badxgillen Posted April 18, 2016 Share Posted April 18, 2016 The April 2016 meeting as you may know was a behind the scenes tour collaborated by the PNWMAS, MHSC, and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Large portions of these facilities were closed off exclusively for our team to get the most out of our visit and giving us the VIP treatment. All the amazing animals, impressive machines & equipment, made for some incredible setups. I was impressed on a number of occasions at each stop of our tour.But first I should back up some as we all had to meet up at the coast on one of the most beautiful days we could have chosen. When we arrived at the initial destination we were greeted by some familiar smiling faces, everyone seemed happy to see each other. JMan and Flashy Fins beat us to Hatfield but as long as we were not late for the tour I didn't mind. Kireek and Eclipse were along for the tour and looking back at this picture I must admit the first hour there was a little cold form the wind but that subsided rather quickly and gave way to shirt and shorts weather. Reefing Madness and Dominique made the trip and were some good company, good to see you there. There was enough of a crowd that we had to take tours in separate groups on one occasion, at first I was not too sure about how they would pull it off but they had another person at each facility to accommodate the extra number of people. Leading the tour of the first two facilities was our good friend Sid, IntoTheMystic. He is a specialist of many things in the Marine Biology field and it was a privilege to have him spearheading the tours. I am sure Tim Morgan is proud to have you on board and on his team, you do a wonderful job . Thank You Sid. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 18, 2016 Author Share Posted April 18, 2016 At the MHSC the tour started off this time outside, being so nice, that gave us a glimpse at some of the open top bi valve mollusk beds. Sid explained that some of these systems would have a slightly skewered outcome on various experiments due to excessive rain water during wet times of the year and they were in the process of building a new covered area adjacent to these units to move into. Always upgrading a fine tuning. Simple trough systems work rather well with many invertebrates. And look at how efficient these algae scrubbers are when they are exposed to high oxygen, nitrogen, and the sun! Some Serious nutrient export. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 18, 2016 Author Share Posted April 18, 2016 As we were escorted inside to resume the tour I couldn't help but notice the well read copy of Coral magazine on the foot of these stairs, great reads and a sponsor of PNWMAS now. I have a copy next to my bed right now. LED lighting...Hmmmm, it did seem to be rather prominent at all the facilities we went to including the OCA, but more on that later. After a brief explanation on what it was they did in these rooms and told the given rule of touch with your eyes and not with your hands, the crew was turned loose and was able to ask questions on all the various systems and livestock lining every wall. Plumbing everywhere, hoses for fresh water, cold salt water, warm salt water. Bins for holding, moving, or quarantining fish. And all the equipment in between. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 18, 2016 Author Share Posted April 18, 2016 And the frag tank is still in the corner with a ReefStar being its means of illumination, looks pretty familiar to me. If I had known the tank was still setup I would have brought some frags for their system, gotta spread the love...Always next year right? Had to take a brief moment to take a picture of the tank full of PNWMAS donated corals, its looking pretty good to me. A couple corals may look familiar to some of you. Room after room, each one filled with more and more marine educational goodness. Sid was great about telling us a little about what went on in each of the rooms such as this water chemistry lab we are in right here. Daily tests can be performed fast and accurately here with a number of means including water testing spectrophotometer, probes, and some good old fashioned API liquid reagents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 This picture was taken from right outside the door. It was another of the look but do not touch or enter areas and for good reason. The various live food cultures can easily be compromised via contamination. Whole colonies can become non viable once another becomes introduced. It seems to have filled out some from the last year when I had taken a look. My favorite room was were most of the projects where going on at. a clownfish breeding operation very efficiently setup here. Look at all these little guys, pretty healthy looking too. Got central filtration!? Not like thes guys do, this skimmer is a reasonable size for the systems here...Yah think? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 This gentleman here was the other tour guide and he was quite knowledgeable and of great assistance answering questions about many of the things going on. I believe his name was Collins but some one please correct me if I am wrong, very nice guy. Lauren and Dave getting a the most out of the tour, asking questions was encouraged and there was plenty of questions to answer. Another coral propagation system was sat next to a larger system full of larger mother colonies all of wich were now running LED lighting. HigherThinking was pointing out the sophisticated optics filtration system but I say if it works for your system then why not. I might try it out at home some time just for fun. Whats in this tank you ask?..Baby sculpins is the answer, Not only clownfish and sculpins were being raised but so were several types of seahorses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 Some very inventive setups and well thought out DIY systems. This experiment was testing out health in populations of seahorses utilizing pro biotics. And this was one of their anemone propagation systems. It was very sleek looking and clean, something I would not mind having in my home thats for sure. The pumps were placed in a position to optimize pushing the debris of the tank underneath and out of the system keeping the bottom clean and the anemones happy but not chopped. This Kreisel tank was looking like it might see some action soon so maybe next visit it will be full of Jellies, I mean what else would you use a kreisil for?...I am looking forward to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 Next up was the Oregon Coast Aquarium Tour. Some of the tanks were on another scale all together. Impressive indeed. I mean look at the plumbing installed here, this is for some intense amounts of water. These giants are sand filters that do the bulk of the water cleaning\polishing. I would not want the job of the 40,000 gallon back flush to keep it working properly. Did I mention the plumbing was big? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 The life support systems were all massive! You can see pipes and pumps every where behind the scenes, when you are a spectator on the other side you see none of this. The tour guide had us ascend a couple stories of stairs where we once again found ourselves in a room full of water, pipes and pumps. This room was certainly something special and it took a minute to gaze at everything that was going on as the amount of water was vast. I didn't know it at the time but we were directly above the underwater tunnels with sharks on one side and rock fish on the other. Here they seem to come up as if I might have a hand out or maybe just downright curious about this ugly mug. The ceiling had a sort of "train track" bolted in to the rafters that held a type of crane that assisted the workers in getting larger animals from point A to point B. I can only imagine moving sharks and whatnot but our tour guide also explained how they were going about training these animals to allow them to get do what they need to do with minimum stress involved. I did put myself in a seat and imagine for a moment what it must take to be a maintenance guy here...Hence the smile. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 (edited) Looks like Robert will be moving and taking up a new gig!!! Lol. I wish I could have been there. Some day I will make it!! sent from a Samsung note 4 Edited April 19, 2016 by matt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 That's so cool Robert! I really wish I could have been there! Always love your pictures and commentary! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashy Fins Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Thanks for taking pictures! I meant to bring my camera and forgot in my sleepy-eyed walk out the door at 6:30 in the morning. Did anyone take pictures of the itty-bitty baby jellyfish in the petri dish? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Looks like you guys had a great trip bummer i missed it! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted April 19, 2016 Author Share Posted April 19, 2016 Jellyfish!? There were tons of Jellies there. Jellies bred to feed to other jellies, and then even more jellies after that...As you can tell I like saying jellies. Here they are under the microscope, the jelly fish larvae, sorry about the picture. I had the auto focus in my haste. It was very cool to have the microscope on display like that. I know a few people took advantage of it. They sure had an interesting setup to keep all those jellies going, I did take many more pictures but didn't want to flood the thread completely. I know some other people took some pictures as well. It seemed like the jellyfish and the seahorses were some of the bigger attractions thats for sure. This guy certainly gave a great rundown on everything and really knew his stuff. Another time I was glad we got the special attention from the on site specialist. He basically gave everyone enough know how to raise their own jelly fish. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishoutawater Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 What an invaluable responsibility you have taken in. I can't believe how much of the tour information you remember. Thank you! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertareef Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 Thanks for all the pictures! I hope everyone had a great time - wish I could have made it. Seems like the seahorses and jellies might be new additions since I last went. Pretty slick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JManrow Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 Awesome posts and pictures! My old L2 phone/camera was dying, but I managed to get a few pics. I got a new L5 G5 Android yesterday, and very happy with it so far. Waterproof case on this one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JManrow Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JManrow Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) I noticed that there were LED Fixtures are now over the main large tanks that are holding sharks, rays, sturgeon, and rockfish. These were all previously Metal Halide fixtures. A few MH still remain, but the majority of them have been replaced with LED. Edited December 11, 2016 by JManrow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kknight Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 Thanks for sharing the pictures Sorry I missed the tour, looks like everyone had a great time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milesmiles902 Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 (edited) I haven't had time to post pictures of this event, but it so much fun that I just had to. Outside Tanks: Public area (Reefer Madness): Behind the scenes aquarium: Seahorse breeding: Awesome lion fish: Clownfish babies: Giant Pacific Octopus (badxgillen): I think it was rotifers, algae and brine shrimp: Jellyfish: Hang-on the back filter: Fish: Many more fish: Caviar anyone? : If you get a chance to go out to the Hatfield aquarium, make it happen. It will be well worth it. Edited April 24, 2016 by milesmiles902 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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