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!

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Field Trip With Stingrays & Sharks

     I'm officially about seven/eight months away from being caught up with this blog. To those of you that keep coming up to me and telling me how much you enjoy reading what I write, thank you. To those of you who insisted that I continue to write....

     Seriously, I do enjoy every moment of our hobby (except for any part of it that involves more money) but, I really got myself into something with this blog. Trying to plan our wedding, work, take care of four kids, teach one to drive (around her work schedule), plus this...what the hell was I thinking? A reality show would have been easier...

     So, it's March now. The public relations officer of CTARS has booked this awesome trip with the Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk for a behind the scenes tour of the facility. Yes, yes! We are definitely going to this!! If anyone has ever been to the Mystic Aquarium, it's a bit of a letdown when you are into reefkeeping and I brought Chris to the Boston Aquarium a few years ago because the first (and only) time I went to it I thought it was soooo cool. Walking up that round aquarium in the middle was like, WOW! However, once you become a reefkeeper, these places become more of a letdown and seem more like a morgue for the corals you care so much about. A behind the scenes tour of an aquarium we haven't been to sounded fantastic and it was nice to see the club doing something proactive again. 

     Pretty much the very first thing we were brought to were the touch tanks. These were Chris' favorite part of the entire tour. They had two sharks and a shit ton of stingrays you could pretty much play with in this large tank. Aside from wanting to throw the little kids out of the way, this was really cool. 

This Photo Courtesy of Amber Purstell

     We were then brought over to see the octopus they have there and the jellyfish room. I don't have a good photo of the octopus but, the below picture is of tiny, tiny jellyfish in that container :)

     A beautiful tank leads us to the back of it where they explain how they switched over to LED's recently. Ugh! Hate LED's! This would explain the decline in any SPS in that tank. However, the RBTA's are magnificent. 

     We head over to the backroom of what I believe was some sort of large fresh water tank. I could be wrong and the pictures of the fish I have can't be distinguished between a fish or a blob. 

     Then we went over to the sea turtle tank. I liked this one. Everyone got to go up and watch them in small groups from the top of the tank. 

     I think everyone got a kick out of the valves on this monster skimmer. 

     Then over to the tank that houses the fish that have been found in Long Island Sound. 

     Behind it, this tank...

     Then off into the back room of the aquarium. In one or two spots you can look into these little holes and see a small portion of what we were able to experience. If you ever go there, look for them and take a peek!

     Finally to the shark tank...to the top to watch them feed!

     We hit a few other spots and I have more pictures but, they weren't amazing or just more blobs. These were the highlights of the tour (to me anyway) which is why I posted what I did. 

     Eighteen tons of salt are used at this aquarium each year. I can't even recall how many thousands of gallons of water they had running through the entire system but, it was amazing! It's certainly worth a visit if you ever get the chance.

     Once the tour was over Chris and I walked the entire facility (missing the meerkats dammit!) and then spent another hour petting the sharks and stingrays :)

     Until next time...

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The FFM (kinda like the BFG but, really not)

     Ahhh....it's that time of year again. Yes, the FFM is coming. The Frag Farmer's Market held at the E.O. Smith High School in Storrs every year. This year makes for the 6th annual FFM. The first time Chris and I went we were like kids in the candy store. Zoanthids and sps everywhere! When we left, we vowed to someday set up our own tank someday and sell our frags too.

     This year was the year. 

     What is a Frag Farmer's Market you ask?

     'Inspired by the idea of the the reef club frag swap, the New England Frag Farmer's represents a regional event with "farmers" from all over New England gather to sell their home grown "crop." The E.O. Smith Coral Project opens the doors to the school for any local hobbyist, retail or online store to come in and set-up a tank to sell coral frags. Admission is free, so anyone can come in and chat with the farmers, share information and get a few nice homegrown frags to stock their tanks.' (http://www.eosmithcoralproject.org/FFM2013.html)

     Chris grew out his corals for months waiting for this day. 

     We made cute little shelves to go in each bucket we brought and made plenty of our own water to bring with us. We noticed a lot of people have issues when using the water donated (slimed up corals, no polyp extension and cloudy tanks). We made lists, more lists and then double and triple checked each one. We even had lists of corals on our lists! We were ready. 

     The morning of we woke up bright and early and started the transition of putting all the frags into the buckets. We had our oldest daughter come with us in order to help with the crowds and off we went, tank, lights, coral, water, cords...the kitchen sink :)

(photo courtesy of Rich Hogan)

     This is our set-up. Nifty right? Even with the old metal halide instead of LED's like everyone else was using, our corals popped with color and the polyp extension was crazy!!

(photo courtesy of Rich Hogan)

     And we were busy!!!

(photo courtesy of Rich Hogan)

     As were many others...

(photo courtesy of Rich Hogan)

 (photo courtesy of Rich Hogan)

(photo courtesy of Rich Hogan)

     At the end of the day we chatted a bit with Greg Hiller who had a booth next to ours. Chris gave him a piece of red dragon. I wouldn't have only because he kept saying "Red dragon, red dragon, red dragon!" in a childlike sing-songy voice every time someone came over and started talking about ours. He wanted a piece to try in his tank but, refused to pay the amount we were asking which was far cheaper than anyone elses at the swap that day. Chris does stuff like that all the time. 

 (photo courtesy of Lisa Messier)

(photo courtesy of Lisa Messier)

     We donated a dollar of every coral we sold to the Lutz Tank too. We tried to get more people on board with the idea however, only one reefkeeper saw me when I went over to Ron to give him the money and he came over and matched our donation. Maybe next year...

     Seventy percent of what we took home that day went to me for the wedding. I did use some of the cash to pay some bills but, the rest was squirreled away until certain vendors were found!

     We plan on attending again this upcoming year (2014) and can't wait! Those funds will all go towards the wedding too so if you see us remember to stop by! :)

Until next time....don't blow your bank account, practice safe reef buying until the FFM! ;)

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