Reef Aquaria makes waves at Smithsonian

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. Practice. Practice. How do you get to the Smithsonian? Ask Jeff Turner.

The 47-year-old president of the Coconut Creek-based Reef Aquaria Design, who has been practicing his craft since age 7, created a 2,000-gallon coral reef aquarium with at least 50 different species of fish and 100 species of coral for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

”It’s a beautiful tank,” said Mike Smith, senior vice president of Design and Production Inc., a Virginia-based museum exhibit construction company that hired Reef Aquaria Design to design the coral reef tank for the $49 million Sant Ocean Hall exhibit at the museum, which opened in late 2008. “If we ever had to [build an aquarium again], we would use them in a heartbeat.”

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