To ring in the new year Oceanpro Aquatics is graciously offering Ocean@Home readers a 10% discount off of everything! I was reading through some comments on the board and found one from Oceanpro President Michael Baker that got stuck in the spam folder (sorry Michael, comment is now live!) with this awesome offer. I guess reading Ocean@Home pays off! Click on the article to get the full scoop and the discount code.

Well 2009 came to a close and we have our first week of the new decade in the books so now is the perfect time to take a look back at the year that was Ocean@Home. This past year was very kind to me in the hobby and my friendships, knowledge and skills (or lack thereof at times it seemed) grew tremendously and this blog has been a big part of that. Big thanks to all my friends, family and mentors in the hobby for the encouragement and support.

As a special holiday gift, I wanted to repost this awesome poem by George Adkins, who is the president of the Central Oklahoma Marine Aquarium Society (COMAS), that originally appeared at Reef Builders. George has taken “The Night Before Christmas” and tuned it to our hobby. It is beautiful and funny, something you may want to share with your tank inhabitants on this blessed holiday—enjoy!

Happy holidays from my family to all of you! I am hoping you all enjoy your holidays and the special time with family, friends and especially your reef! It has been a chaotic couple of months on my end and am enjoying a 12-day break from work and am looking forward to the time to decompress and just enjoy some great times with family and friends.

Marine Depot is a quality online store and has some great tools above and beyond incredible deals on all your reef-related goodies, a growing knowledge base of useful information. If you already are subscribed to their email newsletter, then you are getting these great articles from time-to-time and if you haven’t head over to the site and sign up!

This post came about after I noticed I really haven’t been too active here lately and it made me realize I need to take more time for myself and for my beloved reef tank. Plenty of psychologists, therapists and life coaches know that it is extremely important to take quality time for yourself linking it to happiness, less stress and increased productivity. I’ve noticed I’ve spread myself pretty thin in a lot of areas and that’s not always a good feeling. I know my home life and tank has suffered a little bit and I’m hoping to get that all in check.

Pinch me I must be dreaming. I’ve been a big fan of Reef Builders and have made it a part of my daily-dose of reef knowledge and was stoked to be asked to do some contributing pieces on Blue-Collar Reefing but was honored when they approached me to become more of a permanent fixture on the writing staff.

As one of the biggest hobby forums out there, Reef Central was certainly showing her age. As other forums sprung up tapping into the latest and greatest forum software, Reef Central was stuck in the past. Serious modifications to the platform over time handcuffed the forum to the past but today Reef Central is getting a facelift shifting to a newer version of the forum software. The site improvements include a sleeker and more “Web 2.0″ user interface and a simple, WYSIWYG text editor.

I’ve been having a love/hate relationship with MACNA (Marine Aquarium Conference of North America) this week. I love it because its a great show and one many hobbyists, vendors and indusrty peeps look forward to each Septmeber. I hate it for one reason — I’m not going! Still, even though I’m not in Atlantic City for MACNA XXI I want to find out as much as I can and follow what’s happening at this reefing mecca. So here are some ways to keep up-to-date on what’s happening this weekend.

Boy, have I been lagging lately on posting. Its been a crazy month and at the end of the day I haven’t been able to get those bits of inspiration down in digital form–my apologies! I did have this idea after reading Scott Fellman’s post on tips to save electricity and money, so I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the tips and tricks I’ve found for saving money on fish, coral, equipment and more. Some of these are probably familiar to you and maybe a few are new to you, either way I hope you enjoy.