As usual, the coral collections running around the annual NextWave conference were amazing. The single day event hosted by the Dallas Fort Worth Marine Aquarium Society (DFWMAS) has been teamed up with Steve Tyree’s Coral Farmers Market over the past three years, and the corals just continue to look better and better, year after year. And the attendees seem to share that same notion, as the event was packed wall-to-wall with local and non-local aquarium keepers, most of which took home bags of corals. We wandered around the vendor hall, visiting all of the tanks and snapping off dozens of photos of equipment and corals, which can be seen below.
The corals that seemed to dominate the show were zoanthids and palys, which is no surprise, but we also noticed a large number of plate corals. And we’re not just talking about those plain looking orange or purple plates, but some of the nicest specimen we’ve ever seen. It also seemed that flower anemones were out in full force, as multiple vendors had several each. It was hard for us to pick a favorite coral, and there were too many top notch coral vendors to say that one of them stood out way more than the rest. That said, there was this awesome little miniature red carpet anemone at the Frag Junky booth that almost made its way home with me. The only reason I didn’t pull the trigger was due to the fact that our travel arrangements were still up in the air at the time the show closed. Of course, I’m kicking myself now because it will probably be double the price the next time I come across one. I guess I should have listened to Scott Fellman’s advice that he doled out during his talk.
We’ll quit blathering and let you get back to the stunning corals. Just be sure to come back tomorrow for some more coverage of NextWave. We’ve got a heartwarming story that I’m sure many of you would enjoy.
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- DFW Next Wave 2013
