The TSA Grand Prize Tour Experience!

[mrpontiac80]

Without further ado:

So glad you got to go on this trip!

 

[mrpontiac80]

Edit: duplicate post

 

[kevgib67]

Thank you my dear friend and fellow Pred buddy.

The mother colony’s on those monti’s would take up most of my DT they were so huge and beautiful.

I’ll be showing the arrival, placement and progress of these TSA corals for sure.

I think you will be getting a call from Hollywood, your performance was impeccable!

 

[kevgib67]

Thank you my dear friend and fellow Pred buddy.

The mother colony’s on those monti’s would take up most of my DT they were so huge and beautiful.

I’ll be showing the arrival, placement and progress of these TSA corals for sure.

Monti caps are easy to frag , you can use your fingers. They are like potato chips, you can keep them any size you want. I need to frag my potato chip as we speak.

 

[ESABOE]

So glad you got to go on this trip!

Thank you MrPontiac; I was blessed to do so and glad TSA shared the day with you all.

 

[ESABOE]

Monti caps are easy to frag , you can use your fingers. They are like potato chips, you can keep them any size you want. I need to frag my potato chip as we speak.

I won’t be doing any fragging - too clumsy. I’d have to experiment on big bags of Lays potato chips and even then… those are easily replaced at the grocer.

The TSA beauties and the rest of my picks will be fragged by my LFS here in Ventura Beach, CA (Bermuda Aquatics) who also services my tank, and where I get my fish from. They are awesome.

 

[BubbleBuddy]

Congrats on the tour and shopping spree @ESABOE! I’m subscribed to @TopShelfAquatics on YouTube and just watched the video. Looks like you had a great time. Impressed by the TSA facility as well. I’ve made a few online orders but will definitely stop by the store next time I’m in Orlando.

 

[WalkerLovesTheOcean]

You picked out beautiful corals, Jen!

 

[tbrown]

Omg ( that’s oh my god for you older reefers) that brought a tear to my eye Jen, might be the 30 mg prednisone I’m on. What fantastic picks you made! Absolutely love those monti caps! I will be on the edge of my seat waiting to see all of them in your tank. I am so happy you got to have that experience and he was so great!

I'm just glad it was her and not me! No way I'd fit $1000 of coral in my tank. But I would have sure tried!

 

[ESABOE]

Congrats on the tour and shopping spree @ESABOE! I’m subscribed to @TopShelfAquatics on YouTube and just watched the video. Looks like you had a great time. Impressed by the TSA facility as well. I’ve made a few online orders but will definitely stop by the store next time I’m in Orlando.

I did have a wonderful time!

You should absolutely stop by there and ask for a tour as they are proud to do so!

 

[ESABOE]

You picked out beautiful corals, Jen!

Thank you Walker!

 

[ESABOE]

I'm just glad it was her and not me! No way I'd fit $1000 of coral in my tank. But I would have sure tried!

You would have finally had to frag those colonies we all want and ship them to the Smorgasbord thread family! Then you would have had plenty of room!

 

[kevgib67]

I'm just glad it was her and not me! No way I'd fit $1000 of coral in my tank. But I would have sure tried!

Me as well, I’d have to buy a $1000 blasto for that one partially shaded spot I have left.

 

[Stang67]

Not sure how I missed this. Late as always.

 

[ESABOE]

Update on TSA Giveaway:

Corals:
My Shopping Spree corals and other TSA goodies will arrive at my house on June 10th. Some of the corals I chose were Cut-To-Order and TSA wanted to ensure they were properly healed and ready. This also gives me time to move some things around so I don’t deal with coral warfare from day one.

I will do an unboxing video and post here; and after 48 hours they should be open enough to take some photos of individual corals. Attached in “Jen’s Coral Corral” are just some of the corals I chose.

Moving forward, I will do more updates on my personal Build Thread (too hard to keep two going on basically same information). If your still interested in seeing what I would now call, “The TSA Journey Tank” and how everything progresses and grows out, you can go to my thread here:

Thread 'My Grateful Journeys Tank'
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-grateful-journeys-tank.1013672/

I’ll also make the effort to share a link to anything significant relating to my TSA-centric reef, here on this thread, but please understand if it’s not consistent. Best way is to follow the My Tank Thread badge.

 

[ESABOE]

Meeting Taras Pleskun:

I know everyone who entered and followed this giveaway were amazed by this young, brilliant, funny, TSA Lead Phycologist! He is the future of reefing and a key Thought Leader in the industry.

I had hoped to catch him there during my visit - and it ended up being a perfect Taras style comedy-sketch introduction.

As we’ve seen in the Taras Talks videos, he has a wonderful hidden section of the farm where the Phyto is brewing! It’s actually behind a dark curtain and it’s clearly labeled not to Touch or Open the curtain.

Well…. Blaine and I walked up, didn’t see Taras, and I commented that it was like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain. So, of course we opened the curtain. We were so busy studying the jars, we almost didn’t see Taras enter the facility. The photos attached are our reaction to getting caught and Taras’ surprise that “Man, had entered the forest” (Bambi reference). Note the big sign on the rack that says don’t touch, which is next to my hand clearly touching the rack! Not the impression I wanted to make when first meeting him - Hilarious.

Actually though, he couldn’t have been more gracious and was happy to show us his laboratory. He spoke about taking the time to understand the who/what/why aspect of what’s inside our tanks vs. the 3-second attention span of interest in this social media world, and the overall intent of all his TSA videos to share his knowledge so we may re-wire our brains to take reefing at a much deeper micro and macro level. I loved that he gave a lesson in under 3 minutes and still fit in a joke about Mt. Rushmore!

I was so giddy to meet him. I forgot to get a photo with him though.


@TopShelfAquatics @BlaineTopShelfAquatics @revhtree

 

[ESABOE]

Bonus gift of the giveaway, a customized Adaptive Reef Control Board -posting shortly

 

[ESABOE]

This was the first raceway I saw in the retail store - full of Euphilia. Big, fluffy specimens, no tiny thumbnail frags here! Taking one of these home and putting in your display, you would instantly have a showpiece that could be seen at any angle. I love hammers and have a lovely grove of them in my DT, including an TSA Hologram; and it was hard not to just to fill-up my shopping spree cart right here and go home quite content!

 

[ESABOE]

We were ending the day and were on the way out the door when Blaine said I just really needed this coral he spotted - a Laffy Taffy!

Gorgeous, sunset orange with the surprise of orchid underneath!

I did not say no- hehe.

 

[ESABOE]

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