We have seen so many strange things during this Interzoo, but to see one reef completely built by Lego it was been a new idea… and Tropical Marine Centre has astonished us as you can see from the pictures.
Tropical Marine Centre, or as it often recognized TMC is, before all, a supplier of corals and fish, and it calls himself European’s leading with the most offers of livestock.
It is based at Bristol, Chorleywood and Manchester in the United Kingdom and at Lisbon in Portugal.
One of its missions is to focus its job on maintaining the corals in the better healthy state, thanks to state of the art holding facilities and the great importance TMC puts on legal aspect of buying corals. So Tropical Marine Centre states that each hard coral species is conforms to CITES and EU Wildlife Trade Regulations.
You can also take a look at this document: Are your corals legal
Other than that, TMC is owner of three different brands, AquaGro for fresh water aquariums, AquaRay for lighting and AquaHabitats Aquarium Essentials for nanoreef, microreef and everything else related to these small aquariums.
Just arrived on Tropical Marine Centre we have been immediately attracted from the Lego reef, built around a small nanoreef, and I have to say that all the animals depicted were amazing!
Seahorse
Triggerfish
A wonderful Caulastrea furcata entirely built from Lego! Amazing, don’t you think so?
A magnificent Paracanthurus hepatus
A lionfish, Pterois volitans, one incredible beautiful fish, amazing, but that is a great problem for the reef, so it’s a news that Florida has banned the import of lionfish in his territory.
A beautiful Pygoplites diacanthus
Sure, is it more beautiful the true one or the false one?
Amazing, don’t you think so?
Take a look at the Stenopus hispidus in the center of picture
We have no more words, because all of us liked this Lego Reef
And here we have the people that built the reef with Lego.
But, obviously, the TMC booth was not only this.
A great looking nanoreef with a strange shape… just a couple of steps… we have loved this too.
Inside we have seen many Pterapogon kauderni, probably born in the aquariums of Tropical Marine Centre.
Chubby 🙂
Inside of the great circular structure there was this tiny aquarium where we could see the Spy lens, a new optical accessory that permit to magnify many particles from aquarium, as it could be a magnifying glass.
Sold by the brand AquaHabitats, they exist in two versions, from 70 and 90 mm.
Also if I was very skeptical, the result was great indeed, not like the one from mesoscope, but the spy lens are more easy to use.
It’s not easy for me to let you understand the potentiality of such a lens, but I hope they could help you to have an idea about it.
The 70 mm version has a macro view of 6x, while the 90 mm version has a simple magnifying view of 3x with a better depth of field, but can arrive to 6x.
E we are speaking about a couple of objects that cost 15 pounds for the 70 mm spy lens and 18 pounds for the 90 mm one, a very cheap price.
We didn’t know Tropical Marine Centre, but it was a great surprise. A great and big booth, the Lego, the nanoreef and the spy lens.
To learn more, please consult the Tropical Marine Centre website and our Editorial about the show:
Interzoo at Nuremberg 2014 – editorial
