John, if I haven't shared enough of my admiration for you and your knowledge and complete focus on details before this thread, let me tell you this has certainly cemented my admiration in stone. You Sir, are the Paul McCartney of the reefing world. Incredible! Thank you John for giving us a glimpse into your world and mind.
Couldn't agree more !!!! You are The One True GODFATHER of the reefing world .
Regards,
Abhishek
Guys, you're making me blush... thanks for the compliments... I haven't posted very much in the last few years, and while I have many friends over often I don't show my systems off very much online... this is my first build thread I believe...
so it's appreciated... but I must say the true Godfathers and Paul McCartneys of this hobby are many... and were doing this as they say when I was in diapers...
One of the Godfathers is Dr. Bruce Carlson... As one of the organizers of the 2015 MACNA I was the speaker coordinator... to show the level of respect I have for Bruce I chose him as our Saturday night banquet speaker... the biggest speaking gig in the biz... it's tough to sum up Bruce contributions to our hobby... but to sum it up... Bruce started keeping marine tanks in the early 1960s... in the early 1970s he joins the Peace Corps and lived in Fiji... He's shared photos with me of his tanks in Fiji in the early 1970s where he believe it or not had Acropora in them... before I was born... it's just amazing... in the mid 1970s he started working at the Waikiki Aquarium, and after getting his PhD in Ichthyology Bruce became just the sixth or seventh Director of this historic aquarium that's over 110 years old... he spent over 25 years there and pioneered the keeping of corals... was one of the first to "frag" overgrowth of Acropora, and had the first public displays in the United States of the Pacific corals we all know and love... Bruce left the Waikiki Aquarium in 2002 to be one of the designers of the Georgia Aquarium... the owner of Home Depot sat Bruce and few others down at a table... and basically told them that he wanted to gift an aquarium to the city of Atlanta... he asked that they make the best aquarium in the world... and gave them a budget of 200 million dollars... and I thought I was nervous planning my system! They ended up spending 250 million dollars... and as they say... the rest is history...
Bruce is now retired and lives back in Hawaii, where his wife Marj works at the Disney resort and manages their swim through exhibit... I travel with my job to Hawaii regularly, and Bruce, my son and I went through the old aquarium...
Here's a shot of us at one of their outdoor exhibits... Bruce realized that he was having troubly keeping Acropora and other hard corals early on... they had sun, and they had pristine water pulled in from the ocean, but he realized they needed flow... he came up with a device that is now famous and named after him called the Carlson surge device... you could see it on the left... it's basically a giant vat of water that slowly fills... and every ten minutes or flushes like a giant toilet bowl and provides enough flow to grow incredibly large colonies of Acropora... just amazing...
It's like $9 to get in this aquarium... no Shamu or flipping dolphins... but the exhibits are incredible...
Check these out... on the left is Tridacna gigas... the next tank has a carpet and magnifica anemone... the third tank is a mixed reef with Acropora... and the fourth tank has a mangroves and a saltwater crocodile... pretty cool huh? Well... this photo was taken in 1980!!!!! Literally... I was in diapers...
Many of their exhibits have inspired me through the years... this is another... I think around 4000 gallons... these are the oldest clams in captivity... Bruce got them in 1982, and while one has passed on recently there is still one alive now...
As an aside I am a hardcore angelfish guy... in addition to everything else Bruce has done he described the Griffis' angelfish... Apolemichthys griffisi...
Another one of my huge influences who got his start at the Waikiki Aquarium (at age 12) is Rich Pyle... another PhD ichthyologist and amazing aquarist... the world authority on the Pomacanthid family, and a pioneer in deep sea diving... diving a rebreather with Rich is like having a friggin' beer with Sam Adams! Had Rich not just given a banquet talk at MACNA before ours he would have given Bruce a run for his money...
Crack a beer and read one of Rich's many great works... what a story...
http://www.bishopmuseum.org/research/treks/palautz97/cmd.html
How about the one who all reef fans look up to... the LIVING LEGEND... the great Dr. Jack Randall... Jack has described more valid reef fish species than any person in history... over 800 now... and has probably dived more than any person in history... Jack is now 93... but shares all of his knowledge so well... Jack can jam his hand into one of his encyclopedia sized books, open the page, and talk for hours about the one or two fish species on that page... in recent years he's had trouble getting around, so instead of me taking him and his wife to dinner... I picked up their choice of takeout and we ate in...
The list can go on... and this is just on the island of Oahu! These guys are the Godfathers and Paul McCartneys... rock stars and legends, and we as hobbyists owe so much to them... I read about them as a kid, and as you meet them you realize they all share a story that many of us do... we grew up as kids enamored with the oceans and coral reefs...
