So who IS Jon Warner and Warner Marine?

As you all know... this is a hobby that borders on addiction.

I started a freshwater aquarium at age 11, kept discus at age 12 and started my first marine aquarium at age 13. I remember it well. It was a 55 gallon Show glass aquarium on a pine stand. I decorated the back glass with some of that foil background in a nice bright green. It used an undergravel filter, an air pump driving the lift tubes and a long bubble wand on the back wall. I decorated it with dead coral, several bleachy white pieces a red pipe organ and a brown sea fan. It was lit with a single fluorescent tube and filtered with an Eheim canister filter. I was quite the fish-killer at age 13. I'm sure I went through dozens of fish and kept restocking. Eventually I got the hang of it and managed to keep the same fish around for a while.

After college I started my first "advanced" marine aquarium. It was the 1980's and I went with a 180 gallon acrylic tank on a white washed oak stand with matching canopy. It was lit by a bank of T12 tubes, had a Thiel Aqua Tech sump and skimmer and series of reactors. It was quite advanced for it's time, bleeding edge really. It was decorated with aragonite based rock, no dead coral this time.

I dedicated this 180 to a collection of Red Sea fish. At this time, Red Sea fish were quite rare. So I remember finding a mail order advertisement in the back of a 1980's aquarium magazine offering Red Sea fish out of Egypt. I started conversing with the Egyptian dealer and proceeded to buy his fish. I had a beautiful and extensive collection including Chaetodon Semilarvatus, Mesoleucos, Falcula and Collare. I had a very rare (at that time) Asfur Angel, Arabian Triggerfish (Rhinecanthus Assasi) and assortment of wrasse and Pseudochromis.

At this same time I was managing a local fish store and learning how to purchase fish at the wholesale level from the livestock dealers. Within a few years I'd started my own business servicing aquariums and selling handpicked livestock to retail stores nationwide.
By the 1990's I was a partner in a retail store, still involved in livestock on a wholesale level and started my first reef aquarium, a 275 gallon custom glass tank. As a partner at the retail store we would purchase chemicals for our store systems. I would think, $10 for a little bottle of "what"? With my previous Chemistry background in College I knew what compounds were most likely in their products so I figured I could purchase the highest quality chemicals available and mix up my own products for the same price as the commercial products with their unknown quality raw materials.

I clearly remember going into a small Laboratory Supply store and purchasing Analytical Reagant Grade Calcium Chloride and Magnesium Chloride in little 1kg. jars. So I started mixing up my own chemicals for the store systems and the corals were looking great. Our customers started asking what chemicals "we used" on our system. So the next time I went to the Laboratory Supply store I'd buy the 5-10lb sized bucket of raw material, buy some empty plastic bottles and make some extras for our "special" customers.

Fast forward a year or so and I was receiving chemicals in drums and pallets. I was working out of a small warehouse and selling to dealers nationwide.

But we have always maintained the same mission statement. We use the highest quality raw materials in the hobby, better than what the other guys use. We have innovative products, unique formulas that perform better and our popularity with "advanced aquarists" is testament to the performance of our products. We were the first company to add an organic Carbon source to an additive in the 90's and our patent pending ecoBAK released last year is recognized as the leading Solid Carbon pellet in the industry, superior to the "me-too" repackaged pellets sold by numerous companies.

In 2007 we also started to offer protein skimmers and other accessories. In fact, we have a new line of models scheduled to arrive this March. These products are built with Warner Marine patent pending VBT technology and we're anxious to offer them to the hobby.

 

Wow, cool background. Thanks for sharing with us, Jon. This hobby has come a long way.

 

When I was new to the hobby, I wanted to learn everything I could. The internet is great... but believe it or not... they have these things out now.... called telephones.... that you can actually talk to live people ... in real time.... over great distances. You can actually talk to Jon... he has one of these "telephones".

Well it was a real pleasure talking with Jon about skimmers and what ever else came up. Always answered my questions... lots of them... and never made me feel like I was a burden... even if I was. He has a real infectious passion for the hobby. One of those hobbyist that participate, care about, and try to further the hobby. Jon certainly has some very innovative products, and puts some real thought behind what he puts out.

If Warner Marine puts out a product you are in the market for, you should include him. I'm not sucking up... all I'm saying is that there are those people that we come across in hobbies we do that you want to see get ahead. Jon would be one of those for me. Great guy and I'm real happy you came to a great site.

 

thanks Kevin... much appreciated.

 

Very interesting story. That was one of the few times I actually read through a post that long. Glad to have you here.

 

John, Great to have you on board! Bill From Nashville turned me on to the Ecobak product and I am about 4 weeks in and love what I see so far. Keep it up.

 

I've had the Ecobaks for almost four months now and am very pleased! Perhaps one of your new skimmers will find a way to me!!

 

WM skimmers can stand toe to toe with anything on the market. Loved me K2.
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The first paragraph sounded like my youth. Wonder where i went wrong after.

 

Jon what a great post - do you have any pics of your old 180 around? That must have been something.

matt