During that 6 year run Mark and Geret worked painstakingly to obtain permits to Mariculture live rock in the Sea of Cortez.
Geret had built the facility from the ground up and trained a full staff of divers and collectors.
Gareth spearheaded our third overseas facility, which the team built from the ground up. Gareth trained the staff in diving, coral collection, animal husbandry and proper live animal shipping and export.
In 1999 the team had decided to expand their product base by opening a collection facility in Kaneohe, Hawaii.
In 2001 we had the opportunity to build and operate a collection facility in the Kingdom of Tonga (South Pacific).
In 2006, the company started to research and re-visit the possibility of farming Live Rock in the ocean.
During that 6 year run Mark and Geret worked painstakingly to obtain permits to Mariculture live rock in the Sea of Cortez. After years of dealing with multiple partners, government corruption, losing substantial amounts of money and multiple life threatening situations, they decided to put their dream of farming the ocean on hold. The team had minimized their efforts in Mexico, but still exported product from their Mexican partners all the way up to 2011.
In 1999 the team had decided to expand their product base by opening a collection facility in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Partner Geret spearheaded this new collection station, while his partner Mark managed the San Diego, California distribution facility. In the beginning, Mark was still running collecting trips and managing Mexico, while receiving and distributing the first Hawaiian shipments Geret had sent.
Geret had built the facility from the ground up and trained a full staff of divers and collectors. He mentored and taught all the local Hawaiian staff about animal husbandry, sustainable collection and basic coral reef farming for future generations. For 8 years we shipped sustainable hand caught marine life from the State of Hawaii. Some of our contributions where; fabricating artificial reefs to promote stronger invertebrate populations and have collectors farm the reef, rather than destroy it while targeting particular species. Techniques such as; hand collecting feather dusters from Coral heads, and not the standard practice of busting coral with crow bars. He also set up one of the first closed system soft coral farms. We farmed, shipped and sold the very first soft corals ever in the State of Hawaii.
In 2001 we had the opportunity to build and operate a collection facility in the Kingdom of Tonga (South Pacific). Mark looked amongst his network of friends and resources to find the right person for a challenging new position. The team brought on an experienced go getter, named Gareth Scott from Wales, UK.
Gareth spearheaded our third overseas facility, which the team built from the ground up. Gareth trained the staff in diving, coral collection, animal husbandry and proper live animal shipping and export. Gareth operated the facility for almost 2 years, then came back to help run the Wholesale distribution facility in Southern California. Through his hard work and dying loyalty to the team, Gareth made partner in 2003.
In 2006, the company started to research and re-visit the possibility of farming Live Rock in the ocean. The team started working with the Hawaiian Department of Natural Land Resources for potential Mariculture sites to lease from the State of Hawaii. After getting the okay from the DLNR in Hawaii and locking down a 110 acre ocean site, we started to work on the environmental impact study for the farm. At that point, Geret and team started to work on developing new techniques to make artificial Live Rock from natural material. Material made from the same building blocks as the coral reef, but without damaging the fragile reef environment. It is from these early R&D stages that Real Reef was born. After months of researching the cost of permitting, building and operating a farm of this size, we realized it would not be profitable. It was this conclusion that put our dream of farming live rock once again on hold. Real Reef would have to wait another 3 years before resurfacing again on the team’s radar. In 2008 we had closed our facility in Hawaii and Geret had come back home to oversee the aquaculture division and spear head the new FHI commercial coral farm. After long stints overseas, the partnership was again under one roof. The FHI coral farm was a test model to see if commercial coral farming could be a viable business. During the 4 years of running the test model, we propagated and sold hundreds of thousands of farmed corals. The idea of a wild live rock alternative was becoming more and more possible, as we became more of a farm than a marine coral/fish importer. The dream of having a captive reef aquarium with 100% eco-reef friendly farmed products seemed more possible every working day. Manufacturing and raising farmed fish, coral and live rock was new a realistic possibility within our grasp.
