Exclusive Editions - In 2012 Reeffarmers is working on a new line or class of
captive grown corals for distribution from our farm. The market has changed over the years
and more coral importers are now working directly with the exporters and collectors. This has
expanded and improved the exotic coral collection market and there are some absolutely
incredible out of this world corals now being located and exported. Traditionally these corals
have been exported to Europe and Asia where aquariums and reefs are significantly more popular.
Only rarely have they been imported into the US. We are now working directly with one
importer located in the US who has contacts collecting these super exotic corals. And we intend
to distribute a few of these corals through our web site as Exclusive Editions. What that means
for a newly imported coral is that typically only one colony was imported into the US and only a
couple of farmers are producing harvests of the coral and there probably will not be another
colony imported. We will also consider one of a kind corals that were discovered growing in
captive US reefs as unknown hitchhikers for Exclusive Edition (EE) status. These will be
the rarest of the rare corals.
Jim Stime and his Entertaining Reef Reality Television Videos !
Eddie Hansen visits the Reeffarmers booth at the 2008 BA-CFM event !
Reeffarmers - This web site is the main distribution site for captive farmed
corals from the farming business Reeffarmers (owned and operated by Steve Tyree).
Steve has been farming and distributing captive stony corals since 1993. Back then, the
captive maintainance of reef building stony corals was still considered impossible by many.
Today there are literally thousands of reef aquarist around the world that are not only
maintaining these corals, but they are successfully farming them. Over the years Steve has
managed to acquire a large collection of rare and exotic corals. To this day Steve continues
to search the U.S. for captive corals that he considers rare and exotic. Reeffarmers main
product lines include: Limited Editions, Farmed Sponge Packs and Farmed Corals. All of our
product lines, except the sponge packs, are currently distributed through the Buy It Now
web page. We still honor if possible previous coral reservations made on our old reservation
system. We never collected any deposits or down payments for any of the previous reservations.
Limited Editions - These corals form the main business within Reeffarmers.
Limited Edition (LE) corals are rare and exotic corals that Steve has collected over the
years and continues to collect to this very day. In the past demand for these corals was
very strong. Strong demand can actually cause problems for farmers. Over harvesting was
a consistant problem with early exotic coral farming enterprises. To better match distribution
(harvesting rates) with customer demand, Reeffarmers had implemented a harvesting reservation
system. The rate of harvest was based on the growth rate of the farmed coral. We have however
decided in July of 2010 to discontinue the reservation process for new corals. This is
primarly a recognition of the current state of the US economy and its future short term
prospects. In these economic conditions, it is very difficult to have reservations that are
a few years into the future become realized as valid orders. This is because many people are
experiencing work and resident displacements and changes. We will keep records of the old
reservations on the corals LE web page. We will also continue to create LE web pages for
new LE corals. The only change is that we wont take reservations. Right now we release each
First Edition LE as a Buy It Now on the page at the top of our menu. We also intend to sell
additional captive grown fragments of the LE corals through our Buy It Now page. Since we no
longer have to setup reservations records for new corals, we will be able to release new LE
corals one at a time whenever they are ready. Please note - we are not trademarking the use
of the term 'Limited Edition' with respect to harvested coral fragments. Reeffarmers was the
first to use the term with respect to corals and we believe it should now be considered a
common usage term within the captive coral industry.
Farmed Sponge - Reeffarmers utilizes natural filtration systems based on Steve Tyree's
Zonal Filtration Methodologies. We currently do not have any protein skimmers on any of our 4
farming reef systems. These methods primarily rely on crytpic sponges, but can also utilize
sea squirts and bi-valves. Steve Tyree harvests excess cryptic organisms growth and
distributes these organisms via Reeffarmers on the Farmed Sponge page.
