April meeting Thank you

[Tazmaniancowboy]

Thanks for everyone who attended. It was great to see some old faces and meet some new ones. I had a good time talking with people when I could, If I missed you, Sorry! Once again the food was great from the Elks and it was definitely a nice place to deal with. John Coppolino's talk was great, I just wish I didn't miss a few parts of it. I also wish we had time for his other topic as well!

The frag lotto is really cool and I would like to see us try to accomplish this twice a year! It was definately better having the 1 minute timer in my opinion!

I would like to thank Reef Exotics, Champion lighting, Red Sand, Olivier, and Whitebird for the stuff they donated. I would also like to thank Copps for offering and bringing frags to us. I hope I didn't miss anybody. It was definately a great raffle.

 

[kevin]

My son and I had a ball!
Cant wait for the next one!

Nice meeting you Chris!

 

[malulu]

thank you all for organizing this...

indeed a great speech from John, for the ones that were not able to attend the meeting, i just list some quick lists below, there were many many more advises in greater details, may be other can pill in more...

- John is a strong believer on Quarantining our life stocks before put them in the main display tank
- purpose being not only watch out for decease that may come with them, it also let the fish build up strength during the QT period
- fishes are very stressful during the shipment, so feed them well (heavily) during the QT period, use dim lighting.
- he OT his incoming for about a month, and tried avoid to use medicine if possible.
- when put them in the display tank, don't just put them in, have a separate container or egg-crate to isolate them until no more aggression from other fishes, then release them.

 

[TanksNStuff]

You summed it up pretty well David. I'll add a few points I thought were important too:

1. QT isn't just about curing a sick fish or keeping diseases out of your DT (although they are very good reasons too). It also gives your fish a chance to be stress free before they get introduced into your tank. Stress is the main reason why a fish doesn't survive when adding to an aquarium.
2. Something he noted really stood out to me. Wild caught tropical fish are really put through a lot of stress before they make it to the store you buy it from. Sometimes they can be kept in a bag for up to 2 weeks without any food, kept in a small space, and no light. The lack of food causes them to "feed" on the fatty tissue of their body to survive. This leaves them weak and more susceptible to disease due to their weakened state. This is why feeding them A LOT is very important when you first get your fish. Try multiple food types until you find one your fish eats... and then feed it as much as you can of the one it likes.
3. The extra feeding will create additional waste and ammonia... which is toxic at certain levels. Therefore, more frequent water changes and quality filtration is very important for the QT tank. Moreso than your DT because it's usually a smaller volume and not as easy to cope with the chemical changes.
4. David mentioned this too, but I'll explain a bit more detail. Separating the fish when it's first introduced into your DT is important to minimalize the stress that the other fish put on the newcomer. If you're able to block off a section of the tank with egg crate or keep the new fish in a protected box, the fish won't be able to attack and/or harm the newcomer and it will feel safe. John says the fish can sense fear, and it promotes some of the bullying... so if you can eliminate or reduce the amount of fear time, the aggressiveness will fade much faster. Once the fish get used to each other, they get along much better and you can remove the separation device when you see the old fish stop bothering with the new one.

That's the stuff I picked up while selling raffle tickets, adding new raffles items to the tables, and other stuff. I can only imagine the important things I missed when I was being distracted.


Now that I mentioned the additional raffle items we had to add to the raffle, I think I should give a bit more thanks to Greg (Whitebird). He donated around 30 frags to the raffle and since there were so many we decided to group them into 4-frag or 5-frag packs instead of individual frags. There were just too many. Also, after the meeting, he donated another 15 or so frags that we added to the tank at the NJAAS classroom at Adventure Aquarium in Camden. Since that tank lost some of it's glory, we were able to add a nice bunch of easy to care for corals that should do well. Thanks again for that Greg!

David, sorry we didn't get a chance to talk more about the Reef Angel Controller... I was a bit busy the entire time, lol. You got my number so please call after work one night when you want to discuss your needs.

 

[malulu]

George,

i was thinking do we want to create a new thread as "Benefit on QT your fishes and why..."
and we can move these replied over there?

sure, will call you may be tonight or tomorrow night regarding the Reef Angel Controller.
thx

 

[TanksNStuff]

David, you can start a new thread if you want, but I think it's important to leave these posts here to give people an idea of what John's presentation was like.