by Morgan Moore | Oct 4, 2013 | Corals
For someone that loves acropora as much as I do, I sit here tonight staring at my beautiful 250 gallon mother colony system wondering how it ended up seventy five percent full of montipora colonies.… by AquaNerd | Oct 3, 2013 | Equipment
Image Credit: Bulk Reef Supply If you’ve been holding off on upgrading the lighting scheme over your aquarium, here’s a great opportunity to save a few bucks. EcoTech Marine is allowing various online vendors to sell their Radion XR30w and XR30w Pro LED fixtures at discounted prices. Normally, EcoTech employs a minimum advertised price (MAP) campaign that forces all retailers to sell their products at the same price, regardless of whether the store is online only or a brick-and-mortar. So, we were pleasantly surprised to see this price drop. Unfortunately, it won’t last forever. There’s no word on when it will end, but it has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and who knows when the prices will return to normal. The price drops on the XR30w and XR30w Pro are $100 and $150, respectively. If you’re looking to buy the fixture at the discounted rate, we recommend hitting up Bulk Reef Supply, who seems to be the most vocal about the sale, or our friends at Aquarium Specialty . Both companies offer a pionts based rewards program, so it’s a win win either way. by AquaNerd | Sep 30, 2013 | Equipment, Tanks
Have you ever had a piece of equipment that you thought just looked too darned pretty to be in that nasty saltwater with fish poop and gross algae? Well, such is the case for the Omega 150 protein skimmer, which Vertex so kindly sent our way. Unfortunately for the skimmer, we don’t plan on letting it stay eye candy for long, as we’ll put it through the ringer as we review it in an everyday aquarium environment. To start our review, we’ll first dive into a little product history. The Omega line of skimmers was first introduced at MACNA 2012 in Dallas, and we were told that it was meant to completely replace the Vertex IN skimmers. To keep its price down around that of the IN series and to better distinguish itself from the Vertex Alpha skimmers, the Omega used a Sicce pump instead of the Red Dragon. Additionally, the straight cone shape was ditched for the more elegant “whine glass” cone body. by AquaNerd | Sep 29, 2013 | Corals, Equipment
Late last week, we shared an article about the Aqua Medic Coral Holder, an ingenious device that keeps large LPS corals sitting upright for fish stores and frag happy hobbyists alike. Unfortunately, our photos, which we took at MACNA, didn’t do the Coral Holder any justice. They showed the product accurately, but in a sterile trade show setting. Thankfully, the guys at Aqua Medic sent us some photos of their holders in action. These relatively inexpensive coral holding devices function by placing a coral between two sliding halves of a plastic hexagon, with an oval shaped opening in the middle. The two halves can be pulled apart several inches while still remaining in contact with each other, which allows for some big, beefy corals to be held upright. These Coral Holders are not exactly ideal for the hobbyist looking to keep up with the aesthetics of a reef aquarium, but serve a great function for aquarium stores or hobbyists who have a frag tank. by AquaNerd | Sep 27, 2013 | Equipment, MACNA, Technology
When it comes to good looking and well designed aquarium lighting products, there are few out there that rival the Giesemann Teszla LED fixtures. Besides their stunning design, the lights are also loaded to the brim with features, and it looks like they’ll be getting a key accessory to make their use so much easier. Announced at MACNA, Giesemann is releasing a Bluetooth interface, simply called the BT-Interface, that allows users to control up to four Teszla or Teszla-XT LED fixtures with their PC, Mac, smartphone or tablet. With the software interface, aquarists can fully adjust all three color channels using the multi-point time and intensity plot system, create elaborate storm and cloud simulations, and enact a 28-day real-time lunar cycle. The BT-Interface does require a physical connection to each of the fixtures that it controls. This is done through any of one of four on-board USB sockets and their associated cables, but once connected, the lights can be controlled via Bluetooth connection with any capable device. The LEDs in the Teszla lights are controlled by microprocessors, which receive their operating instructions from the interface system. The BT-Interface has a European price tag of € 199.00, and we haven’t seen an official price for the US Market. The software, on the other hand, is available free of charge. Giesemann’s use of Bluetooth instead of WiFi has both its ups and downs
