I must admit up front, I did not know about Tamsco, or, at least, wasn’t aware that I might have encountered their products while shopping for fragging tools. That’s a real shame because the company has a mind-blowing offering of aquarium care products in their catalog. My unintended ignorance changed in an instant when I walked past their booth at MACNA 2018 in Las Vegas and saw a pair of 24” long tweezers held by one of the attendees.

It turns out that Tamsco has been a leading manufacturer and exporter of specialized instruments for a variety of fields, such as medical, dental, veterinary, and scientific for the last 60 years, producing tools in their home factory, as well as around the world, including the USA. While aquarium oriented products are only a small fraction of their catalog, it’s still an impressive collection. The Tamsco booth’s tables were packed full of stainless steel tools of all kinds, including a premium line of specialty black oxidized stainless steel aquarium tools- tweezers, clippers, bone cutters, scalpels, you name it. When I picked them up, I could instantly feel the weight and quality of materials used in their manufacturing process, plus they were just beautiful to look at, almost as if they were little pieces of art themselves. I’m not kidding, these tools were impressive!

I managed to pull Mr. Jay Younis, VP of Sales & Marketing, away from the crowd of attendees trying to get their hands on items Tamsco brought for MACNA, and ask him some questions:

Me: Hi there. Please tell me, when I see all those fantastic reefing tools on your table, I’m wondering: Whyhave I never heard about Tamsco before?

Jay: [smiling] Tamsco is actually a 60-year old company. My family has a factory overseas, in Asia, that makes specialty stainless steel tools. We just got into aquarium products recently, in the last 5 years.

Me: I see that you have two lines of products here at MACNA. Can you talk a little bit about them?

Jay: We have traditional stainless steel tools, made out of 410 stainless, but we also just launched a new line of black oxidized stainless steel, which is actually made out even higher grade material. We offer tools for both saltwater and freshwater sides of the hobby- there are products for fragging, as well as trimming plants.

Me: Yes, I can see that you have a very broad range of different tools for aquarists.

Jay: Thank you. This is our first MACNA; we are hoping to introduce our products to the community.

Me: One more question- could you please explain to our readers what is the advantage of choosing oxidized stainless steel as opposed to a common stainless steel?

Jay: Sure. Oxidation is basically a process that adds corrosion resistance. Normal stainless steel is already corrosion resistant, but the oxidation takes it a step forward. So generally speaking, these types of tools will last five times longer than traditional stainless steel tools. I think that for the professional, it’s well worth the extra money. In practice though, black oxidized tools are about 30 percent more expensive than traditional stainless steel products.

Me: Thank you.