So more and more I am having things happen here and there that I should be blogging about but naturally time slips off and I forget, or dont, or get busy, or whatever. So for all three of you avid fans out there heres a quick update:
On Saturday I did my first "big" talk for the reefing community, I had about a month to prepare and I think I did okay though I have a lot of tweaks to do before I present again for sure. What was really fun about the day and the event is that it was a joint effort by two Denver clubs called the Rocky Mountain Marine Conference and Swap. This event was held at Highlands Ranch Highschool and there were two raffles of notariety, one was a very nice tank setup with all proceeds going to a local reefer that was down on his luck, and all other items were raffled off to support the high school which through private donations has managed to keep not just one but many tanks in the science classrooms! I cant stress that enough... MANY tanks, fresh and saltwater including various reef tanks and even a seahorse tank... ***HOW COOL IS THAT!!***
In any event, various students came to the event throughout the day and while it was a very long day it was also a very rewarding one. The other speaker, Scott Fellman and his gal Michelle Lemech even put forth some extra effort and rebuilt one of the classroom tanks that was all but a deathtrap. Myself and many others worked the vendors and scraped up all new equipment, including a very nice light fixture a high end powerhead, and great corals and fish for the tank. It was a re-birth fueled by everyones will for the students to get involved.
Having the student aspect there really made the event the best that I have ever attended. While nowhere near as large and frilly as a MACNA, it was gratifying to see the youth involved. And I managed to walk away with a very nice RODI filter for my own setup supporting a much larger flow rate (very excited about this). It used to take me 3 days to get enough water for a water change, now it takes less than 12 hours. I did an extra water change last night simply because I could... I might do one tonight..... because I can!
Event aside, My wonderful wife has been so supportive prior to the event and yesterday a surprise package showed up to the house. She had picked me up two beautiful dragonface pipefish as a congratulatory present!! They are hanging out in their new home and healthy right now and so far from activity appear to be pairing. Time will tell. I should have expected something so cool when she recommended on sunday that I do whatever is necessary to remove the purple reef lobster from the main tank that has been eating all my sand surfing fish.
hrmm speaking of.... On sunday I tore the bulk of the rock out of the main display to get the lobster out... I managed to get most of the rock back the way it was (unheard of!!) as I was very happy with most of my aquascaping and I made a few changes here and there. All in all I am happier with how the tank looks despite some coral breakage and removal but it was a good change for the tank and should allow some space for other corals to grow into. Unfortunately I broke a ton of large chunks off one of the beautiful orange montipora capricornis corals but he will grow back. The coral was too large to fit in a bucket and was impeding my ability to scrape the front of the glass anyhow. And it still looks fairly good, once the edges heal up it'll once again be a show peice.
And now this blog is getting long winded... I've much more to talk about but I suppose I should wait and maybe make it a point to do an entry every morning... no guarantees I will try.
On a side note, after getting a lot of feedback on some framed images I donated to the raffle on saturday I have decided to make many of my favorite images I have taken available for sale. This is done through a site called imagekind which handles the printing and framing aspect so I dont have to. While my personal profits from the sales are not so high it is worth it to me to be able to make these images available without having to deal with the print / frame / delivery aspects. You can get unframed prints in the sub $20.00 range and a basic large framed image starts around $100 (wow framing usually costs more!). So take a look!!
http://thejrc.imagekind.com/aquaticart
Enjoy your day, I've got to go to work!
~J
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