Reef Builders | The Reef and Marine Aquarium Blog

I’m sitting 39,000 ft. above terra firma flying back to the West Coast from MACNA 2010 in Orlando and wanted to weigh in with a “newbie” perspective after three fun-filled days at the show. MACNA — we all hear about this big, incredible conference with just as many of crazy tales from after hours as there are cool new things out on the show flow. Its a great opportunity for hobbyists, manufacturers, vendors, and experts to get together, catch up and share their passion and enthusiasm for the hobby. The weekend is an endless stream of new faces, finally putting faces to the people you’ve been emailing and chatting with for ages, and catching up with friends you never can spend too much time around although sadly, you’ll only seen them once or twice a year if you’re luck. Read the rest of this entry »

Sera USA is celebrating 40 years and as part of their promotion for the Sera Marin line of supplements, they are giving away $10,000 worth of prizes along with free supplements to the first 100 people who shoot them an email. The Sera Components 1 to 7 give you everything from calcium to iodine and they are looking for great images from your tanks inhabitants thriving using the Sera line. Don’t have any of the Sera Components? The first 100 people that email info[@]sera-usa[.]com (please remove the brackets! Just want to protect them from those darn SPAM-bots!) will get a complete package of Sera Marin Components.

For the contest, just snap a digital picture of your colorful and healthy tank maintained with Sera products with a short description of your experience using Sera products and send it their way. You have until February 25, 2011 to submit your pics. Online voting starts March 7, 2011 and closed on March 28 with the winner being announced on March 31, 2011. Wondering what you’ll win? The grand prize is a weekend for two in Las Vegas (includes the airfare and hotel), so that’s pretty sweet! Second prize is a Sera Biotop Nano Cube (four winners), third place is a complete Sera Marin test box (10 winners), fourth place gets you a Sera PS 130 protein skimmer (10 winners) and 25 fifth-place pics will get a nice huge container of yummy Sera Marin granules. More details will be coming out after the Sera USA team return from MACNA but feel free to email them if you have any questions.

CPR Aquatic’s Aquafuge 2 PS is going to get a new look soon incorporating the Aeroforce protein skimmer design instead of the traditional Bak-Pak skimmer. The company is still working out the production and pricing details but it should be ready to start shipping in the next couple of months. The Aeroforce is a nice recirculating design with its own aspirating pump giving you a quieter skimmer while still providing a nifty hang-on refugium. We expect the pricing to be similar but maybe a slight bit more than the first gen Aquafuge2 PS.

The Sunlight Supply Maristar 2 HQI is a great looking hybrid light for the aquarium and should be available in the next month or so. Sporting a sleek, new extruded aluminum body the Maristar 2 doubled the amount of T5 lighting from the original Maristar light, added LED supplemental lighting and integrated a pair of timers to be able to give more onboard control to the fixture. More pictures and details after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

Warner Marine has inked an exclusive nationwide distribution agreement with Sunlight Supply making it easier for you to get access to everything in the Warner Marine product line. With Sunlight Supplies seven distribution hubs around the U.S., most fish stores will only be a one or two day shipping distance from a Sunlight Supply facility.

With the full catalog of Sunlight Supply along with the full Warner Marine product line, fish stores now have the convenience of one less order to make while still getting great customer service and support. Warner Marine made a point of maintaining the current cost of products to their customers making it just a matter of convenience without incurring additional costs for the stores. All Warner Marine products are currently available via Sunlight Supply.

The SEASMART program is doing great things not only in the marine aquarium industry but is having quite an impact on the people of Papua New Guinea in many positive ways. As part of the exposure SEASMART is bringing to the aquarium industry here at MACNA, a few local PNG residents have made the trek – some for the first time ever coming to the United States – to spread the word on what the program is accomplishing. Read the rest of this entry »

We had the chance to play with the new AquaIllumination Wave LED tubes here at MACNA and while these are still preproduction units, their performance is quite impressive. Each segment of this the modular tube LED measures in at just under 12 in. and features five Cree XP LEDs running at around a watt apiece. When the units go into production in the next few weeks, they will feature water resistant fitting – just in case of an accidental dip in the tank or some water splashes – and external, anodized heatsinks. Read the rest of this entry »

The Ecoxotic team is announcing the availability of the new Panorama Retro panel we brought you recently along with a very cool pill-shaped LED cannon and a retooled Panorama module in very swanky disco outfits in the retro-inspired booth and look at MACNA. More images and details after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The new Vortech MP60w pump has been captured on video, with Tim Marks from EcoTech marine explaining the ins and out at a reef aquarium show. Hit the play link above  on the video to hear more. Don’t forget to check out our previous hands on coverage of the MP60 along with the official announcement.

CPR Aquatic’s First-AID is going to be a multipurpose utility to help with acclimation, isolation and dosing in your tank. A fun play on what it does with acronym in the name (Acclimation, Isolation and Dosing), CPR took the approach of keeping it all inside the tank. Utilizing a screw-on acrylic bracket, the beta unit we saw here at MACNA slips in and allows you to perform a variety of functions. More deets and pictures after the break. Read the rest of this entry »

The Bio Aquatek Marine Bio Pearls being shown at the D-D booth here at MACNA are a little bit more than just your average “me too” biopellet. Developed in the UK, the major differentiator with the Marine Bio Pearls is the lack of foreign binders you’ll find in other similar products on the market. So what are these elusive fillers? Most likely many biopellets are utilizing paraffin, starches and other polymers as a binding agent in the production of the product. In the Marine Bio Pearls the only thing besides the base food for the nutrient-reducing bacteria is a buffer agent to help counterbalance the effects of the extra CO2 introduced to your system as a byproduct of the bacterial process.

The small spheres are pretty solid and will work quite well in any fluidized reactor and can take a bit more flow without breaking up into smaller pieces. Another nice thing about these biopellets is without the extra stuff hopefully we’ll see more efficient skimmer and less cloudiness with the pellets. All the other stuff in pellets can have an impact on the protein skimmer’s production causing havoc with foam production possibly collapsing the foam column too soon or changing the surface tension of the water causing the skimmer to overflow.

All-in-all we are glad to see companies taking a deeper look into the biopellet market and with more research, are finding better ways to make the product more efficient. D-D is hoping to have these pellets on the market in the UK in the next few months and are working on the final pricing. Expect to see these come in on the middle to higher end of the market pricing range on similar products.

The Tek Light Ultra Elite and it’s VHO T5 tubes from Sunlight Supply may be nothing short of the next wave of high performance fluorescent lighting. The Tek Light Ultra Elite is loaded with VHO T5 ballasts to run true VHO T5 tubes at very high output; these aren’t some slightly sooped up HO tubes either they are redesigned form the ground up with stronger electrodes, stronger glass and a special beefed up layer of phosphors. The Tek Light Ultra Elite will also be rocking adjustable three watt blue LEDs which are too sparse to offer real actinic supplementation, but definitely strong enough to add some beautiful blue shimmer in a twilight or moonlighting phase. We’re still waiting on Sunlight Supply to load up the Tek Light Ultra Elite with the exotic VHO T5 fluorescent t00bs but in the meantime, enjoy these snippets of what features will be included with this high intensity VHO T5 light.

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The AI Nano Sol LED is a very exciting new product from AquaIllumination, the LED performance leaders, which first brought Cree XP goodness to the aquarium world. Following on the widespread popularity of their AI Sol LED, AquaIllumination has put together a half-stack version called the Nano Sol bringing along with it some custom touch controls for each of the channels on the tricolor LED puck. The AI Nano Sol LED will have an MSRP of $365 and hopefully start shipping in the next month. Check the break for lots more angles on this beautiful evolution of our favorite high powered LED reef light.

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The AcanLight A104 is a novel new number from AcanLighting that rocks the PAR values with no fans and no noise. Acan Lighting is displaying this new model on the MACNA show floor which is loaded with three strips of LEDs with a 1:2 ratio of blue to white LEDs which will sell for about $495 a foot. All the LEDs are one watt for maximum efficiency and in great numbers for best spread. The blue strip has one LED that is dedicated for moonlighting and the entire unit is dimmable and controllable with onboard electronics. There’s no set date on availability but the first units won’t be available until late september to early October. Follow the break for more pictures of this passively cooled AcanLight A104.

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The Vortech MP60 water pump is the EcoTech Marine’s most significant product announcement since the VorTech MP10. After years of serving the mid and high range of aquarium water pumps, the Vortech MP60 delivers a mind busting 5500 GPH while holding itself up on tanks with glass up to 1.25″ thick. The diameter of the motor assembly and wetside begin at 4″ but taper down to 3″; although the flow rate is much more than a Vortech MP40, the Vortech MP60 is only slightly larger in physical dimensions. EcoTech Marine has not yet showed off this pump since the MACNA show floor is not yet open, but be sure to follow the break for full press release, as well as our first hands on of the beta Vortech MP60 that we’ve been testing out this past week.

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