The BAYMAC (Bay Area Marine Aquarium Conference) is being held at the  Chabot College Cafeteria (Room #2300) in Hayward, CA on Saturday, May 8 2010. The conference will span from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m and admission is FREE. Check out great speakers, manufacturers, coral vendors, and local reef clubs. All ages and experience levels are welcome to attend, and participate in a huge raffle. Make sure not to miss door prizes, greats deals, and networking with other hobbyists.

A great addition to this event, is an aquascaping showdown between Matt Wandell of the Steinhart Aquarium and Bay Area Reefers VP Jeremy Foster. The two contestants will display they rock-shaping skills in a one hour competition. They will use Marco Rocks to create the best arrangement in a 34 gallon Current USA Solana cube.

The rules are simple:

• Each contestant has one hour to complete their design
• The overall theme is to design the tank as a nano SPS tank with pockets for LPS
• Each contestant will be given only the simplest of tools to aquascape the Solana 34g using a hammer and screwdriver or chisel only
• The design will use Marco Rock Key Largo rock and Marco Rock Bermuda aragonite sand
• Design the tank with a VorTech MP10 or equivalent Hydor in mind.
• Contestants will be judged on the basic design principles, water flow and overall mastery of their work
• The contestants will begin the competition going over the ground rules and with rock selection at 1:00 pm to go over with the competition beginning at 1:30 pm
• Judging will take place starting at 2:30 pm with the winner announced at 3:30 pm with the judging panel consisting of Sanjay Joshi, Joe Yaiullio, Christine Williams, Rich Ross and Brian Blank
• The winner gets bragging rights and a cookie

Felicia has been keeping aquariums since the early 90s and has a keen interest in taxonomy, aquaculture, and seahorses. she is the former Liveaquaria Diver's Den photographer and now works for Philadelphia area's largest aquarium specialty store The Hidden Reef.