Origami

Note about the meeting: Dr. Miller be joining us virtually from Port Douglas, Queensland, Australia and we will be streaming his presentation live to the WAMAS Facebook group for those who can't make the meeting. Dr. Miller will take questions from the group in attendance at our meeting, but we will not be taking questions from those attending online via Facebook. Attendance via the Zoom platform will not be offered for this meeting as we will be hosting an expert panel to participate in the meeting. At this time, the confirmed panelists include: Bruce Carlson (former director of the Waikiki and Georgia Aquariums) Tamie DeWitt (Smithsonian Institution) Mary Hagedorn (Smithsonian Institution) Keri O'Neil (Florida Aquarium) Matt Pedersen (Coral Magazine) I will be updating the list of panelists as needed. Please join us next Saturday for some much needed face-time with our fellow reefers!

Awesome angle on that shot, Isaac.

Looking good, Lynn! I acclimated mollies to my frag tank many years ago. They will readily spawn and, if in a main aquarium, often wind up being a food source for other fish in the tank. That was the only batch that I did that way. I stopped keeping mollies because it just looked weird to me to have freshwater fish in the same tank as tangs and other reef inhabitants. But the dichotomy was sorta cool while it lasted.

The news release copied above was just released to outlets in the last few minutes. You may recognize Dr. Dean Miller's name. He's the speaker at our meeting on next Saturday, August 6.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 29, 2022 (Reston, VA, USA & Port Douglas, QLD, AUS) The Washington DC Area Marine Aquarist Society (WAMAS) has donated $20,000 USD to the Great Barrier Reef Legacy Living Coral Biobank Project. Great Barrier Reef Legacy, along with key partners have established the Living Coral Biobank Project in Australia. Funded by private donations, the team has managed to scale the project quickly to try and secure the full biodiversity of stony corals on the Great Barrier Reef in light of four mass coral bleaching events in just six years. After being identified underwater by Dr. Charlie Veron, the 'Godfather' of corals, colonies are collected and are being kept alive in a dedicated holding facility with an 8,000 fragment capacity for their ultimate conservation and to make them available for reef research and restoration efforts. A second larger and publicly accessible facility destined for Cairns Aquarium is now underway, with help from WAMAS. The new facility will be capable of housing up to 12,000 live coral fragments. "We have been absolutely humbled by the support and generosity we are seeing from the US reef-keeping community, with everything from registering interest in looking after corals fragments within home and office tanks, to adopting individual coral fragments within our facility, and now with large donations such as that made by WAMAS," says Dr. Dean Miller Managing Director of Great Barrier Reef Legacy and Project leader of the Living Coral Biobank Project. Since 2015, WAMAS has donated nearly $90,000 to ocean conservation and educational causes aligned with its mission principles. Asked about the selection of the Living Coral Biobank Project, WAMAS President Tom Land says, “We are alarmed by the threat climate change poses to global reef ecosystems. Solutions to safeguarding the biodiversity of these habitats is urgently required. The Great Barrier Reef Legacy team is doing excellent, innovative work that WAMAS is proud to support. We are very pleased and excited to be able to continue giving meaningful contributions to leading-edge reef-conservation programs such as the Living Coral Biobank project and for the new, larger facility in Cairns. And we hope that our donation can help lead the way to even greater support from reefing communities in North America.” The new Cairns Aquarium facility is a state-of-the-art, yet, off-the-shelf, system that will be replicated in locations all around the world where corals need to be conserved. "We are really excited to work with the reef-building community on what is quickly becoming one of the largest conservation efforts to save coral biodiversity on the Great Barrier Reef. It is through the blood sweat and tears and years of honing skills, expertise and equipment by the reef-building community and industry that is making this possible," says Dr. Miller. The Cairns Aquarium facility is expected to be up and running by the end of 2022. Currently, there are over 132 species of corals in the biobank collection representing just over 33% of the Great Barrier Reef coral biodiversity, with a plan to collect up to 50% before the end of the year. To learn more about the Living Coral Biobank or to contribute, please visit https://greatbarrierreeflegacy.org/projects/biobank. WAMAS is a non-profit educational society committed to promoting interest in and enjoyment of all aspects of the marine aquarium hobby by educating the public on the creation and maintenance of a marine ecosystem. They provide resources to the saltwater aquarium enthusiasts in the Washington D.C., Virginia, and Maryland area by sponsoring meetings, educational seminars, lectures, online discussions, publications, websites, exhibits, and other means, as a social avenue to connect with other local hobbyists in our area. WAMAS supports education, research and conservation efforts improving marine and coral reef environments. Contact: Tom Land, president@wamas.org Dr. Dean Miller, dean.miller@gbrlegacy.org

Another donation for the raffle from our generous sponsor, Puddle Aquatics! Puddle Aquatics will be donating two $100 gift certificates - that's two chances to win. They'll also be at the meeting showing corals and talking with members. That's a sure-win in my book. Thank you, Puddle Aquatics, for the donation and your enthusiastic sponsorship of the club!

Supreme Reefs is donating a $150 "mystery box" of corals (for pickup at the store in Springfield, VA) to the raffle!

See the meeting thread for updated information regarding members/sponsors on site for sales. I agree with Treesprite - it's been hard without having in-person meetings. In large part, it's been driven by the lack of space that was available to us for meeting. Just before our first cancelled meeting, Fairfax County Public Schools pulled the plug on community events. Montgomery County followed suit and we were left without public meeting spaces. We crossed our fingers, hoping that restrictions would lift (I think all of us did, didn't we?) sooner rather than later. Who honestly expected this to last two years plus? As the pandemic wore on, we made the investments required and figured out a way to to hold virtual meetings. This we did on several occasions, even bringing some of the most influential people to the community that would otherwise have been difficult to do in-person (e.g., Rich Pyle). It helped to keep people engaged, but was no substitute for maintaining the sense of community that in-person meetings are so important for. If you've stayed on top of things, you'll see that we've not only announced our next meeting (in less than two weeks), but also our first FragFest in over three years (our last was July 2019). FragFest was historically a summer event, but we moved it to mid-October this year because we wanted to work out any of the kinks that we might experience with in-person meetings again. Anyways, I'm looking forward to seeing a bunch of you again. It's been way too long.

Welcome, Doug! Please consider getting your RO/DI system from WAMAS' long-time sponsor, Air, Water, & Ice. Lynn linked to them way up near the top of the post. I've had one of their systems for nearly 15 years now and it's done well for me.

LOL. Been there....

Adding three $50 coral gift certificates donated by long-time member and sponsor, www.fishnreef.com. Long-time WAMAS sponsors deserve our support. Please show your appreciation and give them a chance to earn your business and your loyalty. Thanks!

Perhaps you noticed the mention? We're working on a Fall FragFest currently scheduled for October 15. There's a lot of planning and effort that goes into this traditional WAMAS event, so stay tuned for details. If you have corals that need trimming, consider holding off so you can give back to the community with a donation to FragFest. Especially if they're easy-to-grow, resilient types suitable for beginners and up. Thanks!

Added GWS3 to the list of members on-site, selling.

Bumping this just in case new members wonder what FragFest is. We're currently planning our first FF in over 2 years. COVID spiked the other two and we're excited to get this WAMAS tradition back underway.

Meghan... Doug's better half's name.

Adding two Full Conference Passes to MACNA 2022. in Milwaukee, WI this year. MACNA is the premier marine aquarium conference melding education, networking and sales/interaction with livestock vendors and manufacturers. A three-day conference (Friday-Sunday), MACNA will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin this year and draws attendees from around the globe. (I've been to very MACNA since 2013 and wouldn't miss it.) This year, our very own Nikki Bridges @ReefdUp will be speaking at MACNA for the first time! Her topic? Back from the Brink: A Systems Engineering Approach to Coral Triage and Rehabilitation. Fascinating! We're so proud of you, Nikki, and look forward to seeing you add MACNA Speaker to your resume! For more information, or to reserve your ticket/hotel accomodations, go to the MACNA 2022 website.

Adding five $25 gift certificates from Premium Aquatics to the meeting raffle. Thanks, Premium!

Thanks, Lynn! I believe that I already have you on my list as a lead event coordinator/planner! Thank you so much! I'm fresh back from almost two weeks away, so I'll be in contact and schedule an initial meeting with a few others so we can get our bearings and begin to move on the planning.

We just started listing members and sponsors that are planning to be on site, selling. They include Sponsors On Site, Selling Puddle Aquatics @LiVEWiRE Members On Site, Selling @BtmDweller @Lynne @cynthia @Samayoa @Mr.Chalice The list will continue to grow, so check back often!

Julian Sprung and the folks at sponsor Two Little Fishies have donated the following items for the raffle: 1 box of TLF AccuraSea Artificial Seawater Mix (50 gallon box). This is the stuff that we've used at MACNA in recent years for exhibitor tanks! A $27 value. 1 TLF VeggieMag ($24 value) magnetic floating veggie clip 1 TLF AlgaEraser algae scraping tool ($40 value) Thank you, Julian and company!

Pencil in October 15, 2022 as a can't miss event: WAMAS' first FragFest in 2-1/2 years! It's still early in the planning, but we think we'll be holding this at North Bethesda Middle School, the site of our upcoming meeting. The church in McLean that we used to hold FragFest in has closed, so we're hopeful that going to a place that is somewhat familiar to us will help mitigate any logistical surprises. As the time gets closer, we'll be asking for volunteer support from the community including Workers Saltwater donations Frag donations (typically trimmings from overgrown corals in your tank) for the frag give-away The meeting will be open to WAMAS members only. We'll also have a speaker and raffle, as usual. Stay tuned.

Any chance of removing the desirables on the rock and treating the whole rock afterwards?

I've successfully performed local treatment like you're describing with kalk paste by turning off all pumps and targeting delivery with a syringe and large bore needle. However, the paste has a habit of falling downhill so the path down needs to be clear. Taking the water level down seems like a good approach so long as the targeted area remains clearly visible. Polyps have a bad habit of retracting making spotting them difficult. If you can remove the rock and put it in a small tank, you may be able to treat underwater without risking other tank inhabitaants. I've also scraped and siphoned out pesky growths but it's a bit of a gymnastics routine to manage the siphon and scraping all while observing the area through a porthole viewer.

Dell, any luck with this? It's possible that the plastic has swelled, locking the threaded nozzle in. I donk know if there's room, but if you could thread a pvc cable saw (available at HD for under $10) around the nozzle, you may be able to cut it off, giving enough room to remove it. This is destructive, though. Sent from my SM-N976V using Tapatalk