MACNA report, good, bad, ugly

Finally got back from MACNA this morning at 6am. Here is a quick run down



We started bagging coral & fish on Wednesday at noon, and was on the road at 4:00 pm. Drove all night & pulled into the hotel at 4:30 am. To our surprise, the doors were wide open so we started setting up right away. Talked to tons of vendors all day Thursday & finally got to bed about 9Pm



MACNA opened Friday morning. I must say, our club members did such a great job by comparsion to this year. Many many of the name badges had to be written on with a sharpie, I even saw some of the speakes with hand written name badges. They had no computers or printers at the registration counter. Kudos to Joel & JB who had a great vision to make that very streamlined for us. The line to get registered and into MACNA Friday morning was over an hour long. They lost many peoples registration, total confusion.



Friday was a really busy day! Didnt have much time to check out other booths or speakers.



Was looking to the Friday night Texas Buffet & Casino night. Another disaster. Doors didnt open until 7:20. Once the doors opend, everyone was surprised to find there was no buffett, so we bugged out & went to the hotel restaraunt. Everyone was starving & pissed!



Sat was a good day. Typically that is a slow day for vendors, so we were able to catch up with some attendees & caught a few speakers. Todd Gardner was incredible!!!

There is a new product coming out called the robo snail. It docks in the top corner of your tank, and each day automatically cleans the glass. No idea on an ETA or price yet.

Saturday night banquet was really good. We had a chance to sit with Kate Rawlinson, a speaker who reasearches Acro Eating Flat Worms. It is a small world, as I sent her some AEFW samples almost 5 years ago, and that is how they determined they were actually a different species.



Kevin Kohen from Live Aquaria won aquarist of the year, an honor long overdue. Talked to his floor manager for quite a long time. Some interesting facts.

LA employes 12 full time people. Out of those 12, 3 are full time photographers.

Often wild fish do not eat in captivity for a long time, often until it is too late. LA will sedate them, take a needle and inject food down their throat into their stomach until they start to eat on their own.


Jean Michael Cousteu was the speaker, he was pretty good.



Sunday was a crazy crazy zoo. That is when everone decided they needed corals so we were bagging them up almost non stop.



Met up with many friends I have met over the last few MACNA's. Some people you only see once a year, and they always remember your name. I have made friends from Trinidad & Tobago, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico to name a few.



Next years MACNA will be incredible!!! Right on the beach in MIAMI. We had a nice group of Iowa people this year, hope to see even more next year.



I will add more later once I get some sleep & can remember things more clearly

 

One funny thing. I threw in a kenya tree for the heck of it. With all the hundreds of corals we brought along, it was the first one we sold.

 

The other thing that really blew my mind was how many stores came up and asked if we would ship them corals. First one I kind of dismissed as someone being nice, but I think we have 7 stores wanting us to start shipping them corals.

I know corals are getting harder & harder to find at reasonable prices, but this surprised me. As a store, you usually get 5 crappy corals, and one nice coral.

 

Another story I remembered.

Talked with a guy from Saudi Arabia that comes every year. We were chatting & he wants to get a pair of clowns & start breeding. I told him he needs to get some Oman Clowns. Oman clowns are only found off the coasts of Oman off the horn of Africa. The Sultan of Oman does not let anyone collect or export them, so they are worth about $10K each when someone manages to smuggle them out.

I told him about them & his response was, I have a good friend who is a member of the royal family, I will see if I can get you some for breeding purposes.

So see, it pays to goto MACNA

 

Personally I think they are ugly, but you cant argue with $10k