The 2008 IMAC conference ended on Sunday afternoon.  IMAC has always been one of the premier meetings of marine water enthusiasts anywhere.  Although not as well attended by the public in the last two years IMAC has always been attended very heavily by those that are intimately involved in the hobby.  As always the speakers were second to none and those who were in attendance were among the most cutting edge aquarists around.

It should also be noted that IMAC’s future is uncertain with Dennis Gallager stepping down from organizing the event after several years of dedication.  Thanks again Dennis for organizing a top notch event!

We have been eagerly awaiting the Interzoo show for almost 2 years. Our last booth there (in 2006) went over fantastic! We have been planning this show for the entire two years, and it’s going to be great! It will be CaribSea’s biggest trade show booth ever (over 50′ long). Filled with our upcoming products, and our current line… along with some friends; it promises to be a great show. If you happen to be in Germany in May, please plan on visiting us there! For those of you that visited us last time… yes we are avoiding hotels again on this one! We will once again be in the campground with some big american RV’s, so make sure to stop by Friday of the show and pick up your invite to our cookout if nothing else!  -Tony 

How cool is that?  Our 2008 CaribSea catalog won the Silver Addy award for the 2nd year in a row.  Special thanks to Tony and Tor for doing such an amazing job, and thanks to Jud for the input and Sabrina for the proofing.  The photos (Tony) were original and spectacular.  It is so fun to see your ideas come together in print.  Congratulations to everybody!  I guess I better order some more…

 -Betsey

So, for the many of you that don’t know me directly. Music is a huge part of life. I worked about 10 years on the road as a crew guy in the Midwest music scene a few years back (quite a few)… So when I visit a customer, or spend some time with them; time permitting I take them to a show instead of dinner. It’s more memorable, and it’s fun. So im looking forward to taking Chris and the gang of Tideline Aquatics to see Wilco this Friday. After a couple weeks on the road, and coming home sick and cooped up in my room (my family locked me in there for fear of the flu I had picked up) I was really looking forward to seeing Wilco with Chris & crew (and my kids, they are huge fans too)… well it got postponed! Not a day or two, but a half a year! Ouch. I posted a quick question as to why in pitchforkmedia.com, and they were quick to reply that it because Wilco will be playing Saturday Night Live. So it’s all cool with me. Plus Ticketmaster offered a refund on the sold out concert, and to my suprise a few people backed out… which allowed me to pick up 6 more tickets!!!! Anyone wanna go see Wilco????? I’m happy again! -Tony 

We returned from the Global Pet Expo this past Monday (I returned with the flu!). We saw some interesting things most notably a beautiful new angelfish book from Two Little Fishies, and a neat needlewheel impeller for the Danner Mag Drive Series. Jud and I also did some nice tide-pooling in the San Diego area, I have some great video I will try to put up later this week… Including some of a curious Two-Spot Octopus that actually came out of the water to investigate our video camera.

Well, I have not yet had the opportunity to write a full overview of this new system. Our Octopus arrived yesterday for one of the smaller tanks in this setup (a 29). He seems to be doing well so far. I did want to add some photos of the corals and how they look at this point. So far they have been in this new setup for about 2 weeks. They are already putting on growth, and adapting to their new environment (changes in color and growth patterns). So before things went on to long I wanted to get some photos of some of the corals up on here so we can closely monitor their growth. The first set of corals I am putting up had some damage to the tips due to being placed directly in front of a Tunze Wavebox (there are three of them on this tank). The coral has now adapted to the higher energy, but the branches as you can see will not recover that were damaged (they are in the back right on the first of these two coral specimens… the damaged area is a yellow brown). This is a coral that ORA sells as Miami Orchid Staghorn Acropora. Here is the group of Pocilopora damicornis from ORA.

Here it is the 3rd of January and I had not yet posted the initial pictures of the 29 gallon plant tank. The set up has changed a bit but is basically functioning the same as initially intended. The Fluval 200 was not the filter for this tank, it was actually a 400 series and was way too large. Filter / circulation is being provided by a Whisper 20-40. CO2 has not been very productive. This is the fault of the room getting down to high 50’s at night due to lots of windows I think for the time being a pressurized CO2 system will be necessary.

Anyhow, here are a couple photos that show the “hardscape” with a few inches of water (notice how clear the water is). The next photo is directly after planting on the 20th of December, (again notice the tank is not super cloudy- with a little care not to disturb the substrate cloudiness does not have to be an issue {I only mention this because it is one of the most persistent product support calls I get - usually because the substrate gets very disturbed initially})

I intend to write an in-depth overview of the new system in the next several days. As you know the system is up and running, and we have been adding animals. Our dear friends at ORA were kind captively propagated fish and corals from thier facility. They are all doing fantastic, we have not had any losses at all; which is amazing considering the system was just set up. I have attached a couple photos of the high energy reef side. If you look at the water level in the photos, you can get a little idea of how much water is displaced using the Tunze Wave Box system. Well, here are the details, more info to follow. Until then, happy aquarium keeping, and happy new year!

-Tony

It has been awhile since I have set up a plant tank so I hatched a plan a while ago to set up a 29 gal aquarium using Eco-Complete Planted substrate and a moderately low tech set up that would include a canister filter and Red Sea’s Turbo CO2 bio system.  As far as the substrate- this is the best plant substrate we sell and the most effective.  It  is easy to use and will help supply the plants with minerals indefinitely.  The canister is a fluval 200 series and is just to help with bio load and circulation.  I knew I wanted CO2 but didn’t want to set up a really expensive system, (the idea is to have an effective system that others could replicate that does not cost a lot of $), so after talking to Dave Szpakowski (thanks for the CO2 system Dave!) at Red Sea and learning about how effective their Bio System is I decided to give it a try.  As far as other equipment: T5 lights in a Current fixture (96 watts total with two Daylight and two 6700 K “plant” daylight bulbs) a lot of light but this is the fixture I had available to use and if it is too much half the light can always be used as there are two independent switches on the fixture.

So that’s the set up.  Simple enough.  I’m getting really excited for Thursday as the plants are coming that day.  A special thanks to Gary Opperud at GO Aquatics in Minneapolis MN for allowing me to tack onto his plant order for the special items I wanted.  I hope to start with pictures tomorrow (Wednesday the 19th) when I begin the set up process. 

Jud

Wow! The tanks at Tony’s are really looking great.  Can’t wait to see those rocks.  Hope to have some freshwater setups beginning by Thursday the 20th.  The plan at this point is to follow the beginning and maturation of a lower tech set of plant tanks using Eco-Complete planted and the new Eco-Complete planted red.  I’ll have a complete equiptment run down and start of the set ups in the next couple of days.  Can’t wait to see those pictures of the rock Tony.

Jud