USA – Chicago, 15-17 November, 2013

Heiko Bleher was invited by the organizer of the AQUATIC EXPERENCE at purely aquatic – giant – event in Chicago and they invited many other top speakers from around the globe.

There was an education-site for children (Kid’s Aquarium Contest), workshops, shark display and feeding, fishes of the world and living room displays, as well as seminars and much more. This gigantic show is predestined to become the biggest aquatic show on earth. The next Aquati Experience is scheduled for 7-9 November, 2014 at the same location in Chicago. See also http://aquaticexperience.org/ and for the line of speakers at: http://aquaticexperience.org/blog/page/2/

Below some photos from this amazing 1st pure aquatic event in the USA:

^{The Aquatic Experience was held at the new Ramada Convention Center in Chicago and Zeb Hogan was a Keynote Speaker …}

^{Heiko Bleher gave a talk on 50 years of discoveries and showed a few of the nearly 7000 species he introduced intothe most beautiful and educational hobby, including his recent (2012) finding of Blue and Green Discus living together in the Western Amazon region. He also demonstrated some of the amazing adaptation of species to extreme niches, like the Characidium (above) which lives all its live in tormenting waterfall in Colombia and nowhere else.}

^{There were many other top speakers, even Oliver Knott from Germany had been invited and Debra Spaulding (centre with Heiko), Director of Education & Programming
of World Pet Association, Inc. did a perfect job of coordinating all. The photo above shows all the speakers.}

^{There was a display to show the newcomers exactly where all their beautiful fishes come from …}

^{… and an floor show education place with demonstrations every day in the main hall.}

^{HIKARI USA – with a beautiful stand, one of the prime fish foods worldwide was one on the main coordinator and organizers of this great show. And the two behind this were the wife of the President fo Hikari USA (top) and Chris (above). Chris did an amazing job and actually was the one who asked me to come …}

^{Also ZOOMED had a big nice stand, and I must thank Gary very much (the owner), as he has taken consistently the back-cover page in our yearly DISCUSBOOK-series, also in the upcoming DISCUSBOOK04 …}

^{Lance (top with his wife and Heiko), owner of PYTHON Products, a dear friend of more than three decades has helped the hobby also to grow with his perfect products – worldwide – was also represented with a stand. Also David, from KORDON, a very old and well established company with excellent products (center); and Aquarium Adventure (above) had a very nice stand as well.}

^{There were several Aquarium Clubs represented and specialized groups, and a fantastic life-shark-display with several times a day feeding sessions and well explained reports were shown about these highly endangered species …}

^{Excellent Betta-aquarium display (very practical), and beautiful Discus were also shown …}

^{‘Whats up Fish Tank people’ displayed the most natural aquariums, just as they were done before and after WWII, the easy way without any fuss or CO2 (top). They decorated entire living rooms to show how and where aquarium to place (center) and had an amazing display to Explore the wondrous world of aquatics…(above).}

^{The session where kids could decorate each one a aquarium to win a prize was extremely well received and busy all the time and each participant was able at the end of the show to take that aquarium for free back home. This was a beautiful and very educational guest of the organizers…}

^{The new food company COBALT was also represented and helped to make this show a tremendous success (top). Masses of people all three days, sometimes impossible to walk (center), and especially when the Raffle took place (above).}

^{This might look like Sushi extravaganza, but actually the was a display of life corals and live stone corals. Altogether there were large marine displays.}

^{Old friend and top speakers everywhere… never seen so many in one single show …}

^{… and last but not least my dear friend Andy, owner of the world famous San Francisco Bay Brand and Ocean Nutrition foods, long-time supporter of aqua geõgraphia and our DISCUSBOOK series here together with Aleck, was actually the initiator of this fantastic show. Andy has been pushing and promoting this event for many years and finally it took off. And as it looks it can be the number one aquatic show. A show this beautiful hobby needs, a show which was once AQUARAMA in Singapore in 1989 through 1993 (when Heiko Bleher participated and coordinated the judging of the fishes and categories, invited the speakers worldwide to AQUARAMA and did much more for it)… The potential is there. See you all and hopefully many, many more from around the globe November 7-9, 2014.}

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