MACNA 2014 may be long over but thanks to the hard work by the folks over at Bulk Reef Supply, there’s still a steady weekly flow of MACNA presentation videos. The MACNA 2014 organizers worked very hard to reach outside the box with their choices of MACNA speakers from all over the country and all over the world, and we believe that the following videos will really hammer that point home.
Rufus Kimura, deep diving wonder and procurer of the rarest deepwater reef fish, gave his first ever public speaking engagement to a full house which bordered on standing room only. During his presentation Rufus talks about how he got into diving, how he became interested in diving deeper, and of course there’s lots of pretty eye candy in the form of videos and photos of his time in the Abyss.
The second part of his talk delves into the origin story of the captive bred personatus angelfish, the procurement of the original pair which spawned a large captive bred cohort of Genicanthus personatus. There’s even a video appearance from Karen Brittain where she talks about her second experience breeding the most holy reef fish in Hawaii with lots of details about the little babies’ growth and development.
Next speaker up is a doozy of a topic which Jim Walters delivered with passion, which he tried very hard to keep from turning into a full on rant on some of the inadequacies of the marine aquarium industry. If you want to know what it’s like to run a fish store, going up against bargain basement online vendors and the people who case the LFS, buy their gear online, and then turn to the LFS for help, you’ll want to give Jim’s talk a thoughtful listen.
There’s never been a better time to be in the marine aquarium industry, nor has there ever been a more challenging and dynamic time either. In an ideal world the LFS and online vendors are complimentary to the needs of the aquarium hobbyist but Jim makes many great points for why we should all value the LFS and give them much more support, and credit, for being part of the foundation of this great past time of ours.
Next up is Walt Smith, a pioneer in the culture and harvest of corals and live rock in and around Fiji. We haven’t yet seen Walt’s presentation but we’ve some others he’s done in the past, and his first hand account of how things go down in his corner of the South Pacific is always enlightening. Give it a watch and let us know what you think of Walt, Rufus and Jim’s presentation in the comments and who knows, if you have some serious questions about their talks they may just pop in to answer them for you.
