Southern California

April 2 - 6, 2008: As soon as I received my invitation to speak at the Marine Aquarium Expo in Orange County, I quickly decided to arrive a few days early to check out what SoCal had to offer. Even with my camera breaking by the end of Day Two, I still found a way to enjoy my trip immensely. Brandishing a borrowed Sony camera for the rest of my trip, I ended up coming home with over 800 images total. Below are links to the various places I visited during my stay, and I hope you will not only enjoy the summation but feel the motivation to make the trip yourself one day.

Friday, April 4

Visit -- Hugo Zuniga (snipersps), Kenny Hsi (pookstreet), Tim Baker (reefpig)

On Friday morning, Greg came over and picked me up. He told me our first stop was Hugo's (snipersps), so we got to see his pretty corals first thing.

I don't remember the specifics, but once you started looking at the stunning corals, who cares about tank size or how much water is changed regularly? Maybe it's a 120g?

Please remember that all the pictures from this day forward, including the ones I posted of Hugo's tank, were all taken with the borrowed pocket Sony camera. I'll share the ones worth using, and skip the blurry failures.

Greg drove us over to Kenny Hsi's (pookstreet) home. Riding in the car was a rep (whose name I forgot) from Sunlight Supply. Greg is going to try out some new reflectors they've made. Don't look too closely in case this is supposed to be top secret. I think it was fine to share them.

What traffic? Tsk!

Kenny's neighborhood is beautiful. When we got there, the yard guys were making sure every blade of grass was perfect.

Kenny's AGE tank is in the garage, and his garage is insulated to avoid excessive heat in the summer. It seems this part of California can be a bit toasty. His lights turn on at 6pm when the price of electricity drops significantly.

All the ballasts were neatly secured to the wall.

His prop tank is lighted with T5s, which are housed in this box that can slide back and forth. You can see the screen he keeps on top of the tank to keep any jumpers in the tank.

A funny thing he pointed out to us when we were there was how he has a ton of GHA growing on the left wall of the frag tank. This acts like a shield or barrier so the main reef lighting doesn't spill into the prop tank, and vice versa.

The stand to his prop tank houses some equipment, but the tank is tied into the main reef.

Back on the freeway for a few minutes, none of that famous traffic I hear about all the time is there to slow us down. Of course, with Greg driving, I doubt that would matter. heh

We arrived at Tim Baker's (reefpig) home next. He's running a tank servicing company.

Not that you could tell, right?

His big reef was quite overgrown with M. capricornis with a very odd white leading edge. Every piece had the same effect. We discussed the possible cause, but now I can't remember what we were leaning toward.

I need to apologize for some of the images, which I tried to make look closer to real life. This one in particular is pretty rough.

Every picture I took of his beautiful Sohal was blurry, so eventually I caved in and used the flash.

Tim has a few frags here and there of that capricornis if you need some. LOL

The next two pictures are the same, with the focus shifted from one coral to the one behind it. Be sure to note how that acro is growing not only toward the back of the tank but also up the glass.

The only shot (and it would be blurry!) of his DIY calcium reactor and other gear.

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