I’m planning to go to MACNA. This year it’s in Atlantic City, NJ.  I’ll be bringing my cameras so expect to see a bunch of photos and some video from the event, in a few weeks. I haven’t decided which day of the 3 day event I’ll be going to, but I’m leaning toward Sunday, for the best deals on corals and equipment. Here’s a map of the vendors that will be there:

Some of the topics I’ll be bringing up w/ vendors is:

Seachem- What’s up w/ their new salt mix, Salinity? Better than Reef Salt? *Update- check this out: Salinity

Neptune Systems- Curt, why the F has it taken so long to get the APEX out? Not having a controller for months has hurt my tank, big time! Hopefully I’ll have my APEX by then and can get some tech support, if needed. *Update- All is good in the world. My APEX is fantastic and Curt’s tech support has already helped me out.

Marco Rocks- Need more dry base rock for my display. *Update- Brought some of their Key Largo rock. Looks good, a little heavier than the Fiji, but much cheaper price.

UV Lighting- Need to stock up on T5 actinic bulbs. *Update- They weren’t selling bulbs, but they had this new red bulb that looked very cool.

IceCAP- Say hi to Chris, pickup a backup 660. *Update- Chris wasn’t selling anything there, just shown some new products, including LED supplement light tubes and their new T5 fixtures.

Champion Lighting- Say hi to Gary. *Update- Got a free cuzy for my beer:)

Brightwell- Checkup on their new line of supplements, to replace my Zeovit dosing. *Update- Spoke w/ the rep there. Might try some other other supplements.

Premium Aquatics- Say Hi to the “J”s, Jason, Jeremy, Josh..and Michelle. Buy more equipment.*Update- Picked up a small order, got a free Tshirt.

Mr. Coral, ORA, Pacific East Coast, Cherry Corals, etc…- Buy corals! *Update- Video of Dr. Mac, brought 5 Acans for $100 and a large Dendro for $15 at Cherry Corals!

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I’ve been dosing Zeovit basic 4, plus a bunch of other supplements from Zeovit. At first, the results seemed very good. Lately, I’ve noticed some of my SPS bleaching and some losting their color. I stopped for a while and things seemed to get better. My alkalinity is probably too high for Zeovit. I’m around 10 and Zeovit wants that down around 7. I think I’m going to stop Zeovit all together and just use the remaining supplements I have. I’ll probably kick the phosban reactor back up and try Prodibio BioDigest and BioTim only for a while. Hopefully this will correct whatever was wrong with my water parameters. Have to change the carbon too!

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Currently running 2 250w hqi metal halide pendants on my system. They’re powered by Icecap’s latest 250w electronic ballasts, connected to Lumenmax III pendants. The bulbs I’m using are the Icecap 250w 14k’s. With my 4 T5 actinics and 50/50 bulbs, I’m liking the combo a lot.

I’ve tried several different brands of bulbs over the years. Here’s my take on the bulbs I’ve used:

Icecap 14k’s- Nice balance of color (whiteish blue), not overly bright.(Powered by Icecap’s new electronic ballast).

Phoenix 14k’s-Nice blue color bulb, a little too blue however. Nice intensity. (Powered by Icecap’s old electronic ballast).

Iwasaki 14k’s- Nice bulb, seems dimmer than the Icecap’s, might be less blue than most.(Powered by Icecap’s old electronic ballast).

Aqualine 20k’s- Very nice bulb, perfect combo of blue and white. Intensity was good running on a hqi ballast.(Powered by Aquamedic magnetic ballast).

BTW, I just won third place in a Icecap photo contest and my prize is….2 Icecap 250w 14K DE bulbs. I guess I’ll be sticking with these bulbs for another year.  Stay tuned…

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