DaveS

Welcome! Your skills as a reef keeper, handyman AND MACNA organizer will be quite the asset to the club! :clap:

Thanks for the additional responses everyone- especially to the out of towners who are visiting for MACNA. Very generous to donate part of your vacation to help out! We have a number of survey responses but some don't provide times or roles. Looking over the responses briefly, I would say we have about 25 people volunteering for multiple shifts. While we will take all the help we can get, having people help for multiple shifts is really what we are hoping for as that reduces training needs and confusion of tasks. I would estimate that we have about 1/3 of the staffing that we need. Factoring in that some volunteers, however well intentioned, may not show up or stay as long as indicated, we may really be at 1/4 of what we need. Keep the signups coming! We will start to work on a preliminary schedule soon to see how we are doing on help. Yes, extra hands would be great. You can just fill the surveys out for your parents and indicate they are your parents in the field for scree name. No promises but we can try to schedule things so your shifts line up if you want.

Another This is good advice. Another thing to consider is that MACNA entail quite the expense for these vendors- booth costs, travel costs, etc. Many vendor do, rightfully so, factor these additional costs in when they price their livestock at the show. You are unlikely to get killer deals on frags at MACNA like you do at WAMAS. What you will get at MACNA is an incredible selection of livestock as the biggest and best vendors in the country are coming to show off what they have. If there is some rare coral you are looking for, you can probably get it on the first day. Just expect it to be priced accordingly.

Anyone get anything good?

Yes, it's great to get volunteers who aren't even members! Just make a note under screen name and we will figure it out. We are up to 25 responses, about 18 of which are good. Remember, if you don't select times and roles, we may be limited in how we can use your help! Thanks.

As mentioned before, we have come up with a volunteer reward schedule for people that volunteer. This schedule is provided below. Please keep in mind that this isn't meant to be a form of payment for helping as you could put significantly more in your pocket by working a minimum wage job. This is really just a way for the club to to express appreciation and thank those who help to make the event feasible.

2 offers in 15 minutes! Thanks guys. Isaac, since you're closest, I'll hit you up tomorrow. Thanks everyone!

Looks like one of my EB8s has to go back to Neptune for service. Wondering if someone has one I can borrow in the meantime. Thanks.

Please see bullet #3 in the top post. All the jobs are prime jobs! We have gotten about a dozen survey responses. That's about 1/5 to 1/8 of what we need. Unfortunately some of the surveys are incomplete! If you are filling out the survey, please note that we really need to know when you will be available and what tasks you prefer. Otherwise, we would have to resort to assigning you to a random time/role. That's not good for anyone as people either won't show up or won't enjoy what they are doing. Again, thanks to everyone for filling out the survey. Hopefully we will get more responses as we definitely need it!

Good to note. Think the two of them can transport about 10,000 gallons of salt water from the Baltimore aquarium to the conference? That would save us a pretty penny! Just kidding, but thought I would throw out an example of the logistical requirements we are working to address. Having a good team of volunteers established and ready for the easy stuff would eliminate a major stress point so we can focus on other things...

Boom! Thanks for the offer Alan. Unfortunately things are a little busy right now and I'll be traveling so I need something that's all ready to go.

It's very nice of him to volunteer! We are still working out details on the swag bag packing. There is a strong argument for doing a 10-12 hour day the weekend before and packing them at the hotel. That would save us from transporting the 4-6 tons of material to the hotel later on. But there are still some logistics and costs to work out before that decision is finalized.

Thanks to every who has responded so far. We are now up to 9 responses, 2 of which were incomplete. Just 90 more to go...

Thanks tony. This is a good example of what was looking for. Anyone else have one? I'm thinking of pulling the trigger.

Looking to replace my existing solenoid and remember reading about these a while back. Anyone have one? Feedback? Worth the $$$?

Bump. 33 views and tons of other posts that have buried this thread. Yet only 2 people have filled out the survey. Not a good sign...

Go ahead if you can. We will pull out people who already have assignments but maybe we will give you something additional based on your responses!

Bwahaa....

All, As you know, WAMAS won the honor of being the host for MACNA in DC September 4-6, 2015. Please see the MACNA announcement for background if you missed it. This is quite an honor but also quite the task. It takes an army of people to run a multi-day, multi-million dollar international event with over a thousand attendees. We had another thread that discussed volunteering for MACNA for those interested. After 2 years of laying the foundation for the event, we are now at a point where we can turn from strategic planning to tactical deployment. In short, we are ready to start the process of allocating volunteers to tasks for the conference. In order to do this effectively, we have set up a survey in SurveyMonkey. Here is where we describe the various jobs we need help with and collect your contact information, when you can help out, and what you would like to do. We would like everyone who can help to fill out a survey and offer us as many time and job options as possible. Please keep in mind a few things: MACNA is run and hosted by volunteers and amateurs. Don’t be intimidated by anything as everyone before you was also figuring it out as they went. We are still figuring it out as we go. Despite all the planning, there will still be some things we missed and need to correct on the fly. Patience and flexibility will be appreciated. The actual schedule won’t be finalized for a bit. My guess is that somewhere around a month before the event, YHSublime the Volunteer Coordinator will be able to schedule people for their specific roles and shifts. From there we can look at training sessions and other things. If you could please just keep your time slots open that would help. Practically speaking, everyone should try to block off the entire weekend to be onsite so they are either helping or enjoying the conference. So without further ado, please go and fill out The MACNA Volunteer Survey

These set backs are quite common. 2 big water changes and you'll be back on your way shortly. If you can not make enough water than either spend a few dollars for it at a LFS or see if someone here can help.

New batch!

Bump, still looking!

I have a 55g stock tank if you want. Could move the livestock into that for a bit while the tank move is done and settled.

Maybe try the same density at the beginning and then letting it naturally thin out. What I mean is, feed some phyto in the main tank but don't add any more rots for a few days. The rots should continue to reproduce while your fry are learning to eat them. Once they really start to figure things out, the rot population should drop much faster than they can reproduce. Then you can start adding more from your rot bucket. For the Chromis, since they hatch over the course of 2-3 nights, I've found that many of the fry in the tank aren't eating rots right away. So if you keep adding rots like crazy, you will be putting in more than they can eat. Whether that causes a pollution or rot starvation problem I haven't fully thought about. Either way, it's not good.

5-6 gallons sounds about right. Less than that and ammonia, salinity swings and other things can be a problem. I'm curious why you think the rotifers were too dense. I normally have a very dense rotifer population in the fry tank. I've been told they should be able to get a rot within 1/2-1/3 a body length away. That means 2-3 rots per length of larvae! I also put some RGcopmplete in the fry tank to give it a green tint so the rots in the tank can keep eating and have phyto in their gut.