MACNA report

Got home from another great MACNA last night.

MACNA to me is more about seeing people, talking with them, and picking their brains. I have come to realize I have so much to learn from the leaders of our hobby.

I attended about 12 different speakers throughout the weekend, and picked up something from each of them.

One good piece of advice, if you run DC pumps, you should run it through a surge protection device. Any power surges in your home can fry their circuit boards.

LARS, new hobby acronym. It stands for Lazy *** Reefer Syndrome. It is what happens when you get complacent, and stop your diligent testing and maintenance, and then wonder when your tank has a problem.

Also listened to an interesting talk on reef biodiversity that is good enough for its own thread.

But back to the people. MACNA brings out the brightest and best people in our hobby and industry. Thursday afternoon, I met up with Ramon Villaverde from the Columbus Zoo. This guy actually raised full sized angelfish in a pretzel jar! I kept buying him beers, and he kept talking filling my mind with information.

I was able to spend a couple of hours speaking with Tony Vargas and Kevin Kohen, who are always so accommodating to everyone who wants to talk.

One of the highlights was Saturday night after the banquet, I made it to the Reefs.com after hours party. I found myself in a bedroom watching Brian Greene show deep water collecting videos. The people I was sitting with included Richard Ross, Sanjay, Joe Yauillio, Todd Gardener, Lemon Tyk, Matt Wandell, Loius Rocha, Josh Saul, and Noel Hinson.

Now you may not recognize many of these names, but this group includes the top 1% of the top 1% of people in our industry, and it was an honor to rub shoulders with them for awhile. I was a fly on the wall just soaking it all in.

The trade show floor was kind of blah for me this year. There was not many new products that interested me, and all the corals look the same after awhile. I will say, it seems like prices are really coming down on corals as more and more people are starting to become fragging businesses. Example is I saw Jack o Lantern lepto frags for as cheap as $10. I did see some cool fish like Gem Tangs, Clarion angels, and some black tangs. Lots of gimmicks out there that are not for real reef keepers.

On a personal note, I talked with Koji Wada from Blue Harbor in Japan about importing some rare fish, so I am pretty excited about that personally.

 

I bet being included in a group like that was surreal. I am glad you got to experience that.

 

Yeah the price of that has been going down for awhile since its such a fast grower. But still a cool looking coral

Thats really cool. Did they have the seaweed dragons there?

 

That sounds like an amazing experience! Im happy to talk to knowledged people on here, so im sure you couldve sat and picked brains forever even with your experience

 

Craig, did the CAS divers describe the decompression method(s) they use when bringing the fish up? If they did, can you share? I would have liked to had been a fly on the wall in that bedroom!

 

I wish, but they are pretty delicate for a show

 

Very true they look amazing. I hope to see one in person one day.

 

There are three main methods they use.

The one that is far and away the most common is needeling. They basically deflate their swim bladder once or twice on the way up. Been around for a very long time and is used 95% of the time.

Second is they will raise them up and tie them off slowly over a period of two days. Not very common.

Third is they are developing decompression chambers that they put the fish in, and then can lower the pressures over a couple of days, while pumping through fresh water and food. This is mainly done for the higher dollar fish.

 

The MN zoo has a really nice display of them in Discovery Cove. Pretty nice zoo and about 3 hours or so from DM

 

Oh wow i will definitely have to go up there thanks for the info

 

Thanks Craig for the info. I knew about the needling but was hoping they were finished using that method. Was hoping the decompression chambers were further along but guess not...darn:9( Any new equipment that you saw that piqued your interest?

 

There was nothing on the floor really. Same stuff basically, led lights, return pumps, frags, fish food.

 

If/when you have time Craig, would you share about the biodiversity? Also, importing the fish.....