Welcome to "Walt Smith International Ltd." in Fiji. We are very proud to show you our 18,500 sq.ft. facility with five separate holding systems dedicated to various aquatic needs and 1 ½ acres of adjacent land we are developing as our marine "land based" aquaculture facility.

The day begins early at WSI. When it is noon in Los Angeles it is only 8:00am in Fiji.

Here you can see a few shots of our fish system. Almost all the fish are held in individual cubicles before shipping with colored dividers between each specimento keep them calm while in our care. We have over 2,000 cubes, 14 tanks of 300 gallons and 30 tanks of 40 gallons to meet almost every need.

The system is run with individual pumps on each row with biological filtration, RK2 skimmers, ozone generation and a chiller with a 30% water change weekly (water is cheap in Fiji). 

When fish are being selected for an order they are placed in our specially designed pack table. This table has re-circulating system water and plenty of oxygen exchange to keep all the specimens comfortable during the packing process. The table is divided into six sections and if we have fish that are incompatible we are able to hold them in individual removable cubes as you see above on the right.

These are a few shots of our soft coral system. This system is over 5000 gallons with a pump for each row, RK2 skimmers, ozone generation and a chiller with a 50% water change every week and specially designed metal halide high bay lighting spaced four feet apart for maximum light coverage.

Maintenance is a daily routine at WSI. Each cube must be cleaned and siphoned daily to keep ammonia and un-dissolved organic material at an absolute minimum. We have crews dedicated to this job only.

This is what we call our Acropora and clam system or "the white system". There are 3 tanks 40 ft. long x 2 ½ ft. wide with tremendous flow and natural lighting above (clear ceiling) plus metal halides and actinic for that extra boost. In addition to the three 40 ft. tanks we also have 30 100 gallon tanks with cubes above…of course there are the usual skimmers, ozone and chillers … We spare no expense at WSI to create as perfect of an environment as possible for the precious marine life in our care!

Just two of our six giant RK2 skimmers. What an amazing job these monsters do for us!

Our typical bio tower and chiller set up that we have on each system.

All orders are selected very carefully for each customer’s requirements. Each specimen is packed in a minimum of 4 polyethylene bags with two separate layers of paper for that added protection against leaks. We over estimate the time of transit of 40 hours and pack according to that time frame to allow for any problems along the way.

Our rock system is a unique design by Walt Smith. We are able to hold up to 19 tons at one time all under the constant spray that you see here with the rock placed above the bottom of the tank on racks. This allows us to hold several weeks worth of export while it is "curing" under the spray and all the "nasties" crawl off into the bottom of the tank where we can either put them back in the sea or sell the snails, crabs, eels etc.. that wind up in the tank below the rock.

Because we are able to hold this much rock at one time you can always be sure that the rock you receive from WSI will be clean and ready for installation in your tanks …… please do not settle for inferior rock collected from the beach the same day it is shipped! Some companies make claim that all the "sea life" is better left on the rock but, all you get is a decaying mess at the other end that WILL foul your water. We are the ONLY company that holds and cures our rock, even so you should still take the necessary precautions to cure it again at you end. See our curing process on this web page.

This is how the live rock (Fiji premium) looks when it comes into our facility. It is usually full of seaweed and mud that needs to be scrubbed and rinsed. Once the weeds, mud & sponge have been cleaned from the rock we then put it under our salt water power sprayer to give it that final cleaning before placing it in our system.

When the rock is ready it is carefully selected for over 60% coralline coverage and packed into our special box that is actually one waxed box inside of another outer box lined with plastic to keep the rock moist in transit.
   

The result of all this effort is seen here in our popular "Fiji Premium" rock and Tonga branch.

We have a special system to hold anemones. We keep this system a little cooler than all the rest and have installed a carpet on the bottom of the tanks to keep the anemones from sticking to the sides of the tank which will tear their base when we need to get them out for a shipment.

All of our sea water is pumped into these holding tanks from 2 miles out where the water is crystal blue. We then process the water with filters and u.v sterilization for several days before pumping it to our second stage water storage system where we have insulated tanks and more filters and u.v. sterilization and a chiller to make sure the water will be as pure as possible and the same temperature as our systems before we do our weekly water changes.
Second stage (final) water storage showing insulation, filters and u.v. sterilizer & chiller.

Here we see a partial view of our vacant land where we have started to build our aquaculture facility. We have about 1 ½ acres on this parcel next to our facility and the building you see here is the first step of a very large project. We hope to have our "farm" in full operation by October 2000. We already have started planting many species of coral in the sea in May of 1998 with great success. Phase two will be this "land based" site where we will be able to hold, observe and learn more about these corals before we ship them to our customers. We are planning to be involved in raising many forms of sea life including corals (soft & hard), rock, clams, oysters, fish and algae.

We also invite all of the Fiji school system into our facility for field trips to share with them the wonders of the sea. Here you see Deborah giving a demonstration to one of the schools that paid us a visit. Some weeks we have as many as five schools stop by for a visit that could last a couple of hours per visit. In the other shot you can see that the "parents participation" seems to equal that of the children which proves that you are never too old to learn.

The media is also very interested in what we do and very often it serves as a check to make sure we are concerned with environmental issues. It seems that hardly a month goes by when we are not in the press in one form or another. Here you see a team from the BBC conducting an interview that was aired in europe around Jan. 2000. They seem to be especially interested in our "farmed" corals which I am holding for their cameraman.

In case you have never seen the effects of a cyclone they can be pretty scary! This one hit us in 1997 and if you have ever seen a forty-foot container doing cartwheels across your parking lot it will not be forgotten soon. These containers landed against our building and luckily did not smash through the roof …… but it was a close one!

We call this picture on the right "Top Gang" here you see Walt and Deborah with their partner Gary Thaller from St. Louis with Devi and Vejay at a Christmas party we gave for the crew in 1998.