Nice INMAS meeting thisafternoon!

[justgettinstarted]

Thanks to bigreef and everyone else for helping to organize the fragswap and meeting today

It was nice to finally meet some people face to face!

Hope it was a good experience for all

[matt the fiddler]

garrett- your stuff is doing well.. :) looking forward to it coloring out. i am nearly officially out of room. 25's fill up fast...


did anyone get shawns seahorses?

[beeb]

Thanks for being so kind to my wife and I. We're total noobs and we can use all the help and advice we can get. We're glad we stopped lurking and came to the swap.

We look forward to seeing you all again in the future. Hopefully someday we'll have something we can contribute to the trading.

See you around!

beeb & Frag Hag

P.S. (Our new zoos are open & feeding & the shrooms look great)

[DensityMan]

It was a great time and a pleasure trading with all of ya!


Looking forward to meeting again soon. :D

[reeftechie]

nice to meet you all finally. look forward to the next swap.

[shaw]

thanks for the frags
shawn

[BigReef]

Wow, I was totally amazed at the number of frags that people brought. I think that the quarterly frag swap is definately the way to go!
I think it was Densityman who brought the light so we could see his corals... that was a cool idea.

4c- The frags/colonies :) I got from you are showing great color and polyp extension. The purple digi, is a sweet lavender color under my radiums... So far!

Matt the Fiddler- Zoos look great! I can't wait til they start spreading.

shaw-blue zoos are sweet! I've been wanting some for a looooonnnnggggg time. The Larry Jackson looks good too!

I didn't get a chance to look at everyones stuff but from the sounds of it, it was all sweet stuff.

Anyway, thanks everybody for coming and making this thing a success. I look forward to the next swap. Maybe my solid blue echinata will be ready to frag by then.

Thanks
BigReef

[overflowin]

i'm still kind of a newbie, but after this weekend i can actually call my box of water a reef... Thanks everyone!

hopefully next time i can bring more to trade...

donnie

[Fourseahorsemen]

Great to meet everyone. The frags I got from you shawn all look great, I mounted them in the rockwork already. The LJ and skyblue table from reeftechie and Collin and the other freshly cut acros I got have not RTN'd but have not extended yet either. Next time lets try to bring frags that have already been atteched to plugs or rocks, that way they don't have to fight the aclimation to a new tank at the same time they are trying to live from the fraging experience.

[matt the fiddler]

overflowin- exciting isn't it? :)

4cHorse - good idea on the attachment issue.. my LJ has extended, but some of the other non attached sps have not...
i need to go get some golf tees once i get my prop tank set up.

[overflowin]

4c - do you have a link to those plugs you were using? the ones that look like powerhead screens...

matt- exciting is an understatement...i've wanted to do this ever since i started my first FW tank when i was 14!

donnie

[justgettinstarted]

all the SPS frags i have gotten are doing very well... all haev their polyps extended... and the table is starting to show some light blue/purp on the tips!!!

I can mount frags, i dont care... but i know sometimes people dont like them on the rock cause then you have to hassel with mounting the rock and all...

next time let me know and i will do whatever you want... cause i dont really care!

[matt the fiddler]

my Lj is finally showing some purple today.. started- you cap frag was fine for me... :-) the anacropora has trippled in size already ...j/k

yea- i had to change so muchwater to get all my corals adjusted to the tank- [25 gallons + fuge here] that it stressed out the rest of my tank.. :/ and bleached some stuff- mainly existing sps/ all my softies closed up for 3 days.... first major tank wide stress i have had ---but stuff is already recovering

put all the new sps in one location too.

this will be nice grown out in 6 months....
http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=280951

[justgettinstarted]

my acclimation consists of dumping 2 cups of my tank water into all the stuff i got that was in a bucket... spaced out over 10 min and then into the tank! LOL

[reeftechie]

what is acclimation ??? :D

[matt the fiddler]

i drip everything.. for a realllllly long time...

i got these plastice airline splitters and gang valves .. make a spider[11 lines this last time] out of the line comgin from the tank.. adjust each drip to the right speed. then pull out the water as it goes- as smaller water volumes change faster...

3 hours later or so. depending on what i got- it goes in the tank..

yes overkill- no i have not yet lost a coral to the transfer...

[reeftechie]

god i hope not haha

[DensityMan]

Matt: what are you using to push your drips through a spider of 11 lines and drip restrictors? I'm assuming it is not gravity...

[matt the fiddler]

gravity work great... believe it or not. LOL

i was skeptical on if it would work with that many this time- but i got enough flow, and only had to run 1 siphon into the tank...

i have a head height of what 3.5- 4 feet from the water level of the tank to out put on most of the tubes...

i just T the line 10 times, with flow restrictor on it. all the drips were done in Little tubs in a large rubbermaid- so overflow was accounted for... and they were all close together... let me see if i took a pic of the setup.

i resorted to using those red plastic picnic cups as i didn't have enough tubs... for 15 frags....


oh yea. my biggest problem other than draining 35% of my water volume during this whole thing.. *yuck* was getting the flow ballanced between all of them- [which wasn't a big one] i could set the bottom one where you wanted it, but by time i got to the top upstream [and highest] i dind't have enough pressure to even havea a drip at the lower one....

[overflowin]

why not use 10 different pieces of airline tube? would be alot less complicated, but mayber a bit more cumbersome....

[Fourseahorsemen]

Nice coral-scape Matt.

Not trying to break balls about the mounting thing, I have fraged stuff right before meetings also. I just know with SPS it is better to frag a few weeks in advance to allow the frag to recover from being cut.

As far as aclimation, sometimes it is better to get them out of the shipping water asap if it is a small poluted bag of cold water.
My aclimation consists of floating the bag to get the temperature up a bit, then out of the bag and into a 3 min. dip in Iodine solution (Seachem). I don't want to add any of those red bugs!

I have the address at home, I will try to remember to post it tonight.

[DensityMan]

Matt, did you have a pic in there?

Not showing it (though Jeff seems to have seen it - this has happened to me quite often this month here).

I also float and add my tank water via syringe into the bag/cup. After 15-45 minutes depending on perceived sensitivity I take out the clip/frag/fish and release it into the tank... /shrug I'd love to drip acclimate personally... but time and wife constraints prohibit me most times... mostly the wife constraints... ;)

[matt the fiddler]

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=280951

i need a better camera...

[Fourseahorsemen]

ya, one with a really graet macro zoom. me too.

[matt the fiddler]

think my money is going to be for me in my tank- not in showing it off to others... =Þ


btw. go check the new premium cherry picks page :) that is helping me upgrade my tank... i don't have a good camera- but still a wizzard at photoshop :)

[Fourseahorsemen]

LOL, be sure to put those hot pink tips on the stag and the red polyps on the table...