your LFS and about one in ten reefers will say their tank is too clean. Compared to temperate and cold waters, the tropical waters that our corals inhabit are nutrient-poor, hence the symbiosis between photosynthetic corals and zooxanthellae,…

Four Aussie corals allowed back into UK for first time since the ban

A UK supplier has imported four coral species for the first time since the Queensland-UK import ban was imposed in 2021. Since then, all corals from The Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, have been prevented from import into Britain due to…

Two popular corals classified “extreme” in Queensland Fishery risk assessment 

Homophyllia cf. australis and Micromussa lordhowensis have been given an extreme risk rating by the Queensland Coral Fishery Ecological Risk Assessment, 2022. In ongoing reforms to the management of the fishery, a harvest strategy has now been implemented based on…

Revised Queensland Coral Exports Approved Until 2024

The Australian government has confirmed that hard coral export from the Great Barrier Reef can continue for another three years, albeit with several caveats. In a statement by the Wildlife Trade Regulation Section, a new approval for the Wildlife Trade…

First Captive Spawning of Homophyllia australis, the Australian ‘Scolie’

For the past ten years my work has been focused on successfully inducing coral spawning events in aquariums, but Homophyllia australis is a species that remained elusive to me despite four years of effort and commitment. The challenge of working…

Update to Australian Coral Export Restrictions from Queensland

Last week we reported about some what was feared would be an interruption of live coral exports, from Queensland Australia specifically. The information at the time was that the harvest and export of live corals from Queensland’s reefs would be…

Big Changes Coming to Australian Coral Exports

Australia has become one of the world’s biggest suppliers of live corals and this aquarium source became crucial to filling the gap when exports of all Indonesian corals were suspended. The availability of high quality, exotic and endemic corals from…