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Reef Builders

Amazing Aquariums & Reefs Lives Up To Its Name

4

Tanks Featured

19

Minutes

2018

Released

Reef Builders' Jake Adams tours Ali's shop, Amazing Aquariums & Reefs in Tustin, Orange County, ten years after helping build the original store. Rather than a typical retail floor, the shop is a gallery of long-established display tanks showcasing Ali's love of gigantea anemones, aberrant fish, and big healthy mother colonies. Ali's core message is radical simplicity — a skimmer, two-part dosing, good water, and restraint on rock, flow, fish, and coral species.

⏭ Skip to a moment

00:01:05Intro — Ali's shop in Tustin, 10-year history 00:04:0324" x 24" shallow cube with oddball blue tang 00:05:01B-Ionic two-part dosing philosophy 00:05:35Lighting mix — Hamilton Cebu halides + Reef Brite 00:05:59Staghorn / green Slimer SPS display 00:06:36Gigantea anemones with true percs 00:07:23Red Sea Max Nano walkthrough 00:08:41Dollar-sign aberrant clownfish from Solomon Islands 00:09:36Branching frogspawn mother colony 00:12:12Triple cascading display with mangrove tree 00:14:35Filtration system — skimmer, CaRx, Bubble Magus 00:15:23Common hobbyist mistakes — keep it simple

The Builds

4 Tanks Featured

Every spec, brand, and livestock mention pulled from the host's narration. Click any tank tour above to compare.

Tank 01

24" x 24" shallow cube (blue tang)

mixed reef

Style

24" x 24" shallow

A 24" x 24" shallow cube tied into the neighboring main display's sump, home to an oddball blue tang that was born deformed but grew into the tank's boss. Run minimally on a Hydra 26 with just skimmer, return, and B-Ionic two-part dosing.

Lighting

Aqua Illumination Hydra 26 ×1 $701.99in stock

Dosing

two-part

Filtration

berlin

Husbandry & Practices 4

Dose only B-Ionic two-part as the main supplement, occasional Coral Pro on top.
Plumbed into the adjacent main display's sump rather than a standalone system.
Keep it simple: just a skimmer and a return pump.
Casual supplementing — often forgets extra additives beyond the two-part.

Fish

1

oddball blue tang (born deformed, now the king of the tank)

Tank 02

Staghorn / green Slimer SPS display

SPS dominant

Style

A lush SPS display filled with fields of staghorn Acropora and green Slimer, grown large under a Hamilton Cebu halide/T5 system supplemented with Reef Brite XHO LEDs. Reflects Ali's philosophy of few species grown into big natural colonies.

Lighting

Hamilton Cebu (two metal halides + T5 actinics) ×1,

Reef Brite XHO LED $359.73in stock

Filtration

berlin

Husbandry & Practices 4

Limit each tank to six or seven coral species so colonies grow large and natural.
Let colonies reach full size instead of packing in 30-50 small frags.
Combine metal halide + T5 (Hamilton Cebu) with Reef Brite XHO for color pop.
Avoid overcrowding species that would grow into and shade each other.

Corals

2

staghorn Acropora (fields of it)green Slimer (Acropora yongei)

Tank 03

Red Sea Max Nano (gigantea & mixed reef)

mixed reef

Style

Red Sea Max Nano

Brand

A Red Sea Max Nano packed with prized long-held pieces — a pair of gigantea anemones with true percs, a wild aberrant 'dollar-sign' clownfish from the Solomon Islands, a blue derasa clam, and old Euphyllia and Palythoa colonies. Run remarkably simply with a built-in skimmer, float-valve top-off, and a single never-changed filter sock.

Filtration

filter sock

Husbandry & Practices 4

Run the all-in-one nano minimally — one filter sock in back that's never been replaced.
Freshwater top-off from a simple container with a float valve in the rear chamber.
Keep long-held mother colonies for years and frag pieces off them for sale.
Sell frags off big colonies rather than breaking down the display pieces.

Corals

7

Euphyllia (frogspawn, branching morph mother colony ~8-9 yrs)crystal green branching frogspawnJapanese pink soft coralPalythoa grandis (many old colonies)long-polyp Caulastrea / Trachyphyllia-like pieceRicordeaacan/lord (atossa mother colony)

Fish

2

dollar-sign clownfish (wild aberrant, Solomon Islands, ~3-4 yrs)true percula pair

Inverts

4

two Heteractis magnifica / gigantea anemonessmall beaded/haddoni carpet anemoneSaint Thomas rock (Ricordea)derasa clam (heavy blue coloration)

Tank 04

Triple cascading display with mangrove tree

mixed reef

Style

A three-tank cascading display — a community reef, an open fish tank, and a shallow carpet-anemone display — unified by a large in-store mangrove tree and run off a single shared sump. Lit with a Kessil, a 150W 20K Radium halide, and a Hamilton Cebu halide/T5, dosed only B-Ionic via a Bubble Magus pump, and home to a Vanuatu-form melanopus clownfish.

Lighting

Kessil ×1 $39.00in stock,

Hamilton 150W 20K Radium metal halide ×1,

Hamilton Cebu (metal halide + T5 mix) ×1

Skimmer

Dosing

two-part

Filtration

berlin

Husbandry & Practices 5

Run all three cascading tanks off one shared sump with a single protein skimmer.
Dose B-Ionic two-part via a Bubble Magus dosing pump on the shared system.
Prefer shallow, wide tanks to maximize surface area and island-style aquascaping.
Mist the mangrove tree occasionally (every couple weeks) for a growth boost.
Keep it simple — no phosphate reactor, no carbon, just good RO/DI and salt.

Corals

2

mixed community reef coralscarpet anemones (display)

Fish

1

South Pacific melanopus clownfish (orange with black spot, Vanuatu form)

Inverts

2

large carpet anemone displaymangrove tree (grown ~7 years)

Shop the build

Featured products from our catalogue

Equipment mentioned in this tour that we cover in our gear catalog. Click through for full specs, retailer comparison, and where-to-buy.

Aqua Illumination Hydra 26

Aqua Illumination

Mentioned as: Aqua Illumination Hydra 26

ESV B-Ionic Calcium Buffer System

B-Ionic Calcium Buffer System

Mentioned as: ESV; ESV dosed via Bubble Magus dosing pump

Hamilton Technology

Cebu Sun 250W Metal Halide

Mentioned as: Hamilton Cebu (two metal halides + T5 actinics); Hamilton 150W 20K Radium metal halide; Hamilton Cebu (metal halide + T5 mix)

Reef Brite XHO 50/50 LED Strip

XHO 50/50 LED Strip

Mentioned as: Reef Brite XHO LED

Kessil A350

Mentioned as: Kessil

In their own words

Notable Quotes

This store is less of a place to buy and sell corals and more of a place for you to share reef culture with people.

I don't like having tanks with more than six or seven different species — I like to let those colonies get to a decent size and give it a more natural feel.

Keep it simple — just a protein skimmer down below, decent water current inside the tank, good quality RO/DI and saltwater.

Too much live rock in a tank, too much flow from your sump to your tank — people are overkilling all this stuff.

I love the gigantea — they're my absolute favorite thing, especially with a nice pair of true percs.