Gatortailale February 28, 2025 February 28, 2025 FYI - we are planning to bring in Salem to speak to the club. Time: 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM (Speaker starts at 3:00 PM) Where: North Bethesda Middle School, 8935 Bradmoor Drive, Bethesda, MD 20817 WAMAS members get in free. Guests are $10 each (paid at the door). Join WAMAS at this link. Agenda: 1:30 Sign-in / socialize / frag sales 2:00 Workshop - Phyto and copepod culturing - Morgan Hicks 2:50 Club business 3:00 Speaker - Salem Clemens - "Coral disease the microbiome and community science." 4:00 Break 4:15 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 Salem Clemens is an aquarist that's been obsessed with all aspects of the hobby fresh and salt for a decade. He worked for around five years in the retail side of the industry and recently graduated with a degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology and a minor in Chemistry. During his time in college he studied coral pathology working closely with his universities Biology and Chemistry programs where he gained experience in microbiology, biochemistry and analytical techniques such as GC-MS. Salem has a passion for rare and oddball corals, fish and inverts, experimenting with new methods and attempting to solve problems in the trade. He hopes to utilize an objective lens to help elute the best information and practices in the industry. Salem Shows Off His Reef Tanks! Reef Recap w/Salem Clemens Sponsors On Site, Selling Coral Candy Aquaculture:@Coral Candy Aquaculture ReefeScape Vendors On Site, Selling Jason Fox Signature Corals TeemingWithLife Members On Site, Selling @gws3 @wildcrazyjoker81 Special thanks to theses sponsors. Please support them & say thanks next time you shop with them. WAMAS Platinum Sponsors - Air, Water & Ice - Avast Marine - Blue Ribbon Koi - Champion Lighting & Supply - ChemiPure (Boyd Enterprises) - Coral Candy Aquaculture - Exotic Reef Creations - Fintastic Aquariums of Maryland - Frank's Tanks - Reed Mariculture (Reef Nutrition) - Reef eScape - Supreme Reefs WAMAS Banner-Only Sponsors - Bulk Reef Supply - Cobalt Aquatics - Coral Magazine - Jellyfish Art - Maxspect - Two Little Fishies Raffle Prizes: Air, Water & Ice - Typhoon III, 150 gpd, RO/DI system. ($159 value) 1 chance to win! The Plank Autofeeder from Avast Marine. $209 value. 1 chance to win! $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) $125 Gift Certificate for Fintastic Aquariums of MD. 1 chance to win! AccuraSea 1 Synthetic Seawater Mix (50 Gallon) - Two Little Fishies. 1 chance to win! AquaStik Epoxy Putty, VeggieMag, & CoralAffix Gel - $67 value. by Two Little Fishies. 1 chance to win! items from Chemi-pure $100 Gift Certificate (off dry goods) by Exotic Reef Creations. 1 chances to win! Octocoral Finder book by Champion Lighting & Supply. ($96.50 value) 1 chance to win! Chemi-blue nano (15-pack) by Boyd Enterprises. 2 chances to win! $125 Gift Certificate from Supreme Reefs. 1 chance to win! Matey Precision feeder donated by Avast Marine. 1 chance to win! various coral frags
gastone June 7, 2025 June 7, 2025 We are also trying to set up workshops to help fill the time prior to our guest speaker and to further provide opportunity for education and information. For this meeting, Morgan Hicks, from the Richmond area has agreed to come up to our summer meeting and show us how he cultures and maintains a number of different phytoplankton and copepod species. We haven't finalized all the details, but the hope is that for a nominal cost, participants will be leave with both information on how to setup and maintain their own cultures, as well as starter cultures. In the future we are hoping to do a workshop on controller set-up and use. If anyone feels like they are proficient in controllers, please reach out to me. The flip side is that I will start pinging people who I perceived as gurus. If anyone has an idea for a workshop, or something that they'd like to see or are interested in, please let me know and we can start looking into it. 1
Gatortailale June 21, 2025 Author June 21, 2025 WAMAS Platinum Sponsor Avast Marine Works is donating a Plank Automatic Feeder to the Summer meeting raffle. Thank you Avast Marine Works for the many years of supporting the WAMAS Club - It's great to have a local manufacturer of quality reefing equipment in our area.
Gatortailale June 21, 2025 Author June 21, 2025 WAMAS Platinum Sponsor Reef Nutrition is donating three gift cards to our February 1 Meeting: $100 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping) 50 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping). (2 chances to win!) Thanks Reef Nutrition for your continued support of the WAMAS Club.
Gatortailale July 8, 2025 Author July 8, 2025 Update on talk topic: Salem Clemens - "Coral disease the microbiome and community science."
Gatortailale July 9, 2025 Author July 9, 2025 WAMAS Sponsor Air, Water & Ice is donating a Typhoon III, 150 gpd, RO/DI system to the meeting raffle. Come on out to the meeting and enter the raffle for your chance to take home this water filter system to take your reefing to the next level. Need to reload on bulk DI media or new filters for your RO/DI unit, you can find a discount code over in the Air, Water, & Ice forum on the WAMA Forums. Or visit https://airwaterice.com/ to learn about all the products they offer. Thank you Air, Water & Ice for your continued support of the club.
Gatortailale July 19, 2025 Author July 19, 2025 Our Sponsor Champion Lighting & Supply donated a copy of the Octocoral Finder & some tweezers and tongs to the raffle for the next meeting. You can learn more about the book over on the Champion website. Thanks you Champion for your support of the club and our membership!
gastone July 20, 2025 July 20, 2025 I've spoken with Morgan Hicks, who is putting on the culturing workshop. If everything goes to plan (cultures don't always!!!), he is going to bring two strains of phyto and a few different pods as well. Price will come in at $10 per starter cultures. As someone who has run cultures before, this is a significant discount on what we would pay retail for starter cultures. 1
Gatortailale July 21, 2025 Author July 21, 2025 Our Sponsor Avast Marine just launched the Matey and is sending us one for July meeting raffle. Be sure to attend the meeting and be one of the first reefers to get a look at this latest product from Avast Marine. Precision feeding, one click at a time. There’s nothing like feeding your tank by hand. Whether you’re dropping pellets to your favorite wrasse or watching a coral grab a sinking bite, it’s one of those small, satisfying rituals that keep you connected. But if you've ever tried to target feed with a turkey baster or a clumsy kitchen tool, you know how awkward it can be. That’s what inspired us to build the MATEY, a purpose-built handheld feeder for delivering precise portions right where you want them, even at the bottom of your tank. Built for Real Target Feeding Most so-called “hand feeders” are designed for dropping food at the surface. MATEY is different. With modular acrylic tubes and a one-click dispensing wheel, you can reach deep into the tank and deliver a single portion directly to fish and corals below the surface. No floating mess, no wasted food, no wet or stinky fingers. What Makes MATEY Unique Subsurface Target Feeding Each Matey includes two 14-inch acrylic tubes that connect with a friction-fit coupler. You can reach up to 28 inches down, making it easy to feed corals on the sand bed or fish that stay low in the tank. Metered One-Click Dispensing The internal wheel has grooves that cradle each pellet. One click dispenses one dose. You get full control over how much food goes into the tank, whether you're feeding two pellets or twenty. Switches from Target to Broadcast Want to broadcast feed instead? Just twist and remove the feed tube. Now you’ve got a clean, one-handed tool for feeding active fish at the surface without making a mess. Mess-Free Filling The twist-off cap and twist-on funnel make filling quick and clean. No spills, no scooping over the tank, no juggling food jars every time you feed. Comfortable to Use Chamfered edges and a natural grip shape make MATEY easy to hold and operate. The thumb groove is a small detail, but it makes every click feel dialed in. Designed to Last MATEY is hand-assembled and easy to take apart for cleaning or service. Each one includes an Allen key for occasional maintenance. It's built on high-precision machines using premium materials for a smoother finish and better strength. Compatible Foods MATEY works best with sinking pellet and crumble-style foods between 0.5 and 3mm. We've tested it with: Reef Nutrition TDO (S/M/L) Benepets Pellet LPS/REEF (S/L) Aquaforest: AF Marine Mix S Fauna Marin LPS Grow and Color Fluval Bug Bites What’s Included MATEY Hand Feeder Two 14” Acrylic Feed Tubes with coupler Best Mate Holder with Adhesive Backing Twist-on Fill Funnel Allen Key Designed, Built, Assembled in the USA MATEY was created to solve real problems aquarists face when feeding. It’s more precise than anything else out there, and unlike the tools you’ve been improvising with, it was built for the job. Learn more here: https://www.avastmarine.com/collections/labs/products/matey 1
ReefdUp July 28, 2025 July 28, 2025 Welcome to all of our new members (and renewing members)! Unfortunately, I was unable to update all of the account changes from the meeting today due to unforeseen family circumstances. I should be able to update them tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.
ReefdUp July 29, 2025 July 29, 2025 On 7/27/2025 at 9:52 PM, ReefdUp said: Welcome to all of our new members (and renewing members)! Unfortunately, I was unable to update all of the account changes from the meeting today due to unforeseen family circumstances. I should be able to update them tomorrow. Thank you for your patience. All membership changes were processed. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding your membership or account.
Gatortailale July 30, 2025 Author July 30, 2025 Hey gang, Our good friend and member @telegraham wrote up a nice summary of Salem's talk. When you have a moment be sure to swing over and take a read: https://medium.com/@telegraham/rethinking-coral-health-a-microbial-lens-on-reefkeeping-5f8bc867430b And I'm sure if anyone has any questions we can run them past Jim on a post on the forums here, or we can send a message off to Salem. Thank you Jim!
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