My Evicted Friend

     Chris was all excited late July after order two file fish in order to help with the manjo anemone infestation in our tank. If anyone doesn't know what one of these bastards looks like here is a photo:

photo courtesy of unclenedsfishfactory.com

     These anemones are truly a reefers worst enemy and after some extensive research, Chris decided to risk the fish and purchase them for the tank. Only some were known to 'nip' at sps polyps and even then, it wasn't detrimental. 

     The fish finally arrived. As usual, I was home to receive the package and acclimate them to the tank. I open the box and pull out the bags. 

     Oh shit...

     The first fish is upside down in the bag. This is not a good sign and incredibly sad. I pull out the second bag. The little guy looks just like his brother.

     I slice open the first bag and poke the fish. No movement. Damn. Now for the second bag. I'm not too optimistic but what the hell, right? I slice the bag open and actually put my hand in the bag. However, this time, the fish moves ever so slightly! Holy shit!!! 

     I pick the fish out of the freezing cold water and run over to the tank, pull off the lid and throw my hand into the water. Now it occurs to me that I just shocked this mostly dead fish even more. Good thinking Missie! I hold him there for a few seconds and it suddenly feels as though he bites me or something and I let go. Now he's floating sideways in the tank with the current and I fear he's going to go into our giant carpet anemone so, I scoop him back up into my hand again.

     I hold him for a while. Every once and a while I let him go to see if he can swim at all and then I quickly scoop him back up. I keep getting the feeling of getting bit or maybe he's putting little spikes into my hand, I'm not sure but, he's not ready yet to be on his own. 

     Eventually, I let him go but, I watch to make sure he stays away from that damned anemone. That anemone has eaten some expensive fish in a matter of seconds before. When the kids get home I keep asking them to look for the little guy too. I now have an attachment to the fish that I thought came in dead that I almost left in the bag. 

     Chris comes home and I tell him the story. I'm all excited because I saved the life of this little file fish. Within a few days he's doing fine too. 

     However, within that time he also begins nipping at the sps in the tank. By mid August Chris has decided to evict my little friend. He puts up some pictures on Reef Central along with a post about the little guy and a fellow reefer offers to buy him. Chris offers to give him my friend as soon as he scoops him up. 

Pictures of him slurping up some sps polys for a before dinner snack...

     He was caught soon after and given to our fellow reefer at the next club meeting. Every once and a while he'll post a picture on reef central for me so that I know he's okay and he always tells me how he's doing when we see him. He's a survivor...too bad he couldn't just stick to manjo's!

     Until next time, always check twice, like Santa does! 

Jersey's Frag Swap & Conference

     The New Jersey Reefers Club was supposed to have it's conference right after Hurricane Sandy. However, flooding of the Expo Center cancelled this date and instead brought it to June 15th. 

     Chris and his dad decided early on that they were going to split a booth at this frag swap in order to try to meet some new people and to sell the coral we have been trimming to reefers outside of our area. 

     I'll admit it, I was against this idea right off the bat. I didn't like the idea of going to another state and pouring out a ton of money for the booth, hotel room and anything needed for bringing and distributing the coral. It wasn't until about two weeks before the swap that I agreed to go. 

     I went down to Camero Signs and had a banner made for Chris to put up. I figured it looked more 'professional.'

     Just like the FFM, we brought our own water and this time asked NJRC to only hold a small amount for us just in case. We used our buckets with our homemade frag holders again, brought the tank that Emery made for him and of course everything else you could possibly need. Bags were on order to pick up at the swap and the bank account was all snuggled and ready to receive payments with credit cards too. We brought Emily with us because she was soooo helpful at the FFM and I borrowed my mothers car because it was way newer than mine. 

     We met Emery and Lisa somewhere on 95 that morning. We were pretty much operating on very little sleep and it was still up in the air as to whether or not we were getting a hotel room after the swap. Chris was worried about the corals and setting up the tank in the room which was understandable but, before we ever even got there I was exhausted. 

     Lisa bought us all matching color shirts to wear and even put little rhinestones on the ones for us girls.

     The swap went very well. We didn't pull in as much as we had hoped (all the funds went towards our upcoming wedding) but, we still had a great time and met some fantastic people. 

     Everytime I turned around Chris was off at another booth checking out corals and zoas! Just like a kid in the candy store. 

     Next time, we go back to using the light we had at the FFM or something else to help make them pop. The light we used drowned out the color of our corals terribly which I think kept people from buying some of them. 

     A ton of photo's of the swap can be found by Clicking Here

Photo by Hawkeye a NJRC member

Photo by Hawkeye a NJRC member

Photo by Lisa Messier

Photo by Lisa Messier

     We did end up spending the night in Jersey. We were all wiped after the swap ended. The next morning, Chris only lost one of the corals that he bought and we attributed the loss to him keeping it in the bag instead of just putting it in the tank with the rest of the frags.      

     Until next time, keep fraggin! 

Acrylic and a Blowtorch

     After a long time of discussing a different location with another member, Chris and this gentleman finally worked out a date for CTARS to hold a meeting at the Wildwood Christian School in Norwich, Connecticut. This school actually houses it's own saltwater aquarium in the room we were in so, it gave everyone something to look at and discuss before and after the meeting too. 

     Meeting topic: Working with Acrylic. This time though, Chris' dad Emery would be doing the presentation.

     Emery had been making some tanks for himself and they came out great (did you see the tank from the FFM? One of his!). The club had originally planned for someone else to come out and do the presentation however, it fell through. Emery stepped up and offered to demonstrate how to build a small frag tank and then raffle it off at the end. Chris wanted the proceeds of the raffle were to go to the Lutz tank though and not the club this time. Done deal...

     The turnout was nice, the room was filled and there was standing room only shortly after the demonstration began. These photo's are actually later on in the meeting (during the raffle ticket sale) but, I figured they made the point either way.

     Emery had made all the cuts prior to the meeting and started first by explaining the costs of a sheet of acrylic, where to buy it in his area, and how to make the cuts. Then, fire....

 

     After that, he began the assembly with Chris' help and answered any questions people had.

     Then he started to seal/bond the acrylic together. 

     While chatting with the President, Kyle.

     In the meantime, raffle tickets were sold for both the tank and for all the other items brought to the meeting. Chris put together some great frag packs and brought a large sps colony and someone else also brought a large soft coral for the raffle. Kyle brought a bunch of frags from his tank too as well as a few others. The raffle table was awesome!! 

     Here's our VP & secretary trying to play name that coral...

     The raffle begins.

     And the happy winner of the tank is Country Bob!

     Successful meeting! Everyone was happy afterwards, even if they didn't win the tank, and the Lutz received a nice donation. 

Until next time, stay fraggin!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2279985

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2286424

Like this blog? Subscribe & Follow! Don't forget to post your comments too!!!

A Meeting and A Christmas Party

     So the Ocean State Reef Aquarium Society is underway. Rich and Brenda call a meeting of the BoD at our home to discuss the nature of of affairs with the club and what direction it should go in. Rich, Brenda and Charleen all attend. It's been decided after a conversation Rich had with Jeff, the prior president of CTARS, that a conference will be put on next year by OSRAS. Okay. Good idea? Maybe, if they can come up with some money because the club only has a few paying members. They have made me Facebook Coordinator. I can handle this no problem. Go on Facebook a couple of times a day to see if there is anyone trying to contact me, upload pictures taken at meetings, update status whenever requested. Brenda seems adamant that she doesn't want to really open all the books to the the club members and dammit! One of these people broke my toilet seat while they were in my home and didn't have the decency to tell either me or Chris!! 

     I'll look past the toilet seat for the time being and just try to have some fun with new club members and see how this Facebook thing goes. There is a Christmas party coming up for the club and a Secret Santa. I plan on making my famous pumpkin pie for the event and Chris plans on giving away one of his frags as a secret santa gift. But, our phones ring constantly and our Reef Central inboxes are getting full with requests and questions on how to do things....these are very needy people! They really want Chris and his father to go set up tanks again to sell their frags as well as donate some of them for their raffles and they are very insistent on this. Chris says he'll see what he can do. He prefers to offer, not be asked...Smile, Missie, smile! You love this hobby!!!

Yes, they gave in and brought their corals, their setting up here.

Emery showing his coral

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

Frags

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     The day of the meeting comes. 

Filling out name tags

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

Secret Santa table

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     There is a woman named Deb there. I know her. She's very nice. She looks pissed. I ask her what the problem is. She's upset because she made all the food for the party and Rich is ignoring her. Oh, for crying out loud! Are you kidding me?! Drama, really? Does it seriously have to find me here too? 

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

     I spend a majority of the party in the hallway listening to the life story of how she has been there for Rich when him and Brenda split up and how dare he treat her like this, she paid for their oil when they had none last year and blah, blah, blah....I run to Chris when I see him and tell him I think there is some sort of crazy fucked up love triangle going on that I just got myself in the middle of and to help me get the fuck out of it! 

     He laughs, makes fun of me for always finding drama and asks for my help with something. Eventually we make our way over to the party area. (By the way, the food was wonderful and eventually I did talk Rich into thanking her and she came into the party...by the door if I do remember correctly.) 

    Then we went on to the Secret Santa part of the party which was actually a lot of fun. 

(Picture Courtesy of George Atkins)

      All in all the party was actually a good time. We had some great reef discussions with other members of the club. Afterwards, Rich and Brenda needed a ride home and wanted Chris' advice on how to bring their tank back to life anyway. We figured why not. That was an adventure all in itself. The tank they had set up was...dead. There was no living organism in it what-so-ever. The coral that was in it was skeleton that they were 'hoping' would somehow return from the dead. The live rock was white, no coralline, no algae, nothing. It was basically as if they has simply poured bleach in their tank...months ago. They had been adding so many different types of additives that they never needed to add for a tank that wasn't even close to being alive, it was purely insane. Chris gave them a few quick tips to get the tank started and we had to get out of there. (If you want a further explanation to that statement, ask me personally). 

     On a really good note, the BoD for CTARS is completely new and after the Christmas party that they had this month as well, Ego and his minions are gone! 

Fragging Workshop

      CTARS had been demonstrating how to make fish food for months and Ego had just simply irritated so many people that Chris and another board member got together and decided to hold a separate meeting that held no affiliation to any club whatsoever to teach people how to frag coral. 

     Chris worked out a deal with Happy Coral, Inc. to get in two very large rare SPS and anyone who chipped in $25 was able to leave with a piece of each.

     The Post read as follows:

Charlene and I have been speaking about having different types of workshops for some time now. For this first adventure we have finally come up with a date!

Saturday, August 11, 2012 I will demonstrate how I frag SPS, palys, and zoanthids and any other corals you may want to bring to the workshop that you have been hesitant about fragging or just don’t know how. This workshop will be hosted at Charlene’s home. (I’ll let her ultimately decide how we are posting or PMing her address)

I would like to purchase two large sized colonies to frag for this meeting as well. This would guarantee everyone leaving with at least two decent sized frags of a unique SPS for a decent price depending on how many people we can get to sign up for the workshop. The prices I am looking at right now (in order to get free shipping) would be a minimum of 10 people signing up at $25 apiece. Charlene and I are already in so we only need eight more people. This price could be more if there are less people!! Of course we could always decide if there are a large amount of people signed up, to purchase additional coral to keep the cost at $25 a person or lower the cost per person. It would be a GROUP decision at that point.

In addition, I have also already received a few coral donations from a gentleman that had to break down his entire tank because he had to leave in order to go serve our country. Not only do we thank him for those donations, but, we thank him for his sacrifice for our freedoms.

This is open to ANYONE. You do not need to be part of any club in order to come to this workshop, only a reef keeping enthusiast! Anyone interested is invited! You do not need to be part of the buying in portion in order to attend however; you will not leave with one of the frags from those corals.

I absolutely DO need a sign up list ahead of time however for the buying in portion of the workshop! I need everyone to sign up by July 14, 2012. On July 15, 2012 I will get the majority decision here on this thread on what we would like to do if there is a large amount of people signed up for the buying in portion (ie: additional corals or lower costs per person). All payments MUST be made by July 21, 2012 by PayPal. I can provide my address to you through a PM if you must send a check.

Donations are always welcome. Frag plugs will DEFINITELY be needed!!

Remember, bring anything that you want fragged but may be hesitant to do yourself!

This is something for everyone…a learning experience for those who aren’t sure about fragging and for those that do, a chance to get some frags they don’t have for an inexpensive price!

     This immediately became a HUGE hit! Everyone was going to be able to leave with a coral no matter what because the donated corals were going to be given away and if you bought in, you were going away with two cool frags as well. On top of everything, if you didn't have any experience with fragging, you also would have the opportunity to learn something! Win, win!!

     In the weeks to follow we collected the money through PayPal and then when the final date came up, we ordered the coral. Of course I'm always the one that has to accept the packages when the arrive and acclimate the corals and these ones I was especially worried about. They weren't MY coral to kill...they were everyone elses! On top of everything else, the owner of Happy Coral had already spoken with Chris and told him one of the ones he wanted wasn't looking good. He sent us three SPS instead of two and good thing because one arrived dead. The other was on thin ice but, Happy Coral had promised that if it didn't make it to the Fragging Workshop date that he would give each person a $25 gift certificate. 

     The day of the workshop arrived and everything went wonderfully. One person was kind enough to bring a ban saw and everyone was able to work hands on to learn and have a wonderful experience. Rather than go on and on trying to explain everything, I'm going to let my pictures do the explaining this time! 

Beginning set up. Charlene is tickled pink at the whole day!

Back room where people set up to make private sales

Some of the corals to be fragged

The two fella's explaining at the same time... 

"That's my frag right there"

Raffle area

You glue I'll epoxy....

Ready to bag up frags :)

Removing an anemone from the rock 

Removing some mushrooms straight from the tank as people requested them

Reef Central thread can be found here
http://s.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2185619