MACNA 2007 : Day 3

Day three, the final day of MACNA 2007. It went by SO fast.

The lectures today were my three favorites of the entire show. To start the day off, Adam Blundell gave a talk titled "Ornamental Crustaceans". Although there was probably too much referencing of scientific papers and not enough cool pictures or hobbyist info, it really was a good lecture. He's basically a researcher in the field of breeding shrimp and trying to get skunk cleaner shrimp past the day 23 wall. He hasn't had any luck to date, but he mentioned a firm in England just did and is now selling tank raised skunk cleaner shrimp, a world first.

Next up was Dr. Frank Marini, another breader, but this time of fish. Dr. Marini was the first person to successfully breed Bangaii Cardinal fish. He shared a lot of good information on breeding fish and rearing the fry. He stressed the most important factor is food, and gave good examples of what kind of food is needed to get fish from eggs to larvae to fry to adulthood. A great talk with lots of great info and good pictures.

Both Adam and Frank made numerous mentions of a new website called Marine and Ornamental Fish Breeders. I haven't checked it out but they both seem positive about it.

The final talk I attended was given by James Fatheree simply entitled "Clams". As you may know, James just had a book published about clams and he shared a ton of info about them in his talk. If you've read the book you know he has a very casual writing style, and his speaking style is the same. Of all the lectures at MACNA, I enjoyed his the most. One thing I took away is that you can do everything right to grow a clam, lighting, position, food, everything. But sometimes the clam just wont grow because you have a "wuss clam". lol

The final event of MACNA is the raffle. There were SO MANY good items up for raffle, it was overwhelming. RO/DI units, lighting of all kinds MH, T5, and LED, calcium and kalkwater reactors, fluidized media reactors, supplements of all kinds, artwork, magazine subscriptions, gift certificates, livestock and complete setups including the tank and all the included livestock.

The grand prize was donated but 6 companies, Marine Depot, EuroReef, Salifert, Eco-Tech Marine, Ice-Cap, and Zero Edge Aquariums. They were giving away a complete system that was absolutely beatiful. Zero Edge Aquariums have to been seen in person to really comprehend just how amazing they are. The picture above was taken with my cellphone and can't do the tank justice. The winner basically was flabbergasted that she won this amazing prize. A few CTARS members won some items, but none of us claimed any of the big prizes.

And with that, MACNA was over. Like I said, the weekend went by so amazingly fast, I can hardly believe it. Next year, Atlanta!

MACNA 2007 : Day 2

Sorry for the delayed post.

Overall, I didn't like the second day of MACNA as much as I did the first. Maybe it was because I had already been through the exhibit hall too many times already? Maybe it was because all the lectures seemed to be not too hobbyist friendly or totally not what I expected them to be. Maybe it was the free beer on Friday making Saturday a blur? Well anyway...

The first lecture was given by Anthony Calfo about reef toxicology. Now I know not to eat most of the things in my tank. Not that I've ever had an overwhelming desire to do so in the first place, but I guess a warning is always good. Anthony is a good speaker and made the lecture fun.

Next, Ron Hessing gave a lecture entitled "European Perspectives on Reefkeeping". I expected the lecture to be about current trends in Europe, instead it was just pictures of building two tanks. I could have just logged onto Reef Central if I wanted that.

Roy Torres, a Special Agent with the NOAA, then gave a lecture called "Illegal Harvest for the Aquarium Trade". He covered the applicable laws ( dry ), but then went into a case study which was good, I'm glad the perps were brought to justice, but I think their sentences were kinda lenient.

After lunch I attended a photography workshop, hopefully someday I'll be able to use some of the knowledge to get a decent shot of my tank, but I doubt it :)

Ok, so one of the lectures I was really looking forward too was Dana Riddle's talk called "Coral Coloration". This particular talk wasn't hobbyist friendly at all ( other than his one slide at the end that said LEDs Rock ). He went on and on about pigments and which colors have what number pigment and who can flouresce and blah blah blah... snore.

The exceptional talk of the afternoon was by Dr Sanjay Joshi. While it was very technical, it was the technical stuff that hobbyists want, how do lights compare to each other not only when new, but as they age. He had some really interesting data, and is a great speaker.

The final lecture of the day was by Daniel Knop. He isn't a native english speaker so it was a bit rough, but his pictures made up for it ten fold. He took a tank, removed the fish, corals, and filtration and just watched and photographed as the invertibrates grew. The tunicate and sea squirt growth he had in there was amazing. He had some truely gorgeous pictures. He was using a 5:1 macro lens though, so that helps.

Like I mentioned, not much, if anything changed in the exhibit hall between Friday and Saturday, so it was really just a place to mingle and wait for the next event. At least for me.

MACNA 2007 : Day 1

Well day one of MACNA is over and I gotta say I had a great time. The speakers were excellent, the exhibit hall is great, and the reception was well done, at least until they ran out of food. But the open bar made up for that.

Three of the four lectures I went to were informative and fun. The forth was pretty doom and gloom. According to Dr. Schimek, the reefs have until about 2050 and then the ocean just won't be able to support them anymore. And major changes to the planet will take place as the ocean changes to something we've never seen before. But I digress...

The exhibit hall has loads of great vendors and exhibitors. Some of my favorite companies were there including Deltec and Eco-Tech Marine. I got to talk to the Eco-Tech marine guys for a while about the Wireless Wave Driver which should be released soon. And I got to see them in action, and they are wild. Can't wait for mine to be delivered. I didn't get to talk to Doug from Deltec because he was always mobbed by people. Connecticut's own Aquactinics didn't make a good showing to start the show off as one of their lights was wired wrong at the factory and they had it torn apart and were trying to make field repairs to it. Hopefully their display, which is combined with MarcoRocks, will be up and better tomorrow.

There were particularly good display systems set up by ORA and at the combined Eco-Tech, Euro-Reef, Marine Depot, and Zero Edge Aquarium booth. The Zero Edge tanks are absolutely gorgeous. I really can't say enough about them, just gorgeous.

There were a few vendors who were selling corals and clams, some very nice ones too. I'm not sure I'm going to be buying any though, at least until Sunday. Hopefully they will lower their prices to move the goods they don't want to bring home.

There is free loot galour. I picked up a toy clown fish for my niece. For me, so far I've gotten some fish food, a few magazines, a nice insulated bag, and various snacks and drinks.

The raffle items weren't on display today as they were supposed to be. I guess they are going to open that up tomorrow.

I'm really bad estimating the number of people in a crowd, but I'd say there was at least a thousand at the reception tonight. ( knowing how I estimate though it could be 2 or 3 thousand, lol ) Dr. Bruce Carlson talked all about the Georgia Aquarium for almost two hours. The place looks amazing, and will be the site of next years MACNA. He shared details about their Whale Shark display with its more then 6 million gallon capacity, and their Coral Reef tank which holds 120+ thousand gallons, 1500+ fish of 100+ different species.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow starting with breakfast at 7 and a full day of lectures and exhibit hall roaming.

Arrived in Pittsburgh for MACNA

I made the drive down to Pittsburgh yesterday for this years MACNA convention. The drive went well for about 5 hours, then the road construction started. All in all it took about 8 and 1/2 hours, so not too bad.

I did a little exploring last night and took a look at the exhibition hall. Hopefully they were working through the night because it didn't seem ready then. The Monroeville Mall was as short walk across the street so I went there and got some dinner and a Blizzard. It must have been the guys first one because it took him about 10 minutes to make :)

So this morning I'm going out to do some more exploring and get my registration materials. I'll blog more about the show later this evening.

AquaIllumination on it's way

I just received mail from AquaIllumination saying that the lights will be shipped out next week. WOOOHHHOOOO! I'm freakin excited!

Two Month Anniversary

Tomorrow is the two month anniversary of adding everything to the big tank. Lots of changes in those two months.

Coraline algae have turned the stark white of the base rocks into a purplish color. Nitrates crept up and up but now seem to be going down as the refugium and deep sand bed start to do their jobs of keeping nitrates down. I've had to harvest calerpa and cheatomorpha out of the refugium twice already, and it appears I'll have to do it with increasing frequency soon.

I've noticed all sorts of life in the refugium, and the tank itself. The fuge has quite a population of stometella (sp?) snails, a small crab, many small bristle worms and the copepod population is on the rise. I've seen similar life in the tank, including a few small starfish, although I can't find them anymore.

I started feeding the fish without turning the VorTech pump off and it seems they love to chase the food around the tank. Perhaps I won't need the feed mode on the new controller after all. Unfortunately, news has been released that the controller will ship late due to some problems with getting FCC approval. Hope its not too long.

Above is a picture of one of the two colonies of Ricordea I have. I bought the top polyp and it split into the two in the picture. Hopefully more splits to come.

Anxiously awaiting news about the AquaIllumination release too :)