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WAMAS Fall 2016 Meeting, Saturday, 10/22 - Joe Yaiullo & Laura Birenbaum, From Frags to "Riches"


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Saturday, October 22, 2016
Time: 1:00 P.M. - 5:30 P.M.
Where: North Bethesda Middle School
8935 Bradmoor Dr
Bethesda, MD 20817
 
Speaker: Joe Yaiullo (Long Island Aquarium) / Laura Birenbaum (ReefGen)
Topic: Aquarist of the Year and his First Lady's Cautionary Tale: From Frags to "Riches"
 
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Agenda
 
1:00 - 2:40 Sign-in / socialize
2:40 - 3:00 Club business / MACNA 2015 Report / Speaker Introduction
3:00 - 4:30 Speaker: Joe Yaiullo & Laura Birenbaum
4:30 - 4:50 Break
4:50 - 5:30 Raffle!
 
Miscellaneous
- food & drinks provided
 
Speaker Biographies:
 

Joe Yaiullo
 2016 MASNA Aquarist of the Year, Joe Yaiullo, spent much of his childhood maintaining home aquariums and exploring the marine life surrounding Long Island, New York. Now he gets paid to basically do what he did as a kid and has been keeping reef tanks for over 29 years.
 
Joe has a B.S. in Marine Science from LIU Southampton College’s marine science program, and worked for 8 years at the NY Aquarium in Brooklyn, New York as Senior Aquarist. In 1992, he began to shape his plan for a world-class aquarium on Long Island’s East End. In 2000, after toiling for eight long years, his plans and vision became a reality with the opening of Atlantis Marine World Aquarium in Riverhead, NY (now known as the Long Island Aquarium).
 
Joe, an admitted “Coralaholic”, currently feeds his ever increasing addiction with a 20,000 gallon live coral reef display. In true coralaholic fashion, a much larger display is in the planning stages. Joe has been featured in many reef keeping books and magazines, has given lectures all over the world, was awarded The Distinguished Alumni Award from Southampton College and was president of the Long Island Reef Association, LIRA for 12 years. 
 
Laura Birenbaum
Laura Birenbaum has devoted her career to the reef aquarium industry since 2001, and she has been a fish keeper and animal lover for most of her life.  She has worked on many sides of the trade including aquarium retail, wholesale, manufacturing, public aquarium, and even owned and ran a reef shop in Bellingham, Washington.   She earned her B.S. in Marine Biology at Western Washington University where she initiated, and since continued several studies on aquarium shipping practices.  From her broad experiences with aquatics, she learned her core passion was in wholesale aquaculture and founded ReefGen accordingly!
 
Laura is the proud Owner and Founder of ReefGen, a wholesale coral and fish aquaculture company founded in 2012.  ReefGen propagates a diverse selection of coral frags in collaboration with the Long Island Aquarium.  Laura enjoys leading the company's coral husbandry, propagation, marketing, sales, and operations, but her favorite passion has been breeding and selling Dwarf Cuttlefish (Sepia bandensis.)  ReefGen also distributes captive bred seahorses, sharks, clownfish, and much more to retailers across the country.  Now, in conjunction with Marco Rocks,  Laura is enjoying developing her new burgeoning company which produces aquacultured live rock.  Coming Soon:   Marco Rock Gen (MRG!)
 
 
 Directions to North Bethesda Middle School:

- NOTE: The school is just inside the north edge of the beltway near Old Georgetown Road.

Here's a map from Google Maps:

https://goo.gl/maps/bKz79Y9HmQF2


Special thanks to theses sponsors. Please support them & say thanks next time you shop with them. You can find their website address by visiting their forum or the sponsor page on the WAMAS website.

 

WAMAS Platinum Sponsors 
Air, Water & Ice
Artfully Acrylic & Incredible Corals
Avast Marine
Barebottom Corals
Blue Ribbon Koi
Capital Aquarium
Dr. Mac's Pacific East Aquaculture
Exotic Reef Creations
FishnReef.com
LRS Reef Frenzy
Marine Depot
- Pimped Out Aquariums
Premium Aquatics
Pure Reef Systems
Reef eScape
SaltwaterAquarium.com
 
WAMAS Banner-Only Sponsors 
Cobalt Aquatics

- Live Aquaria

- Industrial Test Systems (makers of the Exact iDip 570 Smart Photometer System)
 
Raffle Prizes*
$25 Premium Aquatics gift certificate (five chances to win!)

ITS exact iDip 570 Smart Photometer System (retail value $340)

Cobalt Aquatics CA Mysis flake food ($17 value, two chances to win!)

250 ml of EcoBAKbio pellets EZ from SaltwaterAquarium.com ($31 value)

CoralVue/Reef Octopus AF125 4" Smart Fan ($35 value) from SaltwaterAquarium.com

$75 Gift Certificate to Incredible Corals (two chances to win!)

AquaMaxx Hang-on Media Reactor from MarineDepot.com

Aquamax Media Reactor - XS from MarineDepot.com

Coral frags from Dr. Mac's Pacific East Aquaculture

$50 Gift Certificate to Barebottom Corals (two chances to win!)

Reef Frenzy frozen food flats (10 chances to win!)

Large Sump donated by Capital Aquarium (value $250)

$100 gift certificate from Pimped Out Aquariums (three chances to win!)

 

Sponsors on-site:

Dr. Mac's Pacific East Aquaculture

 

Members selling on site:

GWS3

Mr. Chalice

Treesprite

 

 
Watch this space for more information to be made available as it arrives!

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  • 1 month later...

Bump. Just a reminder that we have a meeting next Saturday. Come out and meet MASNA Aquarist of the Year, Joe Yaiullo and your fellow reefing addicts!

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Added coral frag donations from Dr. Mac and gift certificates from Barebottom Corals to the list of raffle items!

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For the raffle:

 

Just received ten flats of the best frozen fish food you can get: LRS Reef Frenzy! Treat your tank inhabitants to something really special!

 

 

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Adding an acrylic sump donation from Capital Aquarium in Manassas! Great shop. Thanks Zack! It's 30x14x18 inches.

 

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Sent from my LG-V510 using Tapatalk

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Jeff (Naga here on the forum), from Pimped Out Aquariums just donated three $100 gift certificates for the raffle. They're good on a custom steel stand, or custom acrylic sumps, top off reservoirs, or aquariums. You can also use them on any Roayal Exclusiv pumps on the website.

 

Come to the meeting. Meet up with your fellow hobbyists. Check out the member and sponsor sales.Listen to a couple of great speakers and try your luck at the raffle. We have a ton of stuff to give away this time. Odds are pretty good that you could walk away with something!

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