It has been a week since our club meeting at Lori & David's home but for those who could not make the trip due to bad weather, I can try to sum up what we saw. They are just starting a 60 gallon with live rock downstairs and have a tall hex in the kitchen nicely sculpted with a large
peppermint shrimp and many soft corals. Upstairs the display has 120 gallons and 80 lb of Marshall Island rock, a bio-rocker sump and Nautilus skimmer. Populated with mostly softies including Leathers, Toadstools, Frogspawn, Bubble, and large tentacle Anemones as well as 2 fist sized Acropora. Fish include purple Tang, blue Tang,Clarki Clown, lawn mower Blenny, purple Pseudochromis, and mated Fire Shrimp pair. They run 2x 175 Watt 12K Sunburst metal halide lamps for 10 hours daily. What is more difficult to convey is the artistry of the rockwork arrangement and the large double handful size of these trophy corals. Very nice. Oh, I also want to thank you both for the generous food buffet, since it took so long in traffic, most of us were not able to stop for dinner.
The business of becoming a formal organization was handled quickly and by-law amendments passed emphasising education, requiring a minimum of quarterly Board member meetings, reworded the Board of Directors to vote rather than decide on issues, and formalized the Trustees to be seven [7] persons to include present officers and former pres., v.p., and secretary. Any positions open due to reelection or inability to serve will result in appointments by the president. We also established the four [4] appointed positions of Meeting Coordinator, Membership Coordinator, and two [2] Webmasters.
On a personal note our soon to be vice president Charles had a bit too much calcium intake and tried to grow stones. Many people will realize how painful that can be so we hope to see him fully recovered in January.
Sunday we visited Aquatic Wildlife and for the many of you who could not attend due to the last minute change in date, you really missed a wonderful opportunity to learn and aquire tank materials. Bob Lemke set us up with Greg Wilson the owner who has just moved into a fabulous new location a month ago. Apparently the former owner Dr. Clark was involved in a lawsuit involving the Dr. Adey turf scrubber patent from equipment installed by a former assistant of Dr. Adey. Sadly we lost a hobby enthusist as well as a coral culture expert. But Greg was very generous and spent the entire day treating us as family in his home. We saw his grow out tanks which are recovering from the move with an excess nutrient problem. They [2] are about 10 ft by 40 ft with large 400 watt 6.5K pendant metal halides and the afore mentioned turf scrubbers converted to very effective surge devices. He also has a similar smaller surge tank out in the retail area for curing live rock.
While his prices seemed very competitive, the special of the day was any coral, any size , $30.00. He also cut up and fragged a half dozen corals which we mounted on rubble and took home gratis. I think the stainless steel German bone cutters would make a very nice Christmas gift. He added Lugol's iodine to the water while pruning and mentioned he feeds his corals DT's Phytoplankton, Reef Pure vitamins & HUFA, and Reef Solutions from the same Ecosystems who manufacture the mud filter.
It would have been nice if the half dozen people who so much want a weekend meeting could have come an this event, I am certain it was much more hand's-on and educational than the business meeting in November. I really enjoyed Porter from Fish Store and More being able to speak Latin for us and Racheal Lemke who is an enthusiast planning for a career in aquatics. Curtis Wright has agreed to nurture many of the frags while some of us try to establish better conditions for their growth. Curtis even had his tank's photo on display at the store. Greg the owner had a pair of 170 gallon glass bowfront Oceanic tanks, one black, one cherry wood [unique], which really do seem to be as good as it gets retail, delivered. If you could have come, you should have, if you did not, you missed a wonderful beautiful weather group event.
William Fisher
wcfisher@mindspring.com
that night. Your trip to AW sounds great. I won't miss it next time. Nice pictures too.
