Grand Prize: Ecoxotic Panorama LED Module

Second Place: One $75 Gift Card to ReefExotic.net

Third Place: One $50 Gift Card to ReefExotic.net

Fourth: One $25 Gift Card to ReefExotic.net

Fifth Place: One $25 Gift Card to ReefExotic.net

There are multiple ways to enter into the contest. Enter via one or all of the options below to improve your chances.
How to enter:

1. Register on our site by clicking HERE, if you are already registered, please indicate so by commenting below
2. Leave a comment on this contest article
3. Join our Facebook Page, if you are already a fan on our Facebook Page, please indicate that in a comment below and it will be counted
4. Follow us on Twitter and retweet our Original Contest Tweet
5. Subscribe to the AquaNerd Newsletter (located at the bottom of our Contact Page)
6. Subscribe to the AquaNerd RSS Feed
   
7. Lastly, recommend this contest to your friends…when your friends enter the contest via commenting on this article, tell them to mention your name (the name you used to comment with) and you’ll each get an entry into the contest.

The contests officially starts now and will end Sunday, August 15th at midnight. We will announce the winners the following day. Once the winners are announced, they will need to contact us to provide shipping information.

This contest will be open only to legal US residents, 18 years or older. We reserve the right to disqualify any contestant or terminate the contest at any time and for any reason.

After what seems like forever (about 8 months to narrow it down), Frank and the Blue Zoo TV crew are back at it. This time, Blue Zoo TV takes us to a high school where they are teaching kids about aquariums and different aquatic life. These sorts of programs are a great way to get kids involved in a hobby or extracurricular activity. Having to take care of living animals teaches your child all about responsibility and gets them involved with different aspects of life. Additionally, kids can learn while they have fun. Aquariums involve a great deal of chemistry and biology, and relating something fun like aquariums to these two topics can help your child excel in them.

The New AquaNerd Logo

Check it out, we’ve got a logo! Thanks to Dustin from my local reef aquarium club for creating this great logo. I saw it and immediately fell in love. We hope to use this logo (and various incarnations of it) as a watermark on photographs, on the top of our website, and for various other branding needs. Tell us what you think about it

How is the AquaNerd Forum new? We did have an AquaNerd forum in the past, but it wasn’t quite what we wanted. It worked well, but it wasn’t part of this site. It was it’s own separate entity and I wanted everything to be located on one website. So, the new forum was created and we’re hoping to take full advantage of its capabilities. Our new forum can be found by clicking the Forums tab at the top of this page. Be sure to stop in and let us know about your aquarium, share a tank build, ask a question, or show off pictures of your favorite fish or coral.

Panorama LED Module

The AquaNerd Giveaway officially ends tomorrow night at midnight. Be sure to get your entries in by tonight so they can be counted over the weekend.  The winners (which we will have multiples), will be announced Sunday evening. They will then be contacted for shipping addresses so we can mail out the prizes. Below is a list of all of the great prizes as well as a list of ways to enter the contest.

Ecoxotic Stunner LED Closeup

Here’s a list of all our great items:

-Ecoxotic Panorama Module

-Ecoxotic Stunner Strip LED Strips (Set of 4, given out as a single prize)

-Gift Cards to ReefExotic.net (each card given out individually):

• Two $75 gift cards

• Two $50 gift cards

• Three $25 gift cards

How to enter:

1. Register on our site by clicking HERE
2. Leave a comment on the original AquaNerd Giveaway contest article
3. Join our Facebook PageFacebook Page…if you are already a fan on our Facebook Page, please indicate that in a comment below and it will be counted
4. Follow us on Twitter and retweet our Original Contest Tweet
5. Recommend this contest to your friends…when your friends enter the contest via commenting on this article, tell them to mention your name (the name you used to comment with) and you’ll each get an entry into the contest.

MARSH Frag Swap Acropora Coral

Here’s an update from the MARSH Frag Swap and Picnic that happened over the weekend. About 140 people registered for the event, with a much smaller number actually attending. Despite this, there were a lot of good looking frags and tons of used equipment. The weather was perfect and the food was great. Below is a gallery of a ton of images from the event.

Frag Tank with Sublaze

Wow, I’ve had such a busy weekend. I ordered a bunch of stuff from Premium Aquatics last week and they finally arrived on Friday. So, I cracked those boxes open and assembled my new Sunlight Supply Sunblaze 48 T5HO light fixture. This is the light that will go over the Frag Tank I’m currently in the middle of building. In addition to the new light, several other items came in, including the new Hydor Koralia Evolution pump. It’s not for me unfortunately, as several of my local hobbyist went in on a group buy with me, but I was allowed to tinker with the pump and see what all of the new features are (more on this later!). To wrap the weekend up, I attended the MARSH Frag Swap/Picnic and hung the new light over the frag tank. We’ll have plenty more information on all of these things, but the weekend has me to exhausted to go into too much detail at the moment. We’ll update you throughout the week.

Hydor Korala Evolution

MARSHReef Logo

Last October, the Marine Aquarium and Reef Society of Houston (aka MARSH or MARSHReef) held a very nice frag swap and picnic combination, and now they are at it again. Though many frag swaps have been held in the past, this is only the second in which the club will combine outdoor activities on a hopefully gorgeous day with trading and selling hobbyist cultured frags and even a few pieces of equipment. The event happens tomorrow, April 25th, from noon to 3 pm. There will be a ton of food and drinks for the 120+ registered attendees and there should be frags galore. My new frag tank isn’t coral-ready, but I’ll be scoping out the goodies for drygoods or at least a few good photo ops.

For details on last year’s Frag Swap Picnic, as well as a ton of pictures, please visit: MARSHreef Frag Swap and Picnic.

ZEOvit Dream Tank of the Quarter

Have you ever found an interesting aquarium build on one of the many forums and decided to follow along only to have the entire experience ruined by a bad aquascape job? Well, the new ZEOvit Dream Tank of the Quarter is certainly not one of those aquariums. It has an amazing, simplistic live rock arrangement that really shows off the corals. It is basically two islands of flat, shelf live rock attached together. The rock was originally purchased as dead rock…which is a great way to prevent various algae and pests from getting into your system. Oh yeah, the corals are nice too. Below are a couple more images of the aquascaping, including a picture of the aquascape prior to any corals screwing up the view.

Unique Aquascaping

ZEOvit Dream Tank of the Quarter

Gorgeous Acro colony in large display reef aquarium

I have noticed a growing trend in the saltwater aquarium hobby over the last few years, and especially in the last few months. There is an increasing number of hobbyists turned aquarium businessmen. They get into this hobby much like any other person, as a new pastime for them to try their hand at. They make the same progressions many of us do and eventually come to the realization that “Hey, I can make some money doing this!”, and begin growing frags to sell on local forums. The natural progression from this point is to actually start ordering livestock and equipment directly from the manufacturer or a distributor. The rest is history after this point.

This is certainly a growing behavior in the aquarium world. In my local reef club, at least 5 hobbyists have gone this route within the last 6 months, with more on the way I’m sure. For the hobby, I think this is a pretty good thing. These business-minded aquarists will more than likely order aquacultured livestock. They are smaller and do a small volume of business, and are more likely to cater to their fellow hobbyists…which are constantly moving toward the aquacultured side of things.

Some potential drawbacks include undercutting prices in order to get business, which is not good for larger companies which many do business with. Additionally, the hobby-based businessman may not have the skills or equipment necessary to properly care for the livestock they are importing. Larger companies have been doing this sort of thing for years and have developed many techniques to care for difficult animals.

I’m not advocating selecting one type of retailer over another, just discussing a new trend I’ve noticed intensifying.