This Saturday a UMAC took a trip up to Hollywood, Florida for MACNA, the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America. This is the 25th time MACNA has been held and this year it was hosted by the Florida Marine Aquarium Society. Many of our favorite fish stores (such as Exotic Aquariums), marine equipment suppliers, and other local places we’ve visited such as Coral Morphologic had booths set up.
A very common thing to see were tanks filled with coral frags of every color and form imaginable. On the fish side of things, clownfish that had been selectively bred for specific colors and patterns were around every corner. Tanks were set up demonstrating filtration, lighting and other features. Even gravel and fish food had a place in the convention.
After touring the booths, making a few purchases and winning some raffles we stopped by the lecture hall to hear Julian Sprung speak. For those who were in UMAC last year, you’ll remember that Julian came to a meeting of ours and gave an informative talk about saltwater aquariums. The lecture he gave Saturday was about how current proposals to list certain coral species as endangered will hurt both the aquarium hobby and more hands on conservation tactics such as coral aquaculture.
As you can see, we all had a great time and are so excited to be kicking off another year of UMAC. We hope to see you at our weekly meetings, and at some of the fun events we have planned for the semester!