Every year at POTO, we take the team out for enrichment and team building. We skipped last year for obvious reason but this year we were treated to an outing at the now famous 17000-gallon reef aquarium at Andrew Sandler's home.

This was a satiating rare fish galore. You name it, it was there. Troops of masked angelfish (Genicanthus personatus), true lanceolatus fairy wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lanceolatus), Hawaiian deepwater anthia (Odontanthias fuscipinnis),  Centropyge narcosis, conspicuous angel (Chaetodontoplus conspicillatus), Oreni tilefish (Hoplolatilus oreni), "ghost" bandit angel (Holacanthus arcuatus), and the one and only Picasso Desjardini sailfin tang.  I wish I could photograph them all but the whole time I was just soaking in all the eye candy. 

Andrew has been a long time hobbyist going back to the hay day of reefcentral.com. His depth of knowledge in reefing was apparent when we sat down and talked reef over salad and pizza. One of the many things we all learned that day was that the livers of regal angel and lennardi wrasse can literally melt from copper, rendering them nearly impossible to treat and quarantine.

Through many setbacks with leaks, delays, and equipment failures, what we see today is a project 6 years in the making. And when we arrived, it was around the same time the tank was ready to finally accept stony corals after over a year of running. And we were able to bring Andrew a few of our POTO Signature colonies to stretch their branches in this beast of a tank.

But will he quarantine his corals? You bet. Andrew strives to do everything right as he takes his time. His quarantine operation is equally extensive. Our acros, despite being aqua-cultured, will undergo a 6-week observation and quarantine behind the scene before being added. 

Enjoy a few more photo highlights of our little outing.