documentarytiptiptip

For this episode, we drove up to Orlando, Florida to attend Global Pet Expo. One of the largest vendors only shows in United States, many companies brought their latest prototypes to the show, demonstrating it to the distributors so that it can get released to us end users. To start the series and before we dive into the products, I went around and filmed all the tanks that were present on this show.
Enjoy!

This was one of personal favorite video of this show. I absolutely love big forces of our industry coming together in harmony to better our hobby as whole and MASNA has always supported RAP shows and to show our support for them and what they do, we have gotten together with with President of MASNA, Dr. Kevin Erickson to talk and learn all about MASNA as well as fast approaching MACNA - Marine Aquarium Conference of North America 2019 and the newly announced 2020.

Click to see find out all you need to learn/know about MACNA 2019 - Official Event and how and what MASNA does for our hobby and why should consider getting to know them and possibly supporting their cause.

Enjoy!

Little advanced warning. Even after the heavy edit, (took out 10 mins of me drooling over this fish) I couldn't contain my reef geeking under control.

With that said, this fish has been on my list to see for very long time. This fish has been part of trade embargo and still to this day, you still can't import it to U.S. Years back, my good friend, Charles Ah-Ha Ron Steinfeld and I have been trying to bring this to stateside for years without any success and I honestly thought that we would never get to see it unless we travel outside of U.S.

Fast forward few years, my friend Jared Goldenberg of Fluid Dynamics International was able to bring this when the trade embargo was lifted. To my knowledge, to this day, he was the only one that was able to bring this specie of fish to the stateside legally. My another friend, amazing breeder and former MASNA Aquarist of the year, Todd Gardner was successful in breeding this amazing fish in captive conditions.

Then.... it went quiet. Nothing really came out from it and we all sort of forgot about it.

Few years passed on again and I randomly received a call from Jake Phillips from Biota Aquariums and to my surprise, they have partnered up with Todd to make efforts to make this this amazing fish commercially available! Can you just imagine my excitement?

Sit back and enjoy my interview with Jake and get ready to get excited with me. :)




Photo credit : my talented friend Lemon Tyk.

For this episode, we drove all the way to west Kendall, Florida to visit Henry Rodriguez and his beautiful Elos 160. OCD to the boot, this reefer has made one amazing dream tank filled to the brim with life and successfully growing them (corals) out at a fast rate while pulling out some amazing colors from his corals.

Grab some popcorn, grab a seat and enjoy the show!

We often read about certain rare fish that are found in the deep depth of the ocean and we can't help but to marvel at the beauty of the fish, the mysteries of the ocean and how little we know about our oceans. Famous instance was just last year when President Obama was honored with a deepwater anthias found in Hawaii named after him. Hawaii, which is possibly one of the most dived place in the world, no one believed that there was any new species left to identify there. Do you ever wonder who dives for these amazing specimens and which people are pushing the boundaries in deep sea expeditions? Well, let me introduce you to Brian Greene. This guy needs no introduction as he is a legend in the world of collection. He along with Dr. Richard Pyle and few others is responsible for so many species being found,  identified and supplied into public museums and into our ornamental trade. During this MACNA show, Brian came with Biota Palau team to release some amazing news and I had the privilege to speak to Brian to setup this interview. Let me rephrase that. This interview was hijacked by none other then my good friend, Raj Shingadia of MRC America (who worked with Brian to create decompression chambers to successfully collect these animals) to find out about his latest expedition with Biota team in Palau. In there, they caught what is possibly the rarest fish in our trade in hopes of captive breeding and unveiled new plans for next year's expedition. What did they catch and what are their plans? Take a look inside!

For this video, we traveled to Boca Raton, Florida to visit Carlos Machin's beautiful 90 gallon reef tank.

What is so unique about his tank is that not only his tank and coral sections beautiful but his fish collection is simply outstanding and different. Wrasse man like myself, he has beautiful selection of wrasses like Rhomboid Wrasse, Katherine's Wrasse, Flame Wrasse, newly discovered Magma Wrasse, Red Margin, Pin Tail, Crescent Tail Wrasse to name few. Take a look at this beautiful tank and learn how he keeps it in such a pristine condition.

Enjoy!