About Us

Golden State Corals was founded in 2018 with a simple goal: to grow exceptional corals and provide reef keepers with healthy, high-quality livestock that we would be proud to keep in our own systems.

What began as a passion for reef keeping has grown into a dedicated coral farming operation specializing in aquacultured corals, premium SPS, hand-picked Tridacna clams, and carefully selected reef livestock.

Today, our focus is simple: quality over quantity.

Aquacultured at Our Core

Coral farming has always been at the heart of Golden State Corals.

We maintain and grow an extensive collection of aquacultured corals, with a particular passion for Acropora and other SPS. Many of the corals we offer have been grown and propagated in our systems through multiple generations.

Aquaculture allows us to offer corals that are already adapted to life in an aquarium while reducing our reliance on newly collected wild colonies. It also gives us the opportunity to observe how a coral grows, colors, and performs over time before offering it to another reef keeper.

We're not interested in simply moving livestock through our systems. We want to know what we're selling.

Hand Picked. Grown. Conditioned.

Not everything we offer originates at Golden State Corals, but the same standards apply to everything that enters our systems.

Our clams and other select livestock are personally hand picked for color, pattern, health, and overall quality. We look for specimens that stand out—the same animals we'd be excited to add to one of our own reefs.

Livestock is then given time in our systems to settle in and establish before being offered for sale. Some specimens remain with us for weeks or even months as we evaluate their health and development.

That extra time and attention is an important part of what Golden State Corals represents.

What You See Is What You Get

When shopping online for livestock, we believe you should know what you're actually buying.

That's why a large portion of our livestock is offered as WYSIWYG — What You See Is What You Get. We photograph our livestock ourselves and work to represent its appearance as accurately and naturally as possible.

No mystery frag. No random specimen pulled from a group.

When a product is marked WYSIWYG, the animal pictured is the animal you receive.

More Than an Online Coral Store

Although Golden State Corals has evolved over the years, our connection with local reef keepers remains an important part of what we do.

In addition to shipping livestock nationwide, we offer local pickup by appointment, local delivery, aquarium installation, maintenance, and ongoing reef-system support throughout Southern California.

Whether we're growing an Acropora colony, selecting an unusual clam, maintaining a client's reef, or packing a coral for overnight shipping, the same philosophy applies:

Take care of the livestock first. Quality follows.

The Next Chapter of GSC

Golden State Corals has changed considerably since 2018, but our direction has become clearer along the way.

We're less interested in being the biggest coral retailer or carrying everything imaginable. We'd rather remain focused on what made us passionate about this business in the first place: growing exceptional corals, finding exceptional livestock, and helping other reef keepers succeed with it.

We're proud of what we've grown, and we're excited about what's still ahead.

Thank you for supporting Golden State Corals.