Throughout 2011, there were several things that changed the aquatics industry. Of course, there were hundreds of events that we covered in 2011, but we narrowed the list down to an even six. What were they? Click the read more link to find out.
6. Amazon’s subsidiary, Quidsi, enters the aquatics industry via Wag.com. While this might not have a huge impact at the moment, don’t be surprised when you browse the current cachet of products on Wag.com and find more reef aquatic products. Wag.com’s current customer base is primarily mom with most of their clientale coming from Quidsi’s other properties such as Diapers.com, and soap.com. Right now their merchandising team is learning everything they can about our industry and determining the best strategy in which to target us.
5. Tanked Reality TV show on Animal Planet. Tanked sure created an uproar among aquarists when they did their pilot and following 5 episodes. We all tuned in, eager and intrigued to see someone outside of other hobbyists be interested in our hobby. It was enough of us, to guarantee another season of Tanked.
4. Mass adoption of LED for aquarium tanks. We knew the onslaught of LEDs was coming, and more than any other year in 2011 LED aquarium lighting finally went mainstream, not reserved for the specialist community. This trend towards LED lighting was aided by the Marineland LED light and Ecoxotic’s smartly priced LEDs along with other higher end fixtures from Aqua Illumination, and Ecotech Marine. Aquarists are developing a distate for having to change their bulbs.
3. Massive Marineland heater recall. Keeping aquarium temperatures consistent is extremely important for having a successful saltwater aquarium. So much so that several of us own more than one heater as back up. Odds are they aren’t the Stealth Heater Pro line which was a popular heater to pick up at local fish stores. The heater was pulled from store shelves and given a “stop sale”. As expected this triggered the masses to replace with another brand of choice.
2. The Red Sea Max 500, an all in one aquarium that holds over 115 gallons of water. This new aquarium kit, is one of the first that is mass produced in quantity giving a hobbyist everything he needs out of the box. Typically, larger aquariums required complex tubing, pipework, sumps which were all bought separately. This wasn’t the case with the Max S series. While it took over a year and half to finally ship the thing, Red Sea executed something that had not worked before. Needless to say, Red Sea hit pay dirt, with beginning aquarists flocking to stores inquiring about availability.
1. Hawaii is at war with the aquatics industry. The state isn’t happy about the large exportation business related to reef fish. And as a result the state is laying the ground work for their to be a large ban on the industry collecting efforts. While we can’t say we don’t blame them with the shear vast numbers of fish being exported, limits should be imposed of what can be exported. Expect this issue to get worse before it gets better in 2012.
