Official MACNA XX And Atlanta Review, Part 3

Day 2

The conference was not scheduled to begin until 12:00pm, so I thought I would visit downtown Atlanta for a little shopping. On my way back, just before the conference began, I slipped on some steps and ended up severely spraining my ankle and stretching my tendons.

The pain was unbearable and I could not believe that this happened before the conference even started. I could not walk back to the hotel so I took a cab. As I pulled up I bumped right into UFC Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell. He was in his sweat suit jumping all around getting ready to record his weight. I was so excited that I forgot about the pain in my foot. I started jumping around with him and scored some pictures. You can see my left foot has a cold pack wrapped around my leg.

I had my leg checked out by the medical staff on site. They all recommended that I go to the hospital. Since I could walk on my leg with mild discomfort, I passed. As they say in Hollywood….”The show must go on”

So I limped all the way to the Trade Show and visited over 100 exhibiters. There was so many cool gadgets, skimmers, lighting, etc, etc. I’ll just let some pics do the talking.

The new vortech pump. Nice Waves.

To prove how cold this chiller an operate, they were serving ice cold lemonade cooled by the chiller.

The great Anthony Calfo.  He provided every attendee at the conference a free issue of his C the Journal magazine. Plus he has another issue where he visits Greece. Since I’m Greek, Anthony could not let me pay for it. What a nice guy.

This is the owner of a new phyto company. Apparently he has a product in development that is going to revolutionize the phyto industry.

Marco Rock

Owner of CPR Bak Pak

Here’s a pic of Steven pro with the Red Sea Booth. He now works for them.

Here is Rod. The owner of Rod’s food. His food is now being distributed to Europe and Asia. Go Rod Go!

A zero edge tank

Owner of Premium Aquatics

This next 3 tiered tank, is pretty cool by LIve Aquaria. They have mangroves right on the top. The fish theme was anglers of different colours. This certain specie was also in a seminar called “Fish for your nano” as a good addition. Just make sure you have no inverts.

Julian Sprung representing his company “2 LIttle Fishies”

We have it really well- off here. Prices of corals, and frags  in the States are quite pricey. Take a look at some of these frags.

$450 for this clam. They refused my offer for .25 cents.

So after takin in all the info from all the diferent booths, I had a pre-scheduled workshop.

The first one was DYI Maguiver Techniques led by Jake Adams. Here Jake briefly spoke about things you can rig up with household items to make your life easier with the maintenance of your aquarium.

He also owns a web site called Fish Idea and Coral Idea. Here, you can download into your computer, iphone, PDA device, etc. a library of specie identification. So lets say your in your favourite LFS  and want a coral or fish but dont have any info on it…just get into your system and look it up.

When that was done, I visited some more interesting seminars throughout the day. My last scheduled workshop was by Bob Fenner entitled Photography in the Aquarium. Since I am an amateur at best, I left with some great tips.

Here’s a picture with me and Bob also the creator of www.wetwebmedia.com and excellent resourceful site for anything marine or freshwater related.

Stay tuned for a nice little treat in Part 4!