AlanM

Looking great.

This is a bit out of left field, but I'm a fan of making stands out of 3/4" plywood rather than 2x4 or other pre-sized lumber intended for framing. Plywood is more dimensionally stable with less risk of a collapse from racking to the side if there's a sideways force applied to the top accidentally. Yours looks like it will be very solid, but plywood does have the advantage of leaving lots of room in the stand for things if you need it. Here were some build pics of the one I made for my 75g tank at the time showing how the pieces fit together.

wrap a nori sheet around a rock for the big guy?

Tank is going well. I'll try to get some good pictures soon. Posted here because I'm planning a switch from dosing 2-part BRS sodium carbonate and calcium chloride from my Neptune Dos. Instead I'll use the DOS to do kalk through an Avast stirrer. Maybe I'll use the second DOS head for top-off. The kalk will keep the pH up by consuming CO2 in the tank water and will also supply calcium and carbonate ions in equal proportions. This isn't always ideal because alkalinity also gets consumed by things in the tank that aren't coral, so it can cause the calcium to keep increasing if you're dosing kalk mostly for alkalinity. I'll have to keep an eye on it. May end up dosing less kalk if it's making the calcium go way up and keep dosing a little bit of sodium carbonate. Given my small alkalinity consumption it looks like I only need 0.8 liters of concentrated kalkwasser per day. I tend to evaporate a little over 2 liters per day, so I'll still need a separate ATO.

Forum software is updated successfully.

I plan to update the forum software tonight at 9pm. There will be a very brief outage where you will see a "maintenance" message, but it should be less than 5 min. I will reply to this post when the update is complete.

So many corals to hand out tomorrow! These are just some of them. Please thank our Treasurer, Scott Friedman, at the door for handling all of the corals. He has been processing them for a large part of the day.

Added to the raffle, fragging supplies kit. 4 chances to win; $66 value each Coral Rx Coral Dip 8oz, $18 value Stone Grey AquaStik Epoxy Putty, $14 value 10oz bottle BRS Extra thick Gel super glue, $34 value

Two chances to win: Stingray 10 plug locking frag rack, Slide-loc $30 value

Two chances to win: Aquamaxx mini magnetic frag rack with 9 holes and AquaForest Poly Glue adhesive $43 value

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.