by AquaNerd | Sep 18, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, Opinion
When it comes to moving water around, old salt buckets and plastic water jugs have always been the go to containers. But they have always had a significant downside. Lids would fall off, water would splash all over everything, and you might even accidentally drop one on your foot and cause some significant damage. Fortunately, Seachem has a terrific and very durable plastic container that eliminates all of those issues and then some. Called the HydroTote, this 5-gallon soft plastic jug can take all the abuse in the world and not spill a single drop of water. In fact, Seachem reps were literally dropping a HydroTote full of water from various heights, sometimes going as high as six feet or more. In each situation, we watched nervously as the HydroTote crashed to the ground. Normally, we’re not afraid of a little water by AquaNerd | Sep 18, 2013 | Equipment, Industry
Vertex Aquaristik wasn’t short on new products for MACNA by any means. In addition to new sumps and skimmers, a brand new water pump was announced. Called the V6 Flow Pump, this new water pump is powered by the always reliable Askoll motor and cranks out 1584 gph at a power consumption of approximately 65watts. Besides reliable water flow, the V6 also promises to be virtually inaudible in the typical aquarium environment. This is due to the fact that rubber feet dampen any vibrational noise that could be transferred from the pump’s base to the hard surfaces of the sump. A custom volute sits at the business end of the V6, and it’s decked out in the typical Vertex colors, red and white. Besides that, there aren’t many more details to discuss. And unfortunately, we were too distracted with the Cerebra controller to get an expected price point or release date, but we’ll find those out as soon as possible. by AquaNerd | Sep 17, 2013 | Corals, Fish, Industry, MACNA
MACNA is always one of the best places to show off new aquarium gear, but it has also been an increasingly popular place to show off new aquarium swagger as well. Yes, I very regretfully just used the term swagger. Moving on, Reefer Tees had a booth full of their always fun aquarium themed t-shirts, with several new additions to the lineup. Our favorite of the bunch is the Coral Warfare shirt, comically displaying a rather traumatic event that can occur in any reef keeper’s tank if the corals get too close to each other. The other new shirts include a beautifully illustrated mandarin, which sold out very quickly at the show, as well as a live rock tour shirt and another displaying a clown car full of, well, clownfish. Reefer Tees owner, Jeff Kolesnikowicz, wearing the Clown Car shirt. And just because I’m a nice guy, I was wearing my own Reefer Tee’s Tang Police shirt while roaming the vendor hall at MACNA by AquaNerd | Sep 17, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, MACNA
The Vertex booth was really hopping at MACNA this year, and besides their gorgeous sumps and new pumps (which we will be discussing later), the creators of the stylish aquarium gear showed off a brand new model to the Omega protein skimmer line. Dubbed the Omega 130, this little brother to the Omega 150 has all of the same features, but stuffed into a smaller package. Present in both Omega skimmer models are the wine glass body, touches of red and white on the plumbing and hardware, a removable base and bubble plate, an ozone port, and a Sicce skimmer pump with a custom Vertex volute. The volute intake can be opened or closed to adjust the air intake into the skimmer, allowing users to dial back the skimmer’s performance if necessary. Also present in the Omega 130, as well as the 150, are plenty of sound and vibration dampening features. The pump has a custom bracket that has silicone feet to keep it running super quiet. Aiding in the silencing are silicone feet on the bottom of the skimmer and a silicone tube that connects the pump to the skimmer. The official spec sheet for the Omega 130 hasn’t been released just yet, but we’ve got a direct line to Vertex and they will be updating us very soon. So, stay tuned for more details by AquaNerd | Sep 16, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, MACNA, Tanks
The Prodibio bacteria, bacteria feeding, and supplemental additives work, and they work really well from personal experience. That said, the act of dosing these products has always presented issues for aquarium keepers, and not just because they’re in glass ampoules. One of the biggest complaints with this dosing system was that it was pretty much all or nothing. Once you crack that vial open, the entire contents are dosed all at once. For aquarists using the smaller vials, there really wasn’t much of an issue with this, but users of the Pro sized ampoules wanted a more stable, long term dosing solution. In response to this, Prodibio has released their new Dose’n Drop dosing system, which is a very simple and affordable system for dosing the additives drop by drop over an extended period of time. The Dose’n Drop only works for the Pro sized ampoules containing 10ml of product, and the smaller ampoules just won’t fit into the apparatus. Users are instructed to break the tip off of one end of the ampoule and insert the plastic fittings into the open end. by AquaNerd | Sep 16, 2013 | Equipment, Industry, MACNA
One of the neatest products we’ve come across at MACNA is this set of ramping digital timers from Current USA. These timers are designed to be used with the LED strip light products from Current USA and Ecoxotic, though they will work for other brands. The Ramp Timers work by slowly increasing the brightness of the LEDs at a user programmed time, then slowly dimming the lights at a second time point at the end of the day. The timer ramps the light over a 15 minute period, slowly changing the brightness over a whopping 227 steps. That’s such a gradual change that you’ll probably never notice the change happening. Two models will be available, with one targeting single LED strips and the other being capable of handling two at once. Both are super simple to use and are run inline with the power connectors already on the strips. The retail price starts at $39.99 and we should start seeing these show up at fish stores in no time.
