steveweast

Jen....by no means was my post meant to make you feel bad....and if it did....I'm sorry. I only meant to provide some reality to the the discussion. If this thread's purpose is to have fun dreaming about "what if" then great...go ahead. I assumed that this thread was truly exploring the real possibilities of setting something in motion.....which I'm all for. The problem is....all these things have been done and explored before in this club and in its predesessor......and those wishing to explore those options again might benefit from the experiences of others who went through it during those times. Why repeat the mistakes of the past when you can learn from them ? Jen, when you say..... "However, if people want to try to see if they can rally some support and interest, what is it to you? " ..... the reason is that I care about the people in this club.....and someone is going to have to put their time, sweat, and money into this venture to make it happen. Many have failed and have gotten hurt......I'm only trying to put forth some thoughts and experiences that might prevent that from happening again by supplying some information that could lead to a successful, viable event As for Bob's idea....it's a great idea that has been tried before. Bob and I both know this.... as we have been involved with this club for a long time. It may be time to try again....of course it doesn't hurt to try again.....and I hope it does work......a combined Portland/Seattle metro area would be formidable. It's just that there is no data to support that right now....and lots of data to the contrary (how many from this area went to the TriCities event ?.....and how many from Seattle came down to CFM ?....and how many from Salem and South wouldn't drive to Portland for the annual BBQ ?)). I've think that I've brought forth the ideas that wanted to....I'll leave this thread now.

I'm not quite sure that you do understand the financial considerations. Events like those being proposed at the start of his thread are not financed by frag swapping or promoting aquaculture. Also.... "participation is voluntary " is the main problem....if you can't accurately reflect your attendance, how can you prepare an accurate cost analysis ? The organizers will have immediate out of pocket expenses like rental of facilities (certainly in the hundreds and perhaps thousands of dollars)....advertising costs....publication costs.....and set up costs.....plus logistic issues like getting saltwater for everyone (not cheap). These costs are sunk costs that hopefully are offset by rental of booths and ticket sales......livestock sales will only help slightly. This is the risk of organizing such an event. Revenue not meeting costs could be disasterous for first time organizers......and they won't realize that they're upside down until it's too late (because of low attendance)....ie....CFM. To me...as soon as you start talking about renting convention room space.... trying to get vendors....sponsors.....etc., you're talking about something that might happen years from now built from the success of smaller events. Walk before running....or you'll never run again.

My financial support of this club is probably second to none. I personally 100% financed two summer BBQ's so it could be a free event ( $1000 donation each BBQ) and gave the club a $500 donation at its start up. I would happily donate further for a worthy cause. I just want to quickly summerize my suggestion..... Try to use Reefapalooza as a model....not CFM. http://www.reefapalooza.org/ RAP was born from a meager backyard frag swap annual event that was geared as a fun, non profit event that had minimal, if any, expenses. If it tried to jump a few steps on the ladder, it would not be what it is today. Keep the short term goals acheivable......while still keeping in mind the ultimate goal. Trying to immediately be something more will just end in disaster. Good luck with your project.

If your goal is to be a CFM lite right off the bat....then you're doomed. CFM was a dismal financial disaster. It was commercially poorly attended.....and sales were below expectations. Let me tell you....I've never met someone as frugal as Tyree. He put on that event on a shoestring and it still never saw black ink. If your goal is to organize a local frag swap/sale that might someday grow into something more....then OK....that will work. I don't care either way....I'm not frag trader or buyer. I don't have a dog in the fight.... I just have insight and experience in the trade that most folks don't have from my relationships with retailers, wholesalers,speakers, and trade show promoters. Before you start promoting the benefits to the LFS (the real ones....not the garage operations), you might want to talk to them about how they feel about it. There's a reason why the main stores......Upscales, Soutas, and Fantaseas.....were not present at CFM. I don't view my take on this as "negative"....just constructive criticism where there's been nothing but pollyana coolaid drinking. A dose of reality and a broader view of the world is needed here. I think your assessment of how deep this local market is overestimated. What you're trying to do has been been done throughout the country. Learn from those folks what has worked and what has not.

A few more thoughts..... This past June, I decided to fly down to San Jose and attend the BAYMAC convention. It was on the small side....with maybe 15 vendors plus local club booths from all over the bay area......plus about 8 speakers. I was surprised to see only about 100- 150 total attend. This past July, I decided to fly down to Long Beach to attend IMAC.....which is a mini version of MACNA. It was extremely slick with many vendors large and small.....and many speakers. There were many booths with frags for sale. The convention filled three decks of the Queen Mary. The event was well supported by vendors like Seachem, Reef Nutrition, Quality Marine, and JenDub.....but, the people attending were in short supply. I'd be surprised if they got 1000 over the three days. On the final day when the raffles were held....I was walking around the raffle tables to see what was donated. There was everything fromm epoxy to chillers. They had boxes in front of each raffle item.....you just dropped your $1 raffle ticket into the box that represented the item that you wanted to win. Most of the raffle boxes were empty!!! With $10 of tickets, I could have "won" skimmers, chillers, and lights!!! In my conversations with the vendors, they were all lamenting that it was this way at all the events.....and that they were cutting back dramatically on donated items and being more careful in which event thay attend. Teco chillers was there.....and since I needed a better chiller for my cold system, I bought one there. I got a great show deal....but, I was their only sale. I'm really thankful though that there wasn't a 1hp chiller on the raffle table.....which I could have "won" for a few tickets.....they only had small chillers that were being raffled off. The moral is.....these economic times are devastating to our hobby.....and it isn't going to get better anytime soon. Any event (an especially a new event) should be set up with that in mind. Have your first CFM in a backyard or a store.....somewhere free....don't worry about vendor support.....build a following......start small and eventually graduate to the big boy pants. That's how Reefaplooza started.....and this year... it is being held at the Orange County fairgrounds (no more backyards for them). I hope to attend MACNA next month.....I'm really curious to see the economic impact on the largest event in the country.

OK.....I have a few questions..... 1) What makes you think that it is now time for an event like this to be successful in the Portland area when it has failed in the recent past ? not to mention that... at that time.... there was a well known name (Tyree) and a booming economy with many more folks in the hobby. 2) What makes you think that a small local event might be of interest to major vendors when they are curtailing their advertising expenses and focusing on major events like MACNA, IMAC, MAX, Baymac and reefaplooza ? 3) How are you planning to even come close to covering all the expenses of such an event when you can only draw from a tiny metro area ? The Portland area is only 1 million people....tiny compared to the Seattle area, the Bay area, or Southern Cal (15 million). 4) Do you honestly think that you'll draw from any outside area like Seattle ? When CFM was here, I only knew of a couple of Seattle folks who came down. They have their own frag events and would not come down for Tyree let alone for a bunch of local no names......how many of you drive up for their much larger events ? ...... how do you think they would feel about driving down for a much smaller event than the ones in their own backyard ? 5) What makes you think that there is any benefit for a local fish to participate ? these events compete with LFS. No LFS in their right mind is going expend the time and money to basically set up a small version of their store in a booth......and they get no advertising benefit (like a corporation might) since everyone knows where their store is anyway. The only ones who would benefit would be the garage operations.....who aren't as well known.......and the booth fee will be an obstacle for them. So......by my questions.....you can tell that I think that this is a lame idea that makes no economic sense. If you want to pursue somrthing like this, perhaps you should start small with a low to no cost venue.....no admission.....and try to build from there......which is what Reefaplooza did. Until you can build a following and show that you have some support and a following, you are a high risk to any vendor who must allocate his advertising dollars carefully in these dark economic times. If some of you are really interested in this concept, you should be attending these other events to see first hand how they function....like MACNA, Reefaplooza, IMAC, MAX, or Baymac.

Orlando I think

So....who is going ? I'm thinking about it since I think I might have a little time then.....but, it is a hassle to get there....no non-stops from PDX plus an hour drive from Philly.

It is so hard to keep up with all the latest happenings these days.....and most message boards are filled with so much "NOISE" that relying on them is useless. You can spend hours on RC these days and see nothing of interest. I now check out www.reefbuilders.com every morning and I can keep up with all the latest developments......and it only takes a few minutes. No noise on that blog.

Well....you're right Michael.....that's really old news. There's a blog that you might want to checkout.... www.reefbuilders.com ......it basically gives you all the new happenings and new products in a quick headline/article format. It'll will keep you up to date and only take a few minutes. BTW....did you hear the news ? the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank. (laugh)

Are you kidding ? The white bar boxfish is a $500 - $800 fish.....and coldwater.....water temp less then 64 F.

http://www.reefbuilders.com/2009/07/16/reef-central-offline-indefinitely-database-destroyed/

For shellfish yes...but, for the things we're interested in.....no...just stay out of reserves. http://www.dfw.state.or.us/MRP/shellfish/regulations.asp

Or how about real teams....like Lakers, Angels and Trojans

Not at all....all the anemone pics that I posted are equal or smaller than a Waratah. You just have to have a setup that maintains water temperature and quality. If you go to the biotope section on nano reefs, you see several nano coldwater tanks (although most are under-whelming)....but, small workable tanks none the less. The real challenge is getting the stock since none will find their way through the warm water trade....but, you live in the PNW.....so, there all at your doorstep. This whole scene could fit into a 10 -20 gal tank. (although the starfish would probably need a bigger tank) http://www.oregonreef.com/images/photos/cold_blue%20star.jpg

Why would you do that when there are so many other far more colorful and interesting cool/cold water small anemones.....not to mention the many far more interesting coldwater small fish ??? seems a waste to me to solely display Waratahs.

Yes......and no...... the native rocks are granite/basalt......so, they have no porosity at all and thus no denitrification. While it is true that the cooler temp slows down bacterial activity, it does not stop it. I used to run a sulfur denitrator with great success.....but, it frequently got clogged with dead bacteria and required frequent maintenance.....which is the reason why I switched to vodka. I wasn't sure that vodka would even work that well at the lower temps....but, it seems to working fine so far.

Because of the high feedings and no natural denitrification, my coldwater tank would normally reach over 100ppm within weeks. Before vodka dosing, I always water changed enough to keep nitrates under 20ppm. I then started vodka and increased the dosage until I felt the vodka kept up with the NO3 production.....I then water changed a few times to reduce the NO3 to near zero.....the vodka is now keeping the tank under 5ppm. So basically I found the amount of vodka to maintain nitrate close to zero....then water changed to near zero rather than using the vodka to lower nitrates then having to find equilibrium.

It took about 2 months to reach the current maintenance level ( I started at 5ml/day). There have been no negative effects....but, this is on a coldwater system...so, no hard corals. It has no effect on the fish...in fact, my catalina gobies laid eggs yesterday.

Frank....I've been running vodka on my cold system for a few months now. I dose it through a GHL dosing pump.....so, it is completely automated. I'm up to 18 ml/day on a 150 gal vol. It is controlling the N & P and algae quite well in this very highly fed system. I chose vodka over the sugar or vinegar from the numerous reports of the volitility of sugar and the pH reduction of vinegar. For me, vodka is the easiest of the three....no mixing......just set it....and forget it.

Here's another perspective. I've been reefkeeping since the late 70's.....so, I witnessed their birth. Here's how it all went.... Late 70's... Saltwater tanks were just starting out. They consisted of mostly fish...undergravel filtration.....no sumps or skimmers...bleached coral decorations.....and no live rock was available. The tanks were less than inspiring and rapidly developed issues with nitrite, nitrate, phosphate, etc....although we didn't know it back then. Early 80's..... The problems of saltwater keeping were "solved" by the new technology of the Dutch mini reef systems. The heart of these systems coming out of Europe was a sump....bacterial growth sites....and plants. The whole concept revovled around the new "wet/dry" sumps. These wet/dry sumps used a "DLS" roll (double layer spiral) for bacteria to grow upon. It was basically a thin fabric that was rolled into a spiral with the layers seperated by a plastic gutter guard material to allow air flow through the roll. It worked great.....except that it trapped detritus...and eventually fouled the tank. These systems rapidly converted nitrite to nitrate. Nitrate was now viewed as the main problem (we didn't test for phosphate back then yet).....so, the tanks needed vast amounts of this newly introduced saltwater plant called "caulerpa" to help nutient export. Mid 80's..... Eventually, no one really liked the look of the planted looking caulerpa tanks (and the caulerpa over ran the whole tank)...so refugiums began to spring up......and we started to realize that the DLS material was really a detritus trap that even pre-filters couldn't save. So, we needed an inert, plastic, high surface area material that could be cleaned occassionally......and bioballs were born. Our problems were solved....except for the end product... nitrate. At this same time, two major advances were coming into the marketplace.....live rock and skimmers. The skimmers were removing the excess nutients and the live rock made the tanks look realistic. Early 90's.... We started to realize....probably by chance....that the live rock was actually just as good as the bioballs in providing adequate bacterial growth sites. We removed the bioballs from their dry compartment and placed them in the wet compartment or removed them altogether. The dry compartments of a wet/dry filter was to have water "trickle" through this highly aerated section and super charge the bacteria into converting nitrite to nitrate. After the bioballs were removed from the dry sections, the tanks vastly improved.....eventually, by the mid 90's, bioballs were no longer used and live rock became the media of choice since (unlike bioballs), it had anerobic sections to remove nitrate along with the aerobic sections that created nitrate. At this same time, deep sand beds starting into fashion via the work of Jaubert. Along with improved skimmers, we were off and running now......and bioball use became a niche media.

Bioballs are just another tool and their use must match the application. Bioballs, if submerged, are employed to address insufficient real estate for bacterial populations. This will occur in fish only systems that have little or no porous live rock rock.... or in a coldwater systems where native rock is far too dense to support adequate bacterial populations....or in an artifical reef where there is no rock. Bioballs have no use in a conventional system with a normal amount of porous live rock. They will do no harm.....but, they do trap detritus and must be cleaned occassionally. As a coldwater keeper of a heavily fed non photosynthetic tank that uses native granite rock, I use alot of bioballs.....but, I would not in a conventional reef with adequate live rock. Their use in a convention reef setting provides no real benefit and their trapping of detritus is a real negative. In the future, as live rock may disappear from the market place, we might find their use become more ubiquitous.....but, for now, bioballs have their uses when properly matched with the right type of setup. Krux.....I find your avatar quite disturbing......perhaps something more in purple and gold (and starting with an "L" and ending in "akers") would be far superior ???