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last weekend i had the priviledge of attending MACNA 2006. the only reason i went was because it was being held about 5 minutes away from my apartment. i really enjoyed it, but i wouldn’t want to spend any money other than a ticket to go to one of these things. maybe after i’ve been doing this for 10 years i’ll make a weekend vacation out of it, but as of right now it was just a welcome diversion to the weekend.

for those that are unaware, MACNA is the yearly conference slash trade show for all things salty. its in a different city every year and this year it was at the galleria in houston. so on saturday i headed over there around noon and bought a cheapo pass for the trade show. (tickets for the workshops/presentations/banquets are much more expensive and i wasn’t that interested in them) they had lots of great stuff to check out and frags to buy, so i’ll just highlight the stuff that stood out for me.

tunze nanostreams

these bad boys have been on my radar for awhile now. i’ve always known my maxi jet 1200s just aren’t going to cut it for a SPS-heavy tank, but since my tank is only 75g, i was wary about using a tunze stream. they just seemed too big and powerful for my tiny tank. and i just knew a sandstorm would be unavoidable. but the nanostream is meant just for me. don’t let the name fool you, they aren’t THAT nano, but they would be a nice fit in alot of tanks. there are 3 flavors: a 660g/hr, a 1189g/hr, and a controllable one that goes from 264g/hr up to 1453g/hr. the non-controllable ones should be coming out in october while the nice one is scheduled for around christmas. i definitely know something that i’ll be asking santa for.

profilux controller

this was my favorite of the show. finally a controller that doesn’t make me have to comprimise on features. first off it’s the first controller that supports wireless connectivity out of the box. hopefully this becomes a defacto standard; i still remember being surprised 2 years ago when i found out that controllers were using serial connections to PCs. what were they thinking? having ethernet ports was a step up, but who wants to run a cat5 across the house to their fish tank?

another neat feature is the expansion card slots. just like a PC, you can buy up to 3 cards to customize your controller. the only cards i’ve seen so far are for redox, conductivity and USB support. and supposedly the controller will automatically detect and work with the new cards, no firmware changes needed. i like this much better than having seperate versions of the same controller when the major differences between them are what they can monitor. (AC jr, AC pro, AC3, AC3 pro anyone?)

also of note:

• all your basic controller functions
• temp monitor/control
• pH monitor/control
• outlet switching
• digital timing
• web interface for online viewing/control
• windows program for control/configuration
• T5 and LED lighting control
• dimming
• weather presets (lightning storm was my favorite)
• powerhead control
• controllable powerheads (i.e. tunze) can supposedly be controlled with this. not sure if it supports all the stuff something like a tunze multicontroller can do, but i know that things such as “soft start” are included.
• external display (added $$)
• seperate display screen which can be mounted or placed in sight while viewing the tank so that tank parameters can be viewed without opening your stand and accessing the primary unit

frags!

of course who could leave out all the livestock? i picked out 3 SPS peices i liked. kinda upset tho, since one of them doesn’t look as nice under my lighting. all just tan and boring under my 14Ks. i’ll give it two weeks and if it doesn’t color up i’ll sell it. i’m really happy with my new milli and tort. hopefully they’ll keep their color.