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!