ReefStock 2012 happens on March 10, 2012 at the Denver Downtown Aquarium (700 Water Street
Denver, CO 80211). The ReefStock speakers are Colin Foord, Ret Talbot and Tony Vargas. We will have several industry leading vendors, and new corals for purchase. Tickets are $10 and Limited Edition T-shirts are $20. The doors open at 10am and close at 6pm. See you there!

ReefStock 2011 was an amazing reef show which attracted a huge crowd from the local area and visitors from coast to coast. The speakers gave ground breaking talks and the coral vendors had more coral than you can shake a frag at. The manufacturers utilized this ReefBuilders event to show off some awesome, bleeding-edge aquarium products and the raffle was populated by exciting products for marine and reef keeping needs.

Among the participants of ReefStock, Mark Callahan of Mr. Saltwater Tank joined the fray for warm-up activities, the set up of the show and the actual event. Since we had our hands full running the event and live blogging all of the new products, it was a real treat to have the Mr. Saltwater Tank film crew report on ReefStock 2011 from a unique perspective. We still have a lot of ReefStock pictures to sort through but in the meantime, enjoy this great video production of ReefStock 2011 by Mr. Saltwater Tank.

We’re just one week away from hosting the fourth ReefStock marine aquarium conference at the Denver Downtown Aquarium and the raffle has become so large, we’ve had to split it, twice! Due to the generosity of all the movers and shakers in the aquarium world who support Reef Builders and the ReefStock conference, the attendees of the March 12th event are going to be nearly overwhelmed at the mountain of raffle prizes to pick from. To simplify the raffle playing field, we’ve produced three collages which depict most of the raffle prizes based on the drawing time but we’ll be adding more prizes and some of them will be very grand. The full tentative and growing list of raffle prizes is after the break.

#1

Avast Ozone Reactor

- Koralia

Vendor donated live goods/certificates

Reef Nutrition pack

The Aiptasia Zapper is ghetto, but it remains to be seen if it is also fabulous. Sometimes electricity can melt your sump, but it is now being harnessed by the Aiptasia Zapper to discombobulate unwanted cnidarians. At two feet the Aiptasia Zapper is really too long, and it looks like it was hit by the ugly stick, i.e. another Aiptasia Zapper. And at $75 is a little expensive for something that looks like it was built by a hastily trained monkey. But who cares because as soon as you start zapping ‘tazias and majano’s you’ll instantly think of all the times you could have gotten all medieval on their manuses. Elite Reef has received a small shipment of the Aiptasia Zappers and they are shipping these although it’s not yet listed on their website. ReefStock attendees will get a chance at winning one of these in the ReefStock Raffle.

ReefStock is a fun aquarium conference held in Denver Colorado, at the Denver Downtown Aquarium. One month from today, on March 12th, the 4th annual ReefStock will go down once again, featuring some of the best livestock, hottest new products, and the brightest minds in the reef aquarium world. Following up on speakers like Joshi, Kohen, Yaiullo and Karl is hard, but we believe this year’s lineup does justice to ReefStock’s tradition of having only the most stimulating speaker presentations. This year’s speakers will be Sharon Ram of Israel, Matt Wandell from San Francisco and Julian Sprung from Miami Florida.

Sharon Ram is the chief scientist for Red Sea, the company that took the All-in-one concept to the next level with the Red Sea Max and completely new lineup of reefing products releasing this year. Sharon Ram was born in the city of Haifa, Israel, on the Mediterranean coast.  He holds a B.SC. and M.Sc. in “biology and marine bio-chemistry” from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, including research at the Israel National Mariculture Institute on the Red Sea. Over the past fifteen years, Sharon has developed a wealth of knowledge and expertise in marine chemistry and coral bio-chemistry. Much of the new formulations of Red Sea’s additive line is based on findings of Sharon Ram’s research which is the the focus of Ram’s talk: “Bioenergy needs of corals in the reef aquarium“.

Matt Wandell is an Aquatic Biologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, where he tends to the Steinhart Aquarium’s 200,000 gallon coral reef tank.  He has been an avid reefkeeping hobbyist since 1999, has written articles for Advanced Aquarist Magazine, Reefs Magazine, Reef Hobbyist Magazine, and Reef Builders. Matt really likes the rare and unusual fish, but in his talk “Expert Only Fish:  They aren’t as tough as you might think“, Matt is going to share some reasons why it isn’t too terribly hard to keep fish with have certain requirements in captivity.

Julian Sprung is a biologist, author, aquarium design consultant, and co-founder and President of Two Little Fishies, Inc. He has been keeping marine aquariums for over 30 years, and has traveled all over the world to observe and photograph coral reef creatures in nature and in specially designed aquariums. Julian’s books include The Reef Aquarium, Volumes 1-3, co-authored with J. Charles Delbeek and considered the “bibles” on the subject, Corals: A Quick Reference Guide, Invertebrates: A Quick Reference Guide, and Algae: A Problem Solver Guide. In his presentation Julian is going to discuss the point where art meets science in his talk “Where do Reef Aquariums, industry and Science meet?”

For more information on the ReefStock conference, keep an eye on the ReefStock blog where we will be making frequent updates about speakers, raffle prizes, exhibitors and coral vendors.

Mark your calendars because the fourth annual ReefStock conference is happening at the Denver Downtown Aquarium once again next year. As usual we’ll have great speakers, great vendors and live corals, an amazing raffle of great reef aquarium gear, and a few surprises that we’ll be announcing later on. If you can’t make it to the great reef aquarium party that is ReefStock, you can count on ReefBuilders to be blogging all the new products en force. See you there!

Unless you were one of the few dozen captive bred fish brought to ReefStock, chances are you didn’t get to see the show from a fisheye lens. The tight crowds made it difficult to capture how densely packed the floor was with people. corals and exhibits but ReefStock photograper Adam Knudson of Devo Photography brought his trusty fisheye lens so we could all take in the view like a fish. Many more pictures after the break.

A view across the short end of the Nautilus ballroom which was only 50 feet long.

Many of the coral frag tanks were two people deep and several farmers sold all of their frags at the show.
The LED lighting demo served double duty as illumination for the raffle table, half of the prizes had already been awarded at this point.
The AcanLighting A102 was one of the few LEDs sporting a conventional aquarium light form factor.
The Dive Lounge and bar attached to the Nautilus ballroom made a nice place to retreat with a cocktail
Lots of captive raised and captive bred fish from Sustainable Aquatics
Chris Jung does the Supaman
I think we’ve made it clear how avant-garde the unibody LED+T5 light is

The Nautilus Ballroom where ReefStock was held was absolutely packed with people, it was very loud in there.
Jet-setting Tina from Wet Thumb frags was bagging up frags as fast as she could
Looking down only one side of the sprawling coral vending row
John Ciotti handling the Photon Canon (Unless you’re Mike in which case this is a Photon Canonne)
A view of the Seashine LIFI lighting up one of the ReefScape tanks before it was ‘scaped.
Pat and Steve discuss how much they like European water pumps
This frag tank was one of the few using metal halides, a form of lighting which will probably become disallowed at future frag vending events

With over 30 aquarium LED products showed off by more than 15 companies at this year’s ReefStock, were going to go ahead a call it: The future is now and LED lighting has truly arrived to the aquarium world. Spotlights, Striplights, moonlights, twilights, power lights and all form of DIY lights used LEDs to light up the ReefStock conference at the Denver Downtown Aquarium last weekend. In addition to the predominantly LED-using coral frag vendors, the LED lighting demonstration featured lights from Japan, Hong Kong, England and especially the United States. Despite some nefarious restrictions there is no way to hold back the floodgates of aquarium LED lighting anymore and the pictures below demonstrate just how much is available now. Follow the break to see what the future of aquarium lighting will look like. Huge thanks to Adam Knudson of Devo Photography for working very hard to get us all these pictures.

CoraslSky’s LED demo light in the foreground with the 3 colors of Versa discs with their actinic striplight in the background

The Aquaray 1000 HD tile may be somewhat exotic in the states but of course it was present at the reefing world’s largest LED light show.
The thin A102 Acan light drew a lot of looks and comments for it’s sleek and attractive lighting fixture.
Volx Japan’s Ledio LED spotlights are some of the most popular in Japan and they were very kind to send along some of their finely crafted spotlights to show off in the ReefStock LED demo.
Volx Japan’s LEdio spotlights come in a wide range of colors including the mystery purple in the center and the all royal-blue 21 watter to the right.

The NanoCustoms booth was a good place to see LED lights in a range of form factors for the nano reefing crowd.

We put on ReefStock specifically so we could get our hands on exciting new products, like the unibody T5+LED hybrid light
The unibody hybrid LED + T5 light from NanoCustoms is truly in a league of it’s own in terms of power and color rendition.

The MR16 LED spotlights were shown off at ReefStock before anywhere else.
The diminutive MR16 LED spotlights will be a hot ticket when they become widely available to the reefing hobby.
The actively cooled picolight from NanoCustoms was quite a looker at this show. A closer look at the brightness within the CNC milled pico led light.
With 5-6 new LED lighting products to demonstrate the NanoCustoms crew really represented at the reef hobby’s most techno-centric aquarium conference.

Newcomer to the reef aquarium LED lighting scene BlueMoon also made an appearance at ReefStock with the slab of LED lights; only Harvey Fell could commandeer a booth which wasn’t on the floorplan the way he did.
Ecoxotic showed off their new all blue Panorama LED module which can also be retrofitted with light-focusing lenses.
Ecoxotic showed off an uber thin platform from which to attach LED stunners into adequate lighting for a near-pico reef.
The all-blue PAR38 LED light from NanoCustoms was seen at ReefStock; it will be a welcome addition to the 2:3 and 3:2 blue:white PAR38s that have made nanoCustoms a leader in reef aquarium LED spotlighting.
There may have been as many as a dozen AquaIllumination lights in use by coral frag slingers at ReefStock
The Naxandra lights from Underwater World were specifically designed for in-house use on the UWW aquaculture facility but Justin Credabel

The pendant-buddy LED strips from ReefBrite can add a lot of pop to coral colors even with lamps that have a great starting color rendition

Even the freaking EcoSmart VorTech controller was sporting a buncha LEDs.
CoralSky’s Ledil-equipped royal blue LED striplights
CoralSky demo light above, AquaIllumination center and Tropical Marine Center’s Aquaray bottom.

Checking out the undercarriage of the AcanLighting A102, the north american version of the EcoLamps KR92
Cherry Corals has been a long time user of AquaIllumination LED lights.
Rich Ross of the California Academy of Science feels up the housing of the Seashine LIFI fixture from Stray Light Optical
Automatic Moonlight from Ecoxotic
The 50 watt LED photon canon lights up a broad swath of the floor more than 3 feet away.
The ReefBrite LED striplights now can enjoy some company with the help of the 2,4 and 6 light brackets.


A closer look at one of several DIY LED lights at the ReefStock conference. Looks like this one was getting a little extra umph from an un-lensed CoralSky SL.
This unique light has built in fans and it uses small incandescent base spotlights that can easily be replaced or switched out to desired effect.
This ghetto-fabulous DIY LED job was hacked into an old current striplight.
A fish-eye view of the business end of the seashine LIFI

Justin takes some PAR readings from the bottom of the LIFI-lit solana tank
236 PAR through 3 feet of air is nothing to scoff at.

Gerald from Stray light Optical shows off how a single 250watt Seashine can be reflectorized to cast a rectangular shine over the 48″ x 18″ Solana XL 67 (that was so kindly donated to the ReefStock ReefScape competition by Current USA).
The same model of the Seashine LIFI light shining at a higher intensity on the right, and also sporting a much warmer color rendition.

With 60-70 participants and about 400 attendees the third ReefStock was the best show yet. The crowd came early and it stayed late for the ReefScape competition, the talks and the raffle. While we were doing all we could to oil the gears of the show, we had the great fortune to get in touch with avid ReefBuilders reader Adam Knudson who volunteered for extreme photography duty. The images you will see over the next couple days are mostly his and we thank him from the bottom of our tropical saltwater heart for documenting every square inch of this show. Continue reading for the first onslaught of pictorial inundation.

Hard work vendors and exhibitors line up for their well deserved meal of gruel.
ReefNutrition has long been a leader in trade show booth presentation.
We had well over a dozen coral frag slingers with several thousand frags and small colonies to pick from.

John and Jake speak with Scott about a new environmental controller.
Dr. Paul feels up some of the new Marco Geode rock.
The ReefStock shwag bag was bursting at the seams with literature, catalogs and free samples.
Ocean’s Paradise brought many nice captive raised specimens of clownfish, anemones and cardinalfish.

Thomas and Stephane from AquaMedic go over the game plan with Shaun about the AquaMedic strategy for the show.
Guin shows off a double Fancy Ocellaris that was hand picked to her specifications.
Marc and Scott talk to John about the thirsty Ecoxotic booth display tank.
Reefkoi gets subjected to a little tomfoolery during the evening of setup.
The coral frag slingers eye up the competition, perhaps making some ‘first minute’ deals before the doors swing open.

Wes looks over his frag booth lit up by a DIY LED light.
There were many fine clownfish donated to the livestock raffle including a wyoming white and two onyx clowns from Ocean Gallery II and a pair of semi’cassos and semi’flakes from ORA.
We can always count on Dirk to bring out a ton of great books, we hear he sold quite a few at this show.
Midwest Saltwater came all the way to Denver to represent their full range of reef aquarium ceramic shelves, ledges and frag stations.
Perfect Australian scolymias lined up like trophies in the aquarium of Mile High Aquatics.
Joy from ReefBrite Prepares to demonstrate their full line of LED, halide and T5 lighting products.

We almost had to charge Dirk extra for all the vertical space he was using.
Elite Reef showed off their affordable line of cone shaped protein skimmers.
Seachem displayed their extensive and mature full line of aquairum products, including the new 2-part solution called Reef Fusion.
Piscine Energetics erected this fine booth what seems like minutes before opening the doors
Sustainable Aquatcs brought many nice captive raised and captive bred fish

Someone had to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon.

One of the big attractions at this weekend’s ReefStock is the first public viewing of the production level Seashine lights from Stray Light Optical. As we hustle to finalize all the last minute details of ReefStock, we still had time to fire up the final Beta level Seashine light that we are beginning to review. This post is just about throwing light on a wall but for all the nitty gritty details of this light, see our previous coverage. Hit the read link for our raw first impressions of the Seashine lighting up a wall.

First of all, you should never, Ever, NEVER handle a light while it is turned on, especially when the innards recreate the surface of the sun; we are professionally trained bloggers and at least I was wearing an oven mitt, and a fancy one at that. The images were made with the white balance adjusted to a flat white surface while the Seashine was at 100% power intensity. The wall it is lighting up is semi-gloss and a shade between eggshell-white and cream-white. In the image above we are holding the light about 8″ away from the wall at full brightness. The image below is still full intensity but now the pendant is about 20″/50cm from the wall. The neat square projection of light from the Seashine is very different from the uneven spread we are used to from halide pendants.

In this image the light is about 50% intensity and ~10″ from the wall. At this power level the light coloration has definitely shifted to a cool white shade.
The image below is still 50% intensity and about 20″ from the wall.

At the minimum power level of 20% the Plasma Arc light becomes very blue. It’s not quite the deepest 20,000K radium blue but we would compare it to the color of a well driven 14-15,000K halide lamp.