Meet Jason: The Guy Who’ll Talk Your Ear Off About Corals and Wants Nothing to Do With Your Camera

Let me introduce you to Jason. And let me be clear about something right up front: the word “quiet” does not apply to this man. Not when corals are involved. Not even a little bit.

In regular life? Sure. Jason is a family man, a thinker, the kind of person who observes more than he performs. He’s not the guy at the party working the room. He’s the guy at the party who somehow knows exactly where the good snacks are and has already calculated the fastest route to the parking lot.

But you walk him into that garage. You point at a coral. You ask one question.

And then you just hold on.

Once He Starts, You’re Not Getting a Word In

I don’t mean this as a criticism — I mean it as the highest possible compliment. Jason knows corals the way some people know sports statistics or obscure film trivia, except coral knowledge is actually useful and also genuinely fascinating.

I went over originally to photograph corals for the website — we’re building out a shop and there is a lot to list. What I didn’t expect was just how much “a lot” actually meant. There is so much coral in that garage that photographing it all is its own project. A big one. And honestly, that’s kind of the whole point — there’s always something new coming in, always something growing out, always something worth seeing. Which is exactly why we want to build an audience around it. Live sales, regular content, a community of people who love this stuff as much as Jason does. It just makes sense.

He Doesn’t Always Know the Name. He Knows Everything Else.

Here’s something I want to get right about Jason, because it matters: he is not a walking taxonomy database. He will look at a coral, shrug slightly, and say something like “I’m not totally sure what this one is called — but” — and then proceed to tell you exactly what flow rate it prefers, what spectrum of light makes it pop, how fast it grows, how it responds to temperature swings, what to watch for if it starts to stress, and three different opinions on the best way to frag it.

That “but” does a lot of heavy lifting.

I find this deeply refreshing. There is a certain kind of hobbyist who leads with the name of the coral, drops it into conversation like a credential, and then can’t tell you much beyond that. Jason is the opposite. He leads with what the coral does and what it needs. The name, if it comes, comes later — or sometimes not at all, and the coral is perfectly well cared for either way.

It’s a useful reminder that real expertise isn’t about knowing the name. It’s about understanding. You can memorize every coral name in the hobby and still kill them. Jason doesn’t always know what something is called, and his tanks are thriving.

For this series, we’re going to do our best to give you names where we have them. When we don’t, we’ll describe what we’re looking at well enough that you’ll know it if you see it — and you’ll know what to do with it, which is the part that actually matters.

The Camera Situation: A Work in Progress

When I brought up video content and social media, Jason made it pretty clear he was happy for me to handle most of it. And honestly? That’s the plan. I’ll be the face of things — showing up, asking questions, pointing cameras at corals, trying to keep up. Jason has a knowledge base that would take me years to scratch the surface of and I am not even going to pretend otherwise. My job is to get that knowledge out of his head and in front of you in a way that’s actually useful.

Now — whether I can talk him into showing up on camera with me every now and then is a whole other negotiation. I have some ideas. I’m working on it. Stay tuned.

So What Is This Series?

What’s In The Tank is our way of pulling back the curtain on one of the most impressive private reef collections I’ve ever seen — ten large saltwater tanks, thousands of coral frags and mother colonies, a water filtration system that has no business being this good, and a solar-powered lighting setup that keeps it all running efficiently. Jason built this from the ground up and it shows.

We’re going to take you through it all — the corals, the care, the systems, the products that actually make a difference. The goal isn’t just to show you pretty tanks. It’s to help you understand what you’re looking at, learn what works, and hopefully find a few pieces you want to bring home to your own reef.

There’s always something new. There’s always something growing. And we’re just getting started — so stick around.