AlanM

Next up on raffle: Aqua Gadget Reef Rack 102 Expandable Frag Rack, Holds up to 102 frag plugs (small ones) on 5 tiers. $40 value, one chance to win

Added to the raffle: BRS Standard Coral Propagation Kit with Glue Four chances to Win! $35 value

Added to the raffle 1 Frag seller setup! We will use this setup on the frag tank we use to maintain the giveaway frags before we hand them out to members and will include it in the raffle at the end. It includes: 1 Maxspect Jump 30W LED 1 Eheim Jager heater, 100W 1 Maxi-Jet 600 Powerhead Retail on all of them is around $175. Add a 20 gallon tank and you're in business to sell frags at a meeting!

New to the auction for Saturday. Indo Gold Torch $200 value 1 chance to win

New to the auction for Saturday. Black Widow Bubble Tip Anemone. $200 value 1 chance to win

If members want to come to set up a tank and sell frags please PM me so we can be sure there are enough tables. We usually have plenty of room at North Bethesda.

Discussion and volunteer thread here:

Just a quick bump for FragFest in two weeks at North Bethesda Middle School. I've updated the speaker bio here. Dr Mitchelmore has spoken to SMMAS in the past but never to WAMAS, and she is full of information on coral biology and environmental threats. The question and answer time should be great! We are also arranging raffle prizes now and will have more details about them soon. I'll start another thread for FragFest discussion for questions and answers since this forum doesn't allow followup posts. We've had a lot of feedback over the last couple of years that the frags we slice and give out don't do that well in member tanks, so we are trying something a bit different this year to try to avoid extra coral morbidity. It may be a lot of fun, or it may be chaos. Come to find out! We will bring in lots of commercially pre-mounted frags. All members who attend the meeting will get a ticket for a free frag. You can get more tickets for frag donations, up to 2 additional tickets. Frag donations are limited to hard corals or zoanthids. No palythoas or other soft corals. Donations must be at least 1 inch in size. We will need a few people to volunteer to bring 5 gallons of pre-mixed saltwater at around 35ppt salinity. You'll get the bucket or jug back after the event. We will also need a couple of volunteers to help hand out frags.

Raffle is up at https://go.rallyup.com/marcna/Campaign/Details

Like many of us, our speaker from our last WAMAS meeting, Marc Levenson, was disappointed this year that MACNA was cancelled. Ever the inventor and DIY reefer, he decided to invent a single-day, 24-hour, completely-online alternative which he is calling MARCNA! He got some sponsors to donate raffle prizes, and lined up lots of great speakers who we have heard at WAMAS meetings and at MACNA events in the past. 24 speakers over 24 hours, one speaker per hour, all free, all live-streamed on his YouTube channel starting at 9am Central time Saturday. He's running it as a fundraiser for the Coral Restoration Foundation, CRF. There is a raffle, as mentioned, and raffle prize proceeds will be donated to CRF, who WAMAS has also supported in the past. WAMAS is giving a little bit of help with the raffle, but I encourage everyone to support the event by tuning in to the stream throughout the day and getting raffle tickets during the event! Marc's site for the event gives a full list of speakers and schedule.

You can edit first post in the WTS type forums, not in Public / General Discussion. Only moderators can edit in this forum.

Really good deal for a really nice tank. Good luck with the sale.

Event: WAMAS Fall 2023 Meeting, FragFest (In-person, not streamed) Saturday, October 14, 2023 Time: 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Speaker starts at 3 PM) Where: North Bethesda Middle School, 8935 Bradmoor Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817 WAMAS members get in free. Guests are $5 each (paid at the door). Join WAMAS at this link. Refreshments provided by WAMAS. Officers are currently discussing how to do FragFest this year. We are trying to come up with a way to distribute the best frags to members with the best chance of survival in tanks while keeping it fun and interesting for everyone attending. Ideas are welcome from members at officers@wamas.org. Speaker: Dr Carys Mitchelmore Dr. Carys L. Mitchelmore is a Professor and Interim Director of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons, Maryland. Her expertise is in environmental health and toxicology spans fundamental and applied questions concerning the exposure, fate and effects of pollutants. Her research is directed towards the detection of chemical contaminants and understanding their toxicity and implications to ecosystem health for risk assessment, regulation, and management activities. Dr. Mitchelmore has been building a framework of collaborative interdisciplinary research with NGOs, trade associations, and industrial partners to address societal concerns regarding the environmental risk of emerging personal care product chemicals, including sunscreen ingredient UV filters, especially to endangered and/or understudied species like corals. Her expertise in the impacts of oil and oil spill dispersants was called upon to provide research and expert advice regarding the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil incident. Dr. Mitchelmore received a BSc (Hons) Biology and MSc Applied toxicology from the University of Portsmouth (U.K.), and her Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham (U.K.) in 1997 investigating the metabolism and toxicity of organic contaminants. Prior to joining CBL as an Assistant Professor in 2022 she held three postdoctoral positions at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (U.K.), University of Kent at Canterbury (U.K.) and Oregon State University. Topic: Recent findings and current research in coral stressors and sunscreens Agenda: 1:00 Sign-in / socialize / frag sales 2:50 Club business 3:00 Speaker 4:00 Break 4:30 Raffle! Directions to North Bethesda Middle School: - NOTE: The school is just inside the north edge of the beltway near Old Georgetown Road. Here's a map from Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/bKz79Y9HmQF2 Special thanks to theses sponsors. Please support them & say thanks next time you shop with them. You can find their website address by visiting their forum or the sponsor page on the WAMAS website. WAMAS Platinum Sponsors - Air, Water & Ice - AquaHaus - Avast Marine - Blue Ribbon Koi - Capital Aquarium - ChemiPure (Boyd Enterprises) - Coral Magazine - Dr. Mac's Pacific East Aquaculture - Exotic Reef Creations - FishnReef.com - Frank's Tanks - ICP Analysis - Maxspect - Premium Aquatics - Puddle Aquatics - Reed Mariculture (Reef Nutrition) - Reef eScape - Reef Nerd Aquatics - SaltwaterAquarium.com - Supreme Reefs WAMAS Banner-Only Sponsors - Cobalt Aquatics - Jellyfish Art - MASNA - Two Little Fishies 2023 virtual meeting support provided by Eureka Strategic Consulting, Discover the Extraordinary. Raffle Prizes $50 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping). (2 chances to win!) $100 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping) $50 livestock Gift Certificate donated by Blue Ribbon Koi. (3 chances to win!) $50 Gift Certificate donated by Puddle Aquatics. (2 chances to win!) Black Widow Bubble Tip Anemone! $200 value! (1 chance to win) Indo Gold torch coral! $200 value! (1 chance to win) Frag seller setup: Maxspect Jump 30W LED light, 100W Eheim heater, Maxi-Jet 600 powerhead, $175 value, (1 chance to win) BRS Standard Coral Propagation Kit with Glue, $35 value (4 chances to win) Aqua Gadget ReefRack 102 Expandable Frag Rack, $40 value (1 chance to win) Mini Magnetic Frag Rack (9 holes) by Aquamaxx and AquaForest Poly Glue adhesive (250ml), $43 value (2 chances to win) Stingray 10 plug locking frag rack, $30 value (2 chances to win) fragging supplies kit: Dip, glue, epoxy, $66 value each (4 chances to win) More raffle prizes to be announced. Sponsors On Site, Selling @AquaHaus Members On Site, Selling @Mr.Chalice More to be added. Stay tuned!

Thanks to everyone who attended the meeting. It was great to hear from Sanjay who is always an entertaining speaker and frequently presents original research, like he did yesterday, with results that go against the current prevailing ideas in the hobby. We felt that the location was a good one with convenient parking, friendly staff, and lots of room inside with good temperature control. What did you think if you were there? Please let club officers know at officers@wamas.org which goes to all of us. Also, if you have suggestions for what other activities we can do at the meeting or opinions on the shorter timeframe (we started at 2pm instead of 1pm) please let us know that too. If you won a gift certificate yesterday you will get contacted this week by one of us with information on how to redeem it at the email address you provided.

A few hours until the meeting! More raffle prizes are coming in! As a reminder, this meeting starts at 2pm, not 1pm. Officers don't get access to begin setup until 1pm, so nothing will be ready if you arrive earlier. The meeting ends at the same time at 5pm after the raffle.

BRK is not able to be at the meeting in person, but they did donate three $75 livestock Gift Certificates for the raffle! New arrivals are usually on their Facebook page and they always have a huge selection. Thanks for the donation Johnny!

CoralEverAfter.org (ReefdUp) is donating a Space Invader Pectinia coral for the Reef Bingo game. Photo attached below. Also donating acropora frag for the raffle.

Silverbook Soap is donating two soap packs worth $15 each: - One Ocean-themed pack (see photo above) - "Ocean Lovers Need Coral Soap" - "Only Clown-ing Around" - "We Need a Vacation" - One holiday-themed pack (not photographed) - "A Busy Year Needs Winter Solace" - "Pranksters Need Fruit Cake" Soap - "Family Needs Pumpkin Pie" Soap - "Stockings Need Peppermint Soap"

Nikki will be running the "Reef Bingo" game again at this meeting. Everyone will get a bingo card when they arrive and should go around and ask other WAMAS members questions to try to fill out a row on their card. The first person to fill a row will win a prize (probably coral frags). Nikki will also be there selling coral frags with her daughter who will also have some awesome reef-themed homemade soap available.

In addition to the raffle prizes from sponsors WAMAS will be auctioning off a new VorTech MP40wqd powerhead! Retail value on the powerhead is $429, so definitely a nice prize.

Justin from Avast Marine Works is donating a Plank Automatic Feeder for the raffle! It's a $209 value and some lucky WAMAS member will go home with it. Justin is coming to the meeting in person to demonstrate the operation of The Plank and will have some extra units for sale as well as the one you can win in the raffle. It's a really inventive way to keep the fish browsing for small food all day. The Plank keeps the freeze dried food nice and dry while dosing out tiny amounts into the feeding tube throughout the day. The small pump in the tube circulates water to hydrate it and lets it randomly head out the bottom to be consumed. Nothing down the overflow and no huge food dump which the fish will miss half of which ultimately ends up in the substrate. Thanks Justin for coming and for the donation!

New Raffle Item: From Marco at ERC: Four chances to win $25 gift certificates on fish! If you've been seeing his posts lately like this one: or this one: You know it's one of the easiest ways to get very healthy fish with hands-on service and follow-up. Thanks ERC!

I see a tube worm right there.

Reed Mariculture has once again generously donated some gift certificates for our raffle at the July meeting. They are the makers of the Reef Nutrition products. From personal experience, if you have a fish that's a picky eater it's practically guaranteed that they'll like Arcti-Pods. Alexie over at Reed has generously provided... One gift card valued at $100 (plus an additional $40 to cover shipping costs) AND Two more gift cards valued at $50 (plus an additional $40 each to cover shipping). These are great products that, once you've tried them, you're bound to love. Our most sincere thanks to Nancy and Reed Mariculture for their generous support!

If a member or sponsor wants to sell on-site at the meeting please send me a PM @AlanM to help us coordinate. We also plan to have a table designated at the meeting as a "Meet up spot" for advance sales to meet each other and exchange items.