The sponsor limit was set to help give more business to our sponsors. I feel very strongly about doing whatever I can to help them succeed.

I think if the contest originally said no more than $500 on corals, it would scare people off. I don't think most new people completely grasp how easy it can be to drop 5 bills on corals when they first get in the hobby. I also think that with the economy the way it is many people would be turned off by dropping that much on a nano tank.

I agree with Amanda that increasing the limit allows people to reach into their display tanks and stock the nano more easily. I have mixed feeling on making that easier to do. As the challenge of the contest is to show that you can grow corals in a nano not harvest them out of the display and have instant nano.

Keep in mind, corals that grow in your nano can be traded without impacting the spending limit. As an example, you buy 2 polyps of purple hornets, grow them into 10 polyps, then trade them for a sweet scoly...the scoly would count as $0 toward the spending limit. For those of you concerned about spending limits, you should think of this more as a game of monopoly...everyone starts out with a sum of money but you buy/trade to improve your holdings.

Part of me wants to do away with the spending limit all together as that would make life easier. But I also think it takes a lot of challenge out of the contest.