Macna 2005

[Larry-T]

I attended MACNA in the Washington, DC area this past weekend. It was a great experience and I'll be posting a series of messages a photos about the conference over the next few days. Here's my tentative schedule:

Friday - Sept 25 (Tomorrow)

Saturday presentations - Sept 27

The Banquet and Gala - Sept 29

Sunday: The raffle and the wrap-up - Oct. 1

[Larry-T]

MACNA XVII

The world of Marine Aquarium Keeping came together in Washington, DC, for MACNA XVII. Two new tracks of programming have moved MACNA from a hobby convention to a far more serious professioinal conference focusing on Marine Aquaria and it maturation into a field of endeavor focusing on a wide variety of aubjects from reef conserevation to classroom education to prepare the next generation of aquarium hobbyists and professionals.

The conference committee took full advantage of being in the Nation's Capital and offered a unique group of speakers from the Federal sector. After the official opening of the convention at 1:00, the first speaker was Tim Keeney, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Oceans and Atmosphere, NOAA, and chairman of the Coral Reef Task Force. He spoke briefly about his passion for reefs and the desire to preserve them for the future. He was followed by Walt Smith, who talked about his coral aquaculture business in FIJI and previewed some of his later presentation - more later.

Jeo Starinchak of the Fish and Wildlife Service and James Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality also addressed the convention in plenary session.

This group of speakers introduced the conservation track of this MACNA, which took full advantage of the convention’s presence in the nation’s capital.

There was a 7:00 PM desert reception and a presentation scheduled by Bob Fenner on the marine life of the Red Sea. I didn’t stay long, as I knew I had a long day on Saturday.

See you tomorrow;

[Larry-T]

MACNA Report:

Saturday, September 17
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First of all, I want to apologize for the delay in this report. It’s one of those things that got pushed to the bottom of the stack until now.
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Saturday was, or course, the biggest day of the convention. The morning consisted of three tracks of programming starting at 8:30, 9:30, and 10:30. The biggest problem was deciding which program to attend. Some of the most interesting included a presentation on reef balls, a discussion of sustainability in the hobby, Temperate marine aquaria for the advanced hobbyist, culturing berghia nudibranches for aptasia erradication, and several presentations for teachers.

There were two 90-minute workshops offered from 11:30 to 1:00, one identification workshop by Dr. Ron Shimek and the other on designing educational programs around aquaria.

Of course the exhibitor hall also beckoned, with a tremendous amount of material sold or even given away. The exhibits included producers, distributors, organizations, and even a government exhibit from NOAA. You could also join MASNA (which I did) and buy raffle tickets – more about the raffle later.

After lunch there were five plenary sessions of which I will mention two:

Jorge Gomezjurado provided a session on captive rearing of seahorses for the trade. He has, with the help of some top-flight scientists, designed and built a facility that breeds three species of seahorses and cranks out 800 captive-raised, frozen food eating seahorses per month. I went into this presentation somewhat of a skeptic, but he convinced me that he is on the level. The fact that one of his chief consultants is a scientist I know personally from my work with the Department of Commerce let me know just how meticulously his system is designed. I’m going to buy some stock from him in later October.

The other was a wide-ranging talk by Eric Borneman which helped put the hobby into context and included a tribute to this convention.

Eric also ran a fraging workshop at the FRAGexchange booth. Anyone who wanted some free frags could get them here.

So we had presentations and workshops from 8:30 AM until after 7:00 PM. And the day wasn’t over.

THE GALA BANQUET

The banquet was in the same ballroom as the major presentations and was full. There were a number of talks and tributes and presentation of the MASNA awards. Then came one of the major highlights:

Walt Smith had, for the second year in a row, donated a $10,000, 10-day trip for two to FIJI with all expanses paid from and to Los Angeles. The drawing took place following a presentation on the experience the previous winners had.

The next event was a fascinating presentation on the great white shark project at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The project was a scientific tour de force which set records as the first time a great white was caught, kept and fed in captivity. Unfortunately, after six months she started hunting the other sharks in the tank and had to be released. Since she grew one foot in length and 100 pounds in mass, everyone termed the project a success.

After this presentation, entertainment was provided by the nationally-known musical comedy troupe The Capital Steps. If the original Saturday Night Live had been a music review focused on politics, it would have been the Steps. For more information, see www.capteps.com.

Later on, I’ll talk about Sunday and the huge raffle.

[Damon]

Congrats!! I saw the show in TFH but knew I could go for work reasons. Glad someone got to enjoy the convention.