About Flashback Fridays: Every Friday, Advanced Aquarist will repost a blog article from this week one year ago.  With all the content we publish, we want to share the timeless and interesting articles for our new readers as well as regulars who may have missed the original blog article.

First and foremost, Advanced Aquarist thanks Ricardo Pinto of www.h2oplusomething.com for sharing his blog with us.

Machado de Sousa’s system was started in 2007. Here is a brief summary of his impressive coral farm:

• A 650L (~170g) Maternity Tank where the parent colonies are housed.
• A 450L (~120g) Nursery Tank where new polyps and tiny frags are kept until they are moved to …
• Daycare Tanks (what USA hobbyist would refer to as “grow-out” tanks). Machado de Sousa uses a total of six 780L (~200g each) Daycare Tanks! (see photo to the right)
• A 100L (~25g) aquarium to temporarily house freshly glued frags
• A 200L (~50g) quarantine aquarium used for treatment and observation.
• A 2000L (~500g) sump system consisting of “live rock, DSB, mangrove, skimmers, calcium reactor, degassing calcium reactor, reactors for bio-pellets and zeolites, heaters, etc.”

I was surprised to find this coral farm is a non-commercial project. Machado de Sousa is a civil engineer by day. This is what you call passion and dedication!

Please head over to www.h2oplusomething.com’s outstanding blog post for a lot more information (including detailed equipment lists) and pictures on this amazing system.

As Richardo Pinto describes it to us: “This is a non-commercial project and it has inspired many reefers in Portugal and Spain.” Correction, my friend: It has inspired many reefers around the world!

Photos and video of the Portugal Coral Farm

The Maternity Tank

The Sump System