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Aquarama 03 - a Trade Day field report

Achilles Tang
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Achilles Tang Newbie

Achilles Tang

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This year, the Aquarama event appears to be smaller than two years ago but it did look crowded enough to me during the Trade Days with quite a number of industry people looking at the latest technology & products in livestock packing, food products, pumps, chillers, lightings, livestock and other aquarium-related products.

From my walks around, the freshwater crowd will be rather pleased as there is a quite a wide range of FW stuff like planted tanks, arowanas, discus, goldfish, bettas to get them excited.

For us marine lovers, stuff to look out for are the new improved Macro skimmers (needlewheel and venturi skimmers) and light pendants that on display, the Aquamedic booth (look out for the 3m tall skimmers on demonstration!), Guisseman lighting pendants.

There is also an Italian brand called Hydor carrying an impressive range of pumps. What caught my eye was a rotating attachment that you attach to a powerhead or water outlet (it comes with adapters) for random current making. It is saltwater-proof and takes very light pressure to start working! Concept is similar to the SCWD where water current moves a gear to move the nozzle.

There are about 5 marine tanks at Aquarama (could be a bit more) set up by different people including Pacific Marine, Coral Farm and Aquatechnic. There are also many kinds of tank designs that are displayed at Aquarama which are very impressive. Some of them are wall-mounted like a plasma screen (although whether it will actually support a marine ecosystem long-term is debatable). There is an octogonal tank at the Pacific Marine booth that is very very nice (central overflow).

Foodstuff... the Argent booth is a must visit, not only for their range of Cyclop-eze products but their krill and brineshrimp stuff as well. They also carry fish medication, books on the hobby such as coral propagation. For those who culture zoo and phytoplankton... go check out the microscopes! They also have refractometers for sale (rathe ex though!)

The supposedly cheap pricing for their Cyclop-eze is apparently for the Trade Industry visitors only, I am not too sure if Public Visitors will actually get that good a price. Oh well, visit Aquarama tomorrow and Sunday to find out! :D

As for marine livestock, aquacultured marine livestock like blue-lined angels, monos are found at a Taiwanese booth. The Sri Lankan contingent this year is a lot smaller and they did not bring in a lot of marine livestock to show (to my great disappointment). I did see a small tank where the Blood Shrimps and Cleaner Shrimps are HUGE in size!

The Singapore Reef Club booth had its fair share of visitors who dropped in to say hi to Morgan, Joe_P and myself. It was an honour to have a Norwegian reef expert, Svein Fossa, drop by to commend us. An australian reef club visitor also came by and so did a Canadian importer who enjoyed talking with us. A Hong Kong reef club dude by the name of Samuel also dropped by today. Quite a few familiar faces from the LFS industry dropped by as well!

We have two LCD screens, one showing a DVD on marine life that will leave you drooling and the other will show a photo gallery on our members' tanks since we can't set up a show tank without going against our ideals about not stocking up till the cycle period is over (unless Danano is willing to carry over his Nano tank! :D)

This weekend, the SRC booth will be choc-a-bloc with lots of goodies from our sponsors to aid in our booth fund-raising! (The official SRC T-shirts for fundraising, unfortunately, will not be available for sale in time for Aquarama due to communication breakdown over the last few day's downtime as we were shifting into the new server).

Fortunately, I was able to round up some sponsorship from our sponsors and I hope we'll break even at least!

Look out for stuff that you can buy with discounts AND where the sales proceeds will go into the Booth Fund. So please show us your support there! Thank you!

Anyway, our sponsors for the booth will be offering the following for sale:

1. T5 tubes - eAquaNature.com

2. DT live phytoplankton and PE Mysis (frozen) - Reef Associates

3. Kalkwasser - Reefez

4. Titanium/Reef Relief Chillers

5. TUBBY (automatic water top-up device)

So come on down and meet up with your fellow marine hobbyists! Looking forward to seeing all of you there at Aquarama and I really miss talking to you guys over the one week's forum communication breakdown.

We will be giving our brochures/flyers to interested people who wish to start a marine tank and we will also be on hand to give advice when asked. We hope to also talk to as many such interested hobbyists to visit our website and to promote a better understanding of the marine ecosystem, the hobby and knowledge-gathering so as to better the lives of their marine pets.

Let's go reefing!!!! SRC!!!!

Warmest regards,

Achilles Tang

Founder/Admin

Singapore Reef Club

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nivlac Newbie

nivlac

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I was there on the first day......not much time as I sneaked in during lunch time....wanted to catch a glimpse of the booth but couldn't find it!

Anyway, there wasn't much new products launched that I'd consider ground breaking, unlike the Aquarama 2 years ago where thermoelectric chillers were launched, and the one before where Ti coil chillers were launched.

Agree that the Gisemann booth has got some nice lights. Check out the Aquatechnic booth where they had a marine tank with a built in bow-front-cyclops-like-magnifier on the front of the tank for viewing of fish....would be great for clam tanks. Couple of nice marine setups there, especially the Pac marine setup.

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victorp Newbie

victorp

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There is also an Italian brand called Hydor carrying an impressive range of pumps. What caught my eye was a rotating attachment that you attach to a powerhead or water outlet (it comes with adapters) for random current making. It is saltwater-proof and takes very light pressure to start working! Concept is similar to the SCWD where water current moves a gear to move the nozzle.

For your information, Red Sea Fish uses Hydor pumps for their Prizm series protein skimmers (and most likely for their Berlin series as well).

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piero Newbie

piero

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I was there today and I bought some of those cyclop-eez... Not so sure about the use in marine but the content, Asxanthene is supposedly good for red coloration of fishes. That's why bought some for my discus. Oh... Dymax having their own T5 and its super cheap compared to the other three brands, the guy there was saying that it is going to hit the market soon. 3ft with two T5 tubes is less than $100. Think the rating is 12000K and 17000K from what I see. Dunno got other types or not... Most of the stuff like not for sale leh.. See already hand itchy but cannot buy. And remember to bring cash cos most of the stalls dun accept nets or card.

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FuEl Newbie

FuEl

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I was there this evening around 5 with my dad...saw SpiderOne..At..Morgan and flubberina.. :D

Only bought freeze dried cyclops and a tin of spirulina. I wanted to buy a pack of frozen cyclops they had outside in the fridge...like what I did last aquarama...but they actually said someone actually reserved everything. That kunniang! What a selfish profit-minded jerk. :angry:

Anyway..I found the last aquarama more interesting..this time abit boring. And to think people still showcase parrotfish injected with color dye...the incident which greatly put me off last aquarama...and not to mention the crowding of clownfish into tanks with freshwater aquarium gravel...just like some reef showtank in serangoon north using freshwater aquarium gravel as substrate.

Anyway...my 162 watts of T5s are up and running already...lucky din go for 216 watts...162 watts already blinding me...illuminating the whole of my living room. Can literally leave the living room lights off at night. :blink:

Always something more important than fish.

http://reefbuilders.com/2012/03/08/sps-pico-reef/

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flubberina13 Newbie

flubberina13

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Dun mind I answer this...I think the guys are stone-tired liao... :P

1) DT Plankton,

2) PE Mysis,

3) Dr Chill's chillers(offer for this period only),

4) Reefez Kalkwasser($10each),

5) Tubby(the Top-up) box,

6) Mh lights from new sponsor...let AT do the honour of introducing... :rolleyes:

7) Ian's products...the I-refugium and the I-box

8) Edmund's products from EAquaNature

are on sale during this period only...

Stocks are limited because cannot put too many things in side the booth otherwise we have to stand on stilts liao... :P

So better grab them now... :P

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