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.

The year started off pretty well with my first fish being added to the tank (water was added in May 2008 and I went slow) right before Christmas so there was a lot of new things done right off the bat in 2009 including more fish and corals, some equipment upgrades, more lighting and a lot of hit and miss tweaking to improve it all. I went through cyano outbreaks, nasty algae, losing a few corals to bleaching and some minor equipment failures but as the year closed, things were looking really good!

During the year I did not one, but two major aquascaping makeovers with the addition of some really nice pieces of Sumatra live rock with really nice holes the fish really love. It was nice to replace a majority of the lace rock I used to start it all. The fish really have some great paths to dart through but let me tell you it was a bitch to get it all to a place I liked.

This blog itself went through some great growth. I started off as just a side project on Blogger before deciding to get my own domain and move over to WordPress on a hosted server allowing me to have more fun with it and add more “oomph!” to the site. I was honored to have a few articles picked up on my favorite reef blog Reef Builders and was really surprised and honored to Jake Adams ask me to contribute some articles to the site on Blue-Collar Reefing. As the year progressed and our friendship grew, he made me the offer to come on board as a full-time writer right before MACNA and I jumped at the chance!

Blogging at Reef Builders has been great and this next year looks incredible for the site with plenty of great events to cover. Unfortunately, I haven’t been on here as much as I’d like. I keep meaning to pound out some prose but between work and everything else, I’ve been brain dead at the end of the day and just want to relax and unwind. I’ve deciding to use this platform to chronicle my tank and what’s going on more with that and of course, come in with some great topics on the hobby.

This past year I was able to bring in my friend Scott Fellman up from LA to speak at my local club and it was great to be able to spend a few hours in the car driving back and forth from Sacramento catching up and throwing around some great ideas about the direction of the hobby. If you’re looking for a sharp and interesting speaker for your club, make sure you check him out!

In June I went to BayMAC (Bay Area Marine Aquarium Conference) in San Jose and was able to meet more great friends  and get introduced to many awesome people in the hobby. Gresham Hendee put on a great event for hobbyists and clubs and was able to catch up with Gresham, Jake Adams, Scott, Rich Ross, Robin Bittner and a slew of other great people in the hobby.

The end of July I was able to head down to IMAC West in Long Beach for three days of reefing goodness on the historic Queen Mary. Once again it was great to catch up with all the folks I’ve met along the way and was able to meet some great new friends. Our club’s booth was right next to SDMAS (San Diego Marine Aquarium Society) where I was able to get to know two fun people, Jessica Timko and Pete Martis, who made the time there so much more enjoyable! Thanks for the sandwiches and potato salad!

It was also fun since I got to spend some time with one of my best buds from college, Ginn Sampson, at his place in San Pedro. Was great catching up and reminiscing about the times at San Jose State and found out he was a reefer too, except in retirement from a tank. Maybe someday the bug will bite him back, if so I’ll have frags waiting!

Technology continues to push the hobby in great directions and this year should be just as exciting. It’s amazing to see the new species that are being successfully captive bred and the needs of fragile corals being uncovered making it much easier to keep things thriving in our tanks. The amount of new information we get each year is great. So many incredible hobbyists and marine biologists pushing the hobby to new and exciting levels.

I’m hoping my system continues to thrive and I can clear a few hurdles in my own system to ignite and fuel coral growth. I have had some really great growth in some corals but others have barely grown in the year-plus I’ve been at it. Finding the balance of stability in the system is key and I am hoping through continued good husbandry (and improving where it needs it) I will see the fruits of my labor pay off in 2010. So stick around and check back from time to time as I start documenting the growth along the way. Reminds me I need to do a baseline post soon for you all…until then happy reefing and as my friend Scott says, “Stay wet!”