11:30am

Richard Ross - REEFporn - A Journey to Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is part of the coral triangle and has some of the greatest underwater diversity in the word - everything from 'muck' diving to pristine reefs. This talk will be full of video and photo eye candy illustrating this amazing area of the world.

Richard Ross currently works as an Aquatic Biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences, maintaining many exhibits including the 212,000 gallon Phipipine Coral Reef. He has kept saltwater animals for over 25 years, and has worked in aquarium maintenance, retail, wholesale and has consulted for a coral farm/fish collecting station in the South Pacific. Richard enjoys all aspects of the aquarium hobby and is a regular author for trade publications, a frequent speaker at aquarium conferences and was a founder of one of the largest and most progressive reef clubs in Northern California, Bay Area Reefers. He is an avid underwater videographer and has been fortunate to scuba dive all over the world. At home he maintains a 300 gallon reef system and a 250 gallon cephalopod/fish breeding system, and was one of the first people to close the life cycle of Sepia bandensis. When not doing all that stuff, he enjoys spending time with his patient wife, his incredible daughter and their menagerie of animals, both wet and dry.

12:45 pm

Scott Fellman - Your Next Reef Aquarium

Remember when you set up your last system, you swore you'd get it right this time? You'd never make that mistake again, right? Well, if you're like me- you may have learned a few things the hard way over the years and realized that there is always room for improvement!

"Your Next Marine Aquarium is a (hopefully) informative and humorous review of all of those little things that you may have overlooked while planning your next reef system. We'll discuss elements of planning, design, and setup, and examine things that you can do to make THIS aquarium your best ever! Whether you're in the planning stages on a new system, or just looking at tweaking your existing one, hopefully you'll get some cool new ideas to implement."

My name is Scott Fellman, and I'm the consummate reef geek! I bleed saltwater! Much of my life centers around tweaking my protein skimmer, scraping algae, cleaning spills, or figuring out how to unglue my fingers. I've been keeping saltwater aquariums since I was 12 years old. I love this hobby and the people in it!

I've mentored fellow hobbyists since 2002 on Bob Fenner's WetWebMedia.com site, and I was Co-Editor of WWM's Conscientious Aquarist online magazine. I've written several articles for Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine, "C" Journal, Reef Builders, and other online venues.

In addition to speaking at club sand events throughout the country, I am past President of my local club, the Marine Aquarium Society of Los Angeles County, present at MACNA XIX in Pittsburgh, IMAC 2008 in Chicago, MACNA XX in Atlanta, and will be speaking at MACNA in Atlantic City. I have spoken at many clubs throughout the nation. I'm really trying to complete a book on marine biotope aquaria and aquascaping before this century is over!

When I'm not trying to replicate the ocean in my aquarium, I'm usually surfing at my local beach-my other obsession. I reside in the Los Angeles area.

2:00 pm

Frank Burr - Quarantine for Reef Systems

In today's ever-popular hobby, we are finding more and more new varieties of pests and pathogens coming in on wild and aquacultured livestock imported from overseas.

Once these pests have a chance to enter the captive systems of the commercial and private hobbyist, they spread rampantly, endangering the healthy and successful advancement of our hobby.

This talk will cover aspects of identifying pests and pathogens present on incoming livestock and methods and procedures of quarantining and eradicating these pests before they get a chance to enter our captive ecosystems.

Frank Burr, President of IMAC WEST, the International Marine Aquarium Conference and owner of The Coral Oasis (Coral Farm) and Tropical Reef Oasis. Over 20 years Reef experience starting with a homebuilt 60gal mini-reef and progressing to multiple personal tanks, a coral propagation farm specializing in SPS, Acans and exotic Zoos with over 900 gallons of propagation tanks as well as a coral and fish quarantine system and a Reef specialty store with over 1000 gallons of display and show tanks.

Frank has spoken at several reef clubs and conferences around the country and goes on Coral Road Trips in California, Arizona and Nevada most weekends.

Frank is conducting ongoing research on improving quarantine methods and eradication of corals pests as well as creating and maintaining small low or no-maintenance self-sustained Marine biospheres.

Author of: Quarantine for Reef Systems.

Upcoming books: Self-sustaining Marine Biospheres and SPS Corals Made Simple

3:00 pm

Jake Adams - Reef Builder LIVE

Not everything that crosses Reef Builders desks makes it online. In his talk Jake will cover those stories and more with added pictures and video never seen before.

Jake Adams is a professional aquarist from Colorado. He has a Bachelor's degree in Marine Science and has worked with spawning corals in Puerto Rico. Jake is the founder of CORALidea.com and is a senior editor of a popular reef aquarium blog ReefBuilders.com. He has consulted on the design and installation of large reef tanks, retail stores and research tanks, and when he isn't speaking to reef clubs or writing for such fine print and online publications as Reef Life, Reef Hobbyist Magazine, Ultra Marine, CORAL., Advanced Aquarist and Reef Keeping Magazine, Jake also likes to work with freshwater planted aquariums.