Being one of the pioneers in Stateside Aquaculture, two of the most common questions we get are:
- What are aquaculture and mariculture;
- What are the differences between maricultured and aquacultured coral.
Aquaculture is the process of cultivating or raising aquatic species in a closed environment created to match the natural environment as closely as possible. Mariculture is the process of cultivating or raising aquatic species in a segregated or unnatural location within the natural environment. For coral mariculture what it truly comes down to is that maricultured species are grown or raised still in the ocean (or saline lakes), but instead of growing on the reef they are harvested from the reef and transplanted into a lagoon or lake to grow. For coral aquaculture the coral is grown in a closed facility that is not connected to the ocean and is maintained to specifications that are intended to match (or in our case exceed) those of the ocean reef.
The differences in practices and system designs are easy to explain, but the differences in the end product are not so easily explained; especially to someone new to the aquarium hobby and coral in general. Read More...