badxgillen

One week from setup and it already has a nice sheet developing, nice DIY job there. Did you start it off with that powerful Grow LED from the get go or was it a more "traditional" sump light in the beginning? I have some cheesy outdoor LEDs I was wanting to use for a project like this but was not too sure if the results would be worth while. How many watts is that unit your using now?

And now for some eye candy, you wanted to see some seahorses, corals, and fish? Here are a few for you to wet your whistle on. Beetlejuice Acans Heliofungias Crazy Open Brains! Hawaiian Zoas Grade ! Scollys. Blastos aplenty Acans galore! Harems of seahorses! Schools of Anthias Rare and sought after angels and tangs! And lets not forget about those wonderful Weedy Sea Dragons! A Trio Side Profile of one The back, lets you see some of the "barbs" and "Tassels" on the skin. These things are crazy, a little too specialized for me but still very cool.

Now how about some raffle winners!? PDXMonkey took home another prize, the coral magazine subscription! I love this magazine! Even more so when you don't have to pay for the thing Good reading here. Sirena and Emerald winning the All Things Aquarium Certificate! Happy Day!!! Aquarium Master's first meeting as well and he takes home a couple prizes too. A TPA certificate for $50.00 I believe, that shoule get him started out right. Kireek had a winning ticket, and received a $50.00 certificate to the Salem Premium Aquarium. Looks like a coral date to me. Reefer madness got in on the certificate winnings with a West Coast Corals $25.00 additional spending. Miles was presented with a WCC certificate as well. Higher Thinking landed another from West Coast Corals. Dominique too!!! Lexinverts made off with a nice zoanthid frag donated by our president, there were some nice looking polyps there Kim, good colors for sure. Albertareefs won a needle wheel venturi skimmer pump, always good to have back up...Or is this going to a new build? And speaking of builds... That Santa Monica algae turf scrubber found a new home with R-3 here, and from what it sounds like he might be using it on a new nano being pieced together...But that is just from the rumor mill, not too sure on the credibility on said statement...But we can hope. Another fine set of prizes from our generous sponsors, Thank You for suporting the PNWMAS Club! And Congratulations everyone!!! Thanks for participating, or raffle profits go towards the club so it is a win win for everybody really.

How about some more people photos!? Flashy Fins drove all the way from Washington to be at the meeting, I know you like your reef fish so hopefully the drive was worth the experience. These guys are fish experts here. \ I believe this was Boone's first PNWMAS meeting, and a good one to attend, looks like you enjoyed yourself too. I saw you walk away with some pretty nice acans there. After the talk and some mingling it was time for some raffles! I loved this picture I got of PDXMonkey. After he won the prize coral donated by North West Aquatics he was offered "something" out of the store and he says...To the coral fats! We might be able to fit that on the roof!..In your dreams!

And now for some shots of the club enjoying themselves. Everyone listening contently to the talk given by Colby, I think compared to a couple previous QT and treatment talks this one really hit home and made sense to alot of people. I learned a couple things thats for sure. Now what have we here? It's Lexinverts our vendor relations bringing the festivities! I also see InvertsRock and Kireek making an entrance, Time to get this party started!! Higher Thinking, XMas1, R3, and Chief chatting tank talk. Haven't seen any of these guys for a little while. Ron made a cameo, exchanged a couple sentences before he had to bounce out. I am glad you stopped in though man, always good seeing some of our local crew out here. Dawn here and Sirena in the background, nice meeting you and your family yesterday. Hopefully you all enjoyed yourselves and maybe we will be seeing you in the not too distant future. We have meetings about 11 months out of the year. I liked this picture of the coral flats being a focus of many peoples attentions, there was much to look at under those shiny bright blue LED lights it was amazing! I mean this is just one set of the trays there...Just Full of corals! Stay Out of There Miles!

Here are the kind folks that had us out right here, ready to educate all of us hobbyists about their t protocols. Hyposalinity, copper, prazi pro, fresh water dips and more treatments were covered in the quarantine talk. It was very informative. Tanna, J.P., and Colby here. They did a great job hosting and answering our questions. To be even more thorough in their discussion they included a fish biopsy for those of us who wanted to get down to the nitty gritty of it all. Microscope, gloves, small sharp scissors, and some glass slides. Here Tanna is talking about taking skin/scale scrapings and putting them under the microscope particularly infections, legions, or abrasions. Here she shows how to take a small gill clipping and fin sample via the small shears taking a sliver off for analysis under the scope. Intimidating too me on a live fish but I imagine one that has been sedated may be manageable. What we do for our fish.

Almighty folks, sorry for the slight delay, lotsa pictures to go through after work today. Lets see what stands out. As you know the PNWMAS May 2017 meeting was held at the North West Aquatics aquaculture and breeding facility. We had the privilege of getting a behind the scenes tour of the whole operation. And what an operation it was, just look at this set of fish quarantine tanks. Rows and rows of 29 gallon tanks and 40 breeder. Take a look at this massive mixing station, I guess you gotta have plenty of water on hand for changes, top offs, and fresh water dips. There is a beast water pup that churns the reservoir and can be diverted to pump water from the bottom container into the other elevated bins. Next to the water station was a whole alcove dedicated to live food cultures, you know when you have this many animals being bred you would need it. A mysis shrimp culturing vessel, he mentioned they are cannibalistic and need harvesting between spawning. A whole wall ready for another batch of artemia. Those seahorses sure are hungry all the time aren't they. They are hatching more shrimp our almost every day to try and keep up with demands. Here we have the room on the corner that housed the large tanks with the weedy sea dragons and the larger erectus seahorses. UV sterilizers and maximum filtration. And while talking about filtration, just take a look at this beast filter system! I heard you can get one fro the low price of $5000.00 After the tour Colby gave a presentation on quarantine procedures of new fish and ideal treatment methods for curing particular ailments.

Had a great time during the meet, stayed a little late to make sure things were cleaned up proper and the frag tank taken down. Afterwards Miles, Aquarium Master, and Higher Thinking met up with myself and Kireek at my house to finish up on some trading. We had a bit of a coral reef geek out and then everybody went on their way, it was dinner time anyways, that is after acclimating all those new corals.I snapped some AWESOME photos this time. Unfortunately I have a pond job I am leaving to do here shortly but when I get home all exhausted and slump down in my chair I will finish editing these shots and let you all see the great time we all had yesterday at the meeting. Also wanted to give a big Thank You to Colby and Crew, Thank you Kim, Sirena, Andy, Miles, and Bret for being great officers to the club. Thank you to our wonderful Board of Directors for keeping it Real! And thank you to all of our PNWMAS members for making this the best club out there. As always, it was a fantastic time. And those are some nice sea horses you got, all his stock looked to be pretty spot on.I bet they are some nice additions to your little horse corral. Will be looking out for that update...The 40 and all

I hope everybody has there cooler packed and ready to go, it's about time to get loaded up to head out to the meeting...And yes Albertareef, I have those two acro frags for you here.

Only a couple hours now, I got my cameras battery charged and my frags bagged. I think I am ready to do this.

Okay, here I am on the last day. Hopefully some one won't give me crap about the top down having the "rippily" from still having the pumps on and the little bit of algae on the frag base...I have a seriously bastard Melanarus Wrasse who just ate up all the clean up crew. Mine has grown none but colored up some...At first I thought of it resembling devils horns but now I feel like it is a "Rock On!" punk style coral hand...Totally Gnarly!

Tomorrow is the day! I am bringing two microlados and one twilight dragon yes? Anything else on demand or just bring a variety of things for the swap?

Should be killer meeting tomorrow, Colby and his crew will be there to assist and answer questions after the presentation...And it sounds like there will be corals for sale in addition to the frag swap the club is holding. Corals For All! Excited about tomorrow for sure!

A hitchhiker Tunicate most likely, very cool.

If you let some of us know what kind of coal you are looking for I am sure a few of us could bring a frag or two to throw your way as a pay it forward kinda thing.

Okay, I will bring the microlados and the twilight. Let me see if something else needs to get cut back...And I am not too sure if I have seen the CNC Halo?

Vert Nice, Very Nice indeed. Gonna hit some of that up the next time I am out your way, love the diversity.

I am chopping a few pieces off of my Microlados so if anyone needs one say so. I will also have some other SPS and zoas available for trade... I need to follow my own advice here and cut some things up so they can heal.

SASQUATCH FOUND!!! MISSING NO MORE! It's nice to have you back man, it's been a little while hasn't it. Glad you are making use of the new picture upload feature and making a build thread, it's pretty cool isn't it, not having to use Photobucket anymore. And this new tank is looking to be a pretty nice setup my friend, interesting rock choice, leaves lots of swimming room but still has some room for corals. Hit me up if you want to snag some zoas back at some point. If you'r going to the meet I can get some fragged up for you here soon.

I could use some better coverage over m 210.Where are you located and are you coming to he meeting? And what kind of corals are you looking for, SPSLPS, Zoas, Softies?

Some of you may have heard that the May meeting coming up is being held at the North West Aquatics breeding facility in Tangent Oregon. In addition to the presentation, tour, and raffle there will be another one of those fine frag swaps we put on every few months. Colby, who runs the facility, has mentioned he could facilitate our club with some electricity and some water, so we figured why not setup the small frag tank for the swap. Miles and I will be bringing in a setup to keep your corals fresh and looking good for those of you who want to do your trading out of the bag. If you would like, you can do your trading on the fly by just bringing by a few pieces and hoping that some one will have a desirable coral you want...Or better yet, you can post up what you have to trade and work out a preemptive exchange here on the forums, that method always works best for me. You can feel free to use this thread to post your trade-ables in or start a thread of your own. But First, let me get you some of Bert's basis tips for success here. 1.) make an attempt to have a fragment of reasonable size and health and try and get things cut and ready a few days to a week ahead of time to have the wounds healed up for the exchange. And double/triple check for pest invertebrates or algaes before sending your corals out, we try to keep invasives to a minimum here...And once you get your frags home, just in case, always acclimate the specimens then dip the corals before you put them into your personal aquarium. 2.) Try to package your corals appropriately. This can mean not putting a spiny coral like birds nest into a thin dollar store bag or not utilizing insulation on an extended cold or warm trip. Try a small cooler or Styrofoam. If you can't find either of these and the destination is a long distance, keep the vehicle air conditioned or heated appropriately. As far as packaging goes you can double bag and use thicker mil plastics, or something else like a Tupperware or specimen container. I have even used washed out yogurt or cottage cheese containers that stack well inside the coolers. Just use something that will work, nothing like losing a nice and colorful animal because the bag got too cold and leaked all the water out on the way home. 3.)Do your best to be courteous and fair to one another by not take advantage of each others ignorance or generosity. These are people of all levels in the hobby so give them the benefit of your knowledge and experience instead of the cold shoulder. And speaking of generosity, that giving nature has always been smiled upon here at PNWMAS and pay it forward tends comes back around these parts. Well, the meeting is only two weeks away so we got to get the ball rolling people, I'll get us started. Twilight Dragon Needs a trimmin

We are happy to announce that the PNWMAS May meeting will be a behind the scenes tour of North West Aquatics marine aquaculture breeding facility. The lead aquarist Colby will be giving a talk on wild caught and captive marine fish quarantine procedures as well as ideal treatments to follow. After the speech he will take us on a tour of his facility and explain some of the details of clown fish & seahorse breeding and what goes into culturing the live foods to keep them happy. At the end of it all we will get a chance to see his prized weedy sea dragons in person and that is a rare treat indeed. These things are amazing! These cell phone pictures do them no justice, I will have my real camera next time I go in, the first shot is when they were tiny babies. Once the actual presentation and tour are over there will be a raffle and frag swap to participate in, that is if your not too busy engaging in conversation with all the other reefers there. Miles and I will be bringing in an aquarium to put the corals in so we can do this proper, as usual there will be a separate thread for that exchange here shortly. North West Aquatics will also be offering up a very nice frag pack for the raffle in addition to our usual PNWMAS prizes so stay tuned for that, let me tell you he has some pretty good looking corals up in there. So come one come all and join us for a another great PNWMAS meeting and a killer coral exchange, these are going to be some informative discussions that's for sure, you won't want to miss out on this one.. Oh, almost forgot to mention that pizza and sodas will be provided so not to worry if you get the munchies before the raffle, your club has you covered! Being only two weeks away you really want to get that day off of work fast so you will be able to attend, the day will be Saturday May 6th: 2 -4 p.m. at North West Aquatics 33740 99Hwy East Tangent Oregon These guys are so cool, mother nature s so incredible.

Thanks for thinking of me Andrew, I am a little off the beaten path though and my Acropora microlados colonies are getting to the point I have to cut them back too. If any one misses out on this buy I am sure I can help them out with a frag at some point. A nice acro that once it gets going it really table out, as you can see in the Junkies picture.

That Bert probably knows what he is doing, apparently he sold out 5 of them for $80.99 before he put a stop to the Sale. :(

It does look like it is form of worm from the Eunicida genus, Vary cool creatures from an evolutionary stand point, not from a coral reef hobbyist point. The seltzer water trick works for a variety of creatures not just worms, animals cant stand the co2 bubbles popping all around as well as the osmotic and PH differentials. I actually snagged one of those "bobbit" worms from some rock in one of my accounts tanks, I keep it in a tiny nano that I gave to my oldest son, he appreciates many of the lesser forms of life or "pests".