Reef A Palooza, California

[AquariGod]

Amazing. Sitting in the hotel room just staring at my coral. I'll be back tomorrow !

Also met Mr. Saltwater tank,
He's a pretty cool dude.
Saw a few others like ThomasVision, and that one guy from marine depot's videos too.

Easily spent $300 today.
Going to spend another $100-200 tomorrow

Great prices on coral, a huge variety to choose from, and for some reason everyone's running kessils on their tanks, so that's an added bonus that they'll readily acclimate to my kessil back home.

This was totally worth it.

 

[dodgerblew]

Great time. Great event. Hats off to SCMAS. I didn't even see a WWC booth. Can't believe that. Sorry Victor.

 

[TankRazr]

How are you guys keeping your corals you buy if you hang out for the entire day? I want to buy corals as i see them during the day but want to hang out for the end day raffle? Do the venders keep them for you and pick up later? Make a trips back home? I would think palys and zoas would be good for the full day in my bags but dont really want to take a chance. Any suggestions? thanks

I live in Colorado, but just happened to be down in California while the show was going on. Being an avid coral junkie and former member of SCMAS I couldn't not stop by the show. So I popped in and figured I might pick up some bread and butter pieces for some clients back in CO. Nothing fancy or expensive. I bought eight pieces. Vendor bagged them for me and then put them in a plastic shopping bag. I went out to my car put them in a soft sided "thermal" type bag. I then went to a late lunch with a friend at a vietnamese restaurant in Westminster. I then stopped by a nephews football game in Orange. After that I went to one brothers house in la Mirada to pick something up for him. After that I drove back down to Garden Grove to meet with a friend for dinner. After that I then drove out the 91 and down the 15 to my other brothers house in Murietta. Brought the corals in the house lets say around 9:00pm last night. When I got in I filled a small water bottle with some warm water and carefully placed it in the thermal bag. I went to bed and woke up this morning @ 4:00 am. Hopped in the car and drove straight home 900 miles to Colorado, stopping a couple times for gas & food. I Arrived home just over two hours ago at about 7:15 pm and took the corals out, floated the bags to bring up to temp. Cut open the bags placed them in the egg crate and every thing is perfectly fine. Corals look great.

Corals were: birdsnest, war coral, cyphastrea, pocilipora, monti digi, monti cap, zoa's, and an acan.

Now having said all that. I must add that I've shipped fish and coral all around the country and have had stuff lost for days with little or no issues. I once had a very and I mean very expensive high end shipment of acan colonies get lost by fedex and ultimately come back to me nearly a week after being shipped. Expecting a devastating loss I was pretty amazed to find 98% of the shipment perfectly fine. Did I get lucky in this case? Absoulutely! Because it doesn't always go that way.

Now, I'm not advocating to be reckless or cavalier with live coral, but I've found that there are lots of corals out there that are pretty resilient and can hold up pretty good when inadvertently subjected to less than ideal shipping scenarios. Certainly not acros though.

Anyway, hope this gives you some insight.


TR

BTW: The show was great and I love seeing what it has grown into.

 

[dodgerblew]

I also had a lost box of acans and SPS from Cherrycorals lost by fedex and didn't get to my door for 48 hrs in the winter. Expecting a mess when I opened the box I was amazed to see the SPS in full PE in the bag and acans were fine. Hope it never happens again.

 

[jason g]

I had an awesome time today. I even made some new friends from different reef clubs. Thanks to all the vendors and sponsors for making it happen. I look forward to the next show here in California. My corals and fish made it home alive and well after a four hour drive home. :angel:

 

[AquariGod]

I'm almost home. The anticipation is killing me, I cannot wait to get these in my tank. Next week I will be going
" grow **** you ! " lol.

Super fun, completely worth the drive and expense. Met some awesome people as well, Jason. Didn't meet you though !
You might've seen me, I was that one kid holding bags upon bags of coral on every finger

I feel extremely privlidged to have attended. Nothing like I've ever seen, but then again I haven't seen much. Great show.

 

[Eienna]

I got to meet Justin Credabel, Frncis Yupangco and Scott Fellman.
And I get a VERY large chunk of montipora from the fragging demo...though whether it survive and color up is questionable.
I also got 4 (well, 3...one was DOA) berghia.

I AM STOKED. WHOOOOOOO!

 

[tuna_bullet]

Had a great time at the show it was lots of fun...Eienna you should of stopped by I would have hooked you up with the sunny Ds...........

 

[duke4130]

The show was cool. Hands down, Vance had the biggest variety of z/p to purchase....LOL...After walking the floor a few times we found a couple gems. I was surprised at mostly all the bread and butter type corals that were there. Last year there was a larger variety of collector pieces. All delight had a booth with some very nice stuff. I wanted to meet him and tried to introduce myself but some loud guy with a hat (if you read this you know who you are) was yapping his ear off... Lol.. Sexy Mike brought some heat with him, Aqua Sd showed up with a ton of corals. Two Guys Corals gave me two different prices at two different times for frags so that purchase didn't happen. BSA Corals brought some nice chalices. The guy at the WWC booth just kind of stared at me and didn't say hi or ask me anything when I was looking at their corals.
Last year I felt like the vendors prepared a little more for the show. This year had the weird feeling that most of the people threw a bunch of left over stuff In a bag and brought it to the show. It was a great time walking around and seeing a lot of familiar faces and talking to people but I think the vendors could have done a little better.

 

[tuna_bullet]

there was lots of fire at the show here are some goodies

 

[tuna_bullet]

 

[sexycorals]

Nice seeing both u guys duke and Vance. . Both great peeps from down south.

Duke: Sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you much and tell you about the new pieces I brought out. I was around and having fun more Than i should be behind my booth. I'll Def see Ya in text land. Overall great show. See Ya guys again soon.

Tuna : nice talking smack with you and nice meeting your wife. Crazy how much zoas you have lol

Cherry: thanks for taking care of my customers/ friends. .. james, Darren, nick and nate are very happy with what they got.

Gonz: tthanks for taking care of my bud.. he's excited and hooking it up right now.

This is getting too long... everyone else.. nice meeting you and nice seeing Ya again. Great show reefapalooza. Def tthe biggest and baddest show.... u are the mannnnnnnnnnnn Greg C.

 

[sexycorals]

One more.. nice meeting you Mike at the coral shop! Sorry took me a while to remember but glad to finally meet you dude. Hit me up when u got something you know I like.

 

[tuna_bullet]

Thanks Mike it was great to see ya again......and thanks for the positive feedback.....

 

[CherryCorals]

Nice seeing both u guys duke and Vance. . Both great peeps from down south.

Duke: Sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you much and tell you about the new pieces I brought out. I was around and having fun more Than i should be behind my booth. I'll Def see Ya in text land. Overall great show. See Ya guys again soon.

Tuna : nice talking smack with you and nice meeting your wife. Crazy how much zoas you have lol

Cherry: thanks for taking care of my customers/ friends. .. james, Darren, nick and nate are very happy with what they got.

Gonz: tthanks for taking care of my bud.. he's excited and hooking it up right now.

This is getting too long... everyone else.. nice meeting you and nice seeing Ya again. Great show reefapalooza. Def tthe biggest and baddest show.... u are the mannnnnnnnnnnn Greg C.

You are most welcome!

 

[AquariGod]

I loved your selection cherry corals, very polite and responsive vendors as well. Great job. I don't think I visited sexy corals, although I wish I did.

 

[sexycorals]

I just had a small tank and our booth is in the far back left of the building. away from all the crowds. But No prob though there's always next year. Or we might be adding another show or 2 to our schedule. see ya then.

 

[tuna_bullet]

had to make the wife dinner for hanging out and helping all weekend she is way happier now.....

 

[sexycorals]

We are so lucky to have them pretend they enjoy reefing with us

here's ours. .

 

[Eienna]

Had a great time at the show it was lots of fun...Eienna you should of stopped by I would have hooked you up with the sunny Ds...........

Other than getting the berghia I had NO cash. I wish I'd had your number with me, though. I would have loved to have said Hi! I probably saw you, too, but with the high-functioning autism I have a REALLY hard time recognizing people I've only met once or twice and especially in a different setting. I would have had to know exactly which booth you were at. Which one was that, so I know for next time?
As for Sunny D's, my new tank actually came with them...beautiful bright little things n____________n I still want some Rastas, though.

You are most welcome!

Gosh, I was TOTALLY drooling over some of the rainbow Acans at the Cherry Corals booth *_* I would have snagged every last one of them if I was able! XD

I just had a small tank and our booth is in the far back left of the building. away from all the crowds. But No prob though there's always next year. Or we might be adding another show or 2 to our schedule. see ya then.

I saw you guys and wanted to say I'd heard good things about you, but my self-conscious streak kicked in again XD



I discovered I'm a big fan of the Mummy Eye Chalice and will have to look into getting one. Phil Your Aquariums had a couple frags but I had no cash. XD told them I might have to order one later when I get the chance.