WAMAS Fall Meeting - November 8, 2025 (Saturday) Keri O'Neil (The Florida Aquarium)

[Gatortailale]

Fall Meeting 2025

 

WHEN: November 8, 2025

Time:  1:00 - 4:30 pm

WHERE: Green Acres Center, 4401 Sideburn Rd., Fairfax, VA

 

Speaker: Keri O'Neil - Director & Senior Scientist, Coral Conservation Program 

 

Agenda:
1:00 Sign-in / socialize / frag sales

2:00 Workshop - TTM QT procedure - @ReeferMan
2:50 Club business
3:00 Speaker - Keri O’Neil - "Advancements in spawning corals for reef restoration in Florida."

4:00 Break
4:15 Raffle!

 

Talk Topic:  Advancements in spawning corals for reef restoration in Florida 

 

Bio: 

Keri O’Neil is the Director and Senior Scientist for the Coral Conservation Program at The Florida Aquarium. She has over 20 years of experience in coral husbandry, and her work focuses on coral sexual reproduction, managed breeding, health, and optimizing the survival and growth of juvenile corals in aquaria. She began her career as an aquarist at the National Aquarium for 10 years, and she then returned to graduate school at Nova Southeastern University where she completed her Master’s thesis on optimizing culture conditions for Acropora cervicornis in land-based coral nurseries. Keri started at The Florida Aquarium in 2016 and has worked to develop a large managed breeding program for species native to Florida. In 2019, her team at The Florida Aquarium achieved the first aquarium induced spawning of an Atlantic coral, in conditions that will allow the offspring to be re-introduced to the wild.  Her team has spawned 14 species of coral and has raised and released over 20,000 aquarium-reared sexual recruits back into Florida waters. 

 

 

Sponsors On Site, Selling

Coral Candy Aquaculture @Coral Candy Aquaculture
Vendors On Site, Selling

 

Members On Site, Selling

@gws3

@Hyphnx

 

 

Raffle Prizes:

• Ocean Sea Wave Oscillating Powerhead Wavemakers - (Pacific, Gen 2)($389 value), donated by Champion Lighting & Supply.  1 chance to win!
• $50 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping). (2 chances to win!)
• $100 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping)
• $125 Gift Certificate for Fintastic Aquariums of MD.  1 chance to win!
• Two Little Fishies - AlgaEraser.  1 chance to win!
• Two Little Fishies - HydroCarbon 2 GAC (1 Liter).  1 chance to win!
• Two Little Fishies - PouchFeeder & Sea Veggies.  1 chance to win!
• Champion Lighting & Supply - Blueline 24" tongs.  1 chance to win!
• Champion Lighting & Supply - Blueline Frag pack (Bone-cutters, clippers, & glues).  1 chance to win!
• Champion Lighting & Supply - Nori Nibbler - Large Orange.  1 chance to win!
• Chemp-pure Blue.  3 chances to win!

 

Special thanks to theses sponsors. Please support them & say thanks next time you shop with them.

WAMAS Platinum Sponsors 

- Air, Water & Ice

- Avast Marine
- Blue Ribbon Koi

- Champion Lighting & Supply
- ChemiPure (Boyd Enterprises)

- Coral Candy Aquaculture

- Exotic Reef Creations

- Fintastic Aquariums of Maryland
- Frank's Tanks
- Reed Mariculture (Reef Nutrition)
- Reef eScape

- Supreme Reefs

WAMAS Banner-Only Sponsors 
- Bulk Reef Supply

- Cobalt Aquatics

- Coral Magazine
- Jellyfish Art
- Maxspect
- Two Little Fishies

 

[Gatortailale]

 

Raffle Prize Update:

• Ocean Sea Wave Oscillating Powerhead Wavemakers - (Pacific, Gen 2)($389 value),
  • donated by Champion Lighting & Supply.  1 chance to win!

Learn more about this item here:  https://championlighting.com/shop-by/pumps/ocean-sea-product.html

 

Watch a video on YouTube for more product details:  

 

 

 

Thank you Champion for your generous support!

 

 

[Gatortailale]

More updates coming soon on raffle prizes, vendors at the meeting, and other news.  

 

Now that summer is almost over we will get things rolling again on the next meeting.

Craig

[Gatortailale]

Talk topic updated: Advancements in spawning corals for reef restoration in Florida

& bio updated above. 

[Gatortailale]

Bump,

 

Workshop topic updated; and few more raffle prizes added over weekend.

 

Hope to see many of you at the meeting.

[Gatortailale]

Sponsor Coral Candy Aquaculture confirmed to be on site selling aquacultured frags. 

 

 

 

 

Also, if you are looking to pre-order frags of some small colonies, high-end corals, or torch frags, WAMAS member Graham has some pre-order special running in the member only for sale section of the forums.

 

Example images from thread:

 

 

 

 

[Gatortailale]

Post by Coral Candy of some of the coral candy they are bringing to meeting tomorrow.

Facebook post - See video for better image quality than my screen-grabs below

 

 

Zoas 5 for $75 rack