WAMAS Fall Meeting Oct 14, 2006 - Justin Credabel

[Gatortailale]

WAMAS Fall Meeting / Frag Workshop

WAMAS, The Washington D.C. Area Marine Aquarist Society, will be hosting its Fall Meeting / Frag Workshop on Saturday October 14, 2006 from 1:30-5:00p.m. in Bethesda, Maryland (immediately outside Washington, DC).

Our featured special guest speaker is Justin Credabel. Justin will be giving a presentation on "Fusion, Goniopora, and the Organic Reefer"

Along with the frag worshop, lots of frag swapping, and a great raffle, this is sure to be a meeting NOT to miss!

Who: WAMAS (Washington D.C. Area Marine Aquarist Society)
When: October 14, 2006 (Saturday)
Time: 1:30 P.M. - 5:00 P.M. (EST)
Where: Cafeteria, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
4301 East-West Hwy
Bethesda, MD 20814

Cost: Members - Free / Non-members - $5

Agenda
1:30 - 1:45 Sign in and Socializing
1:45 - 2:00 State of the Club Address by the Officers
2:00 - 2:15 Townhall introduction of members and their systems.
2:15 - 2:30 break
2:30 - 3:30 Justin Credabel - "Fusion, Goniopora, and the Organic Reefer"
3:30 - 4:30 Hands-on coral fragmentation workshop.
4:30 - 5:00 Raffle
5:00 Adjourn

Special Guests and Highlights:
- Justin Credabel

Miscellaneous
- Light refreshments and snacks will be provided.
- Special thanks to Boston Aqua Farms for donating fragging supplies!

- Raffle prizes:
- Blue Ribbon Koi & Marine - 1 box 200g instant Ocean Salt; 2 x $25 livestock certificates; 1 signed copy of the James Fatheree's New Giant Clams book; 1 Aqua hub Auto top off kit

- Ice Cap Inc. Gift certificate for your choice of one of their world famous ballasts

- Drs. Foster & Smith - Liveaquaria.com & eTropicals.com Gift Certificate good for 1 - 45lb. Box of Fiji Premium Live Rock including shipping ($178.04
value), and 2 - $25.00 Certificates good for live or dry goods on any of the three websites

- Oceanflo - Maxi-jet Mods - win 1 of 2 kits.

- Premium Aquatics 2 x $20 gift certificates and 2 t-shirts

- Fins & Feathers - two 200 gallon boxes of salt & 5 gift cerrts that will give 30% off purchases of 150 or more

- More to come soon!

More details soon!

LOCATION:

Cafeteria, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
4301 East-West Hwy
Bethesda, MD 20814

Directions:

From Virginia:
Take the 495 Beltway heading East (Inner loop, toward Baltimore)
Exit Connecticut Ave (Md 185), heading South (Right)
Turn Right at the third light, East-West Hwy (Md 410)
Turn Right after second light, at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School

From MD North via 270:
Exit to 495 East (Inner Loop) towards Silver Spring
Follow directions above

From MD East:
Take the 495 Beltway heading West (Outer loop, toward Virginia)
Exit Connecticut Ave (Md 185), heading South (Left)
Follow directions above
Here's a map from Mapquest
Mapquest Link

Bio

Justin Credabel
Marine and Aquaculture Manager, Fin and Feather, Groton, CT

Justin has been working in the Pet and Aquarium business for over 10
years. He has been at Fin and Feather for 5 years. At Fin and Feather
Justin has been working on growing many varieties of corals and
invertebrates, in an effort to establish new captive cultured species
in the Aquarium trade. For over 3 years he has been working with
Goniopora and Alveopora and has developed feeding, husbandry and
fragging techniques that have allowed long term success with these hard
to keep corals. You can see Justin's Goniopora, and husbandry tips at
www.finandfeatherpets.com , or you can hear Justin and his band sing
about love, fish and coral at www.sofalove.net.

Justin has long been a fan of nature. Organic gardening before he could speak, breeding guppies as a child in his basement laboratory, and over the past 6 years, propagating coral. Justin has worked hard to increase the expanding body of knowledge on the husbandry of the genus Goniopora. Justin is president of the non-profit corporation Applied Sustainable Aquaculture, the focus of which is to develop and enhance new coral propagation techniques and develop ways to improve efficiency and economic solvency in aquaculture while at the same time reducing negative environmental impacts due to current practices. He is also spearheading a greenways and habitat restoration initiative called New London County Greenways. Involving private landowners and local businesses in restoration genetic flow in isolated populations of animals and reintroducing native plants and animals. Justin is also involved in F.R.E.S.H. New London, growing organic vegetables in New London for soup kitchens and low income households. The website for New London County Greenways and Applied Sustainable Aquaculture is www.asaquaculture.org

Another of Justin�s passions is music. Having taught himself to play at the ripe old age of four Justin continues to play with his band Incognito Sofa Love. Speading their positive music from coast to coast, and educating the public about social issues, love, fish and coral. Also as founder the Intergalactice Robot League, Justin entertains audiences with astounding acts of physical dexterity with his other robot warriors. They can be found at www.sofalove.net or www.myspace.com/isl

Unusual Propagation Methods from an Unusual Guy

Justin will also talk about new and different ways to propagate corals. Included will be Justin�s work on coral grafting, detailing preparation of subjects and a demonstration of techniques. There will also be shown techniques for micro-culture, tissue transplants, and re-arrangement of single polyped corals.

[Gatortailale]

Doug and I spoke with Justin at MACNA Houston, & Doug attended his frag workshop that he offered in Houston. Justin is very skilled when it comes to fragging corals and has even experimented with trying coral fusion - taking frags of 2 corals (same type, different color) to see if they will grow into 1 new coral with a 3rd color. Should be a way cool talk and fragging demos.

 

Also, Atlantis Aquariums in Richmond offered to donate some corals to us for fragging at the workshop.

 

We also got commitments from several vendors for raffle prizes [Liveaquaria, Ice Cap Inc., Reed Mariculture, Champion, and Euro-Reef to name a few]. We will post up more details once we get get them shipped.

[Gatortailale]

Updated post with times and map link. Working on getting list of raffle prizes.

[dhoch]

Since this policy has been modified (slightly I'm going to post it here as well as a couple of other places)...

 

Coral Exchange policy

The exchange of captive generated livestock is strongly encouraged at WAMAS meetings either through "swapping" or in direct sale.

 

The following applies to all WAMAS general meetings. Different policies may apply for Special Events. WAMAS assumes no liability for the health of the organisms.

 

Members*:

1. Members can sell or trade livestock at WAMAS general meetings.

 

2. To sell coral frags (more than 10 total items) at an event we request a minimum donation of 1 frag to be used in our raffle.

 

3. Trading is FREE for everyone and encouraged!

 

4. If members desire to set up a tank for the sale of livestock, they must notify the officers in advance. They should arrive a minimum of 30 minutes prior to the start of the meeting and remain until the meeting is adjorned. This prevents disruption of the speakers. Selling "out of coolers" is also quite acceptable.

 

5. Tables will be provided with advance notice. Please bring water and bagging materials as needed.

 

* Member defined: Current active member in good standing. Includes the small scale hobbyist coral farmer

 

 

Commercial Vendors: - Vendors are encouraged to partipate in WAMAS meetings.

 

1. Vendors must notify WAMAS 3 weeks in advance of a scheduled event of their desire to sell at a meeting. The purpose of the advance notice is to allow WAMAS to provide publicity on fliers and announcements for the event, to include all vendors that will be participating and to allow planning for space requirements. No guarantee of availability of space can be made for notifications within 3 weeks of a meeting.

 

2. For vendors, we request a minimum donation (commensurate with sales) of either gift certificate(s), livestock, and/or goods for the raffle table. These items will be identified as being donated by your business.

 

3. We request that you use the Vendor Forum on our website bulletin board to announce your attendance and what you plan to bring and any other special notices. This is a free service available to you at any time for other hobby related notices/sales.

 

4. WAMAS will provide tables and vendors shall set up no less than 30 minutes prior to the start of the event, and remain to the conclusion. This prevents disruption of the speakers.

 

 

NOTE: If you are a WAMAS Vendor member, you cannot make commercial posts promoting your business in the members section of the online discussion forum as per member agreement.

[Gatortailale]

Update:

 

Special guest

 

- Scott from Oceanflo - Maxi-jet Mods will be on site to demo the mod-kits & we will have a few kits in the raffle!

Thanks Scott

 

- Marvin from Atlantis Aquariums, Inc.

10619 Patterson Ave.

Richmond, VA 23238

(804) 377-0243

http://atlantisva.com/

* Atlantis will be donating some corals for us to frag

 

Bluezooaquatics will be donating some corals (leather, zo's and acropora) for us to frag. Thank you for your support!

[Gatortailale]

Ice Cap just confirmed they are sending two gift certificates - good for your choice of a ballast or T5 setup (not sure what exactly that means on size of T-5 setup) Chris at Ice Cap said he would work with WAMAS & the winner to get them a product they want.

 

Many thanks to Ice Cap, and all our sponsors for their support!

[Gatortailale]

So what should you expect from the meeting. While here is a sample of a Q & A on the frag workshop portion:

 

hey guys, this will be my first meeting....how does the frag workshop work?

 

 

People donate corals to be fragged. The fraggers demonstrate how to frag all the different kinds of corals and then the frags are given away.

 

It is really neat to watch this done. I had no clue at my first meeting. I was shocked and awed at how it was done. I got some really nice stuff that was donated.

 

Sandy

 

We will have corals from those listed above & several members have volunteered to donated some of their own corals as well.

 

Justin, Doug, Dave H. and WAMAS past President Michael Gerdes are among those who will lead fragging demos. We will have 1-2 dremmels there and maybe a tile saw too. We will have a limited supplied of frag plugs and disks, fishing line, glue for your use. You can also take the fresh cut frags home with you and mount in your tank.

[Gatortailale]

Over 100 people attended the frag workshop today. Over 300 frags of acros, lps, softies, zo's were handed out to the those who attended.

 

Justin's talk was awesome and it was cool to see him use the tile saw and dremmel to cut up acan's, galaxia, encrusting monti. and others.

 

Special thanks to all the officers & Dave S. who did their part to put on another successful meeting.

 

I also want to thank Michael Gerdes, YBnormal, Beltwaybandit, Raf, dandy and all the other members who helped cut up and bag corals for the members.

 

Thanks to all those that donated corals & water

 

Thanks to Scott & Oceanflo for coming down to demo their maxi-jet mod kits.

 

Those that I missed, thank you for the time you volunteered!