About

Who we are

Where it started...

A marine fish commonly named as a “Blue Tang” was the inspiration behind this flourishing Gloucestershire based UK business. Ross was so fascinated by the Indo-Pacific surgeonfish after keeping a tank at home for 15 years that he decided to set up an aquatic business in Quedgeley in 2010, calling it BLUETANGMARINE.

Ross, who has a passion for all things marine, is still trading from the same premises but now operates bluetang® as wholesale only, and specialises in sustainable coral and the additives that keep it alive”.

The Blue Tang is still a big part of his life. “He’s 13 now and enormous,” said Ross. “He’s had to have several new tanks as he grew, in order to accommodate him properly.”

The fish is very distinctive with a royal blue circular body which is flat like a pancake, a pointed snout-like nose and a yellow tail. Dory in the film ‘Finding Nemo’ is a regal blue tang.

Making Changes

For a Sustainable Future...

When Ross started selling coral, he imported it from various places in Australia, mostly sourced from the Great Barrier Reef. Corals are live marine invertebrates which are popular with saltwater fishkeeping hobbyists. But after a while Ross became concerned that the coral he was buying was being taken from the wild. He also stated that in recent years the Great Barrier Reef has suffered mass bleaching events, so every effort needs to be taken to help the reef recover.

“It wasn’t very Eco-friendly,” he said. “I was unhappy that I was depleting natural resources. So I did some research and decided to buy sustainable coral only from an Australian coral farm, and also propagate the coral right here in the UK”.

Now Ross runs an acropora-dominated coral farm and keeps the live coral in huge specialist tanks in order to supply his numerous customers. The relationship with his Australian supplier also led to him importing the product range ‘Coral Essentials’, that was developed in Australia on the coral farm he buys a lot of his stock from. He is now the European distributor for Coral Essentials, supplying aquatic shops all over the UK and in Europe including Spain, Portugal and Malta. As his business relationship with his suppliers expands, the American distributor for Coral Essentials – Blue Life USA, was looking for a UK wholesaler for their own product range that happens to complement the Coral Essentials range well. So, in 2018 Ross took the opportunity to distribute this brand too.

While the business is going from strength to strength and Ross is happy he is helping provide a sustainable future that is not depleting the ecosystem, the Blue Tang fish that started it all is also doing well – and looks as if he will continue to inspire Ross for a good few years to come.