increasing biodiversity in DSB

[tkhawaja]

Is there a regularly meeting Edmonton reefers club? Either way do people ever exchange small portions of rock / substrate / sand to increase bio-diversity? I understand there might be some risk involved. But, if you have seen each others tanks over a few months and they are healthy why not?

[Quinn]

welcome to canreef!

as far as i know, there is nothing formal at this time. generally we communicate on this board, and work things out here. however i am certainly in favour of some type of small meeting like what the calgary society does. perhaps someone would even consider hosting a meeting sometime in the future, as the edmonton board seems to be getting busier and busier, and the tank crawl dez organized last winter was lots of fun.

[tkhawaja]

Even though I'm two hours out of town I wouldn't mind coming to monthly meetings if some informative talks were arranged. And what is this about "tank crawl"? Do tell.

[Beverly]

Is there a regularly meeting Edmonton reefers club?

I've been on this board for the last couple of months. We don't really have meetings as such, but we do post about who has what frags, who wants frags, etc. I've met a few of the Edmonton and Red Deer folks who have picked up frags and crabs from us. Have not yet had the pleasure of seeing other folks' tanks as yet :frown:

A tank crawl is where folks go from one reefer's house to another's to another's and so on, until everyone gets to see everyone else's tanks.

Some of us have websites. Mine is http://www.lostmymarblz.com/ You're welcome to view photos of our various reefs there.

Welcome aboard :smile:

[Glampyre]

Beverly, I'd be willing to host a meeting at my place if anyone is interested. My reef isn't that exciting (40 gal nano and a 45 F.O.), I'm still more of a pond guy, but if you can come up with some ideas for topics or just want a general chit chat I'm good to go. The house is small, so I could only do 8 10 people. I could probably talk Dez into coming.

[tkhawaja]

Beverly, thanks for the link. It's nice to see people provide such detailed information to help out others. I'll be trying your home made food recipe once the tank is set up.

About exchanging sand between aquariums, what I'm hearing is to be very careful. In fact it is not really advised unless you're just starting out. Two things have been pointed out.

- The existing colonies might choke off any new additions before they have a chance to establish.
- A pest under control in someone else's tank may not have any natural control or predators in your tanks and take over.

[Quinn]

i am in on any meeting that goes down. if people are interested, we could do it on a weekend or friday night and turn it into a mini tank/LFS-crawl, then go for supper or something.

[Beverly]

Beverly, I'd be willing to host a meeting at my place if anyone is interested. My reef isn't that exciting (40 gal nano), I could probably talk Dez into coming.

That would be good to see Dez outside work. Sometime on a morning or evening weekend in mid-June would be good for us. Where in the city are you located? We're in Oliver - west downtown.

And a 40 gal doesn't quite qualify as a nano, imo :rolleyes: Try 2.5 gal, or 7 gal. Now, those are nanos :cool:

[Trevor Robertson]

I am up for a mettting (PS Welcome to the board). I think that this type of hobby is something that is best leart by hearing what others have done and what works (and did not work) for them. Plus I would love to see some tanks. Weekends or evenings work well for me, just give me the date and time and I am there.

PS I have a web site as well but there is not many fish pictures there right now but it is http://homepage.mac.com/trevors

[PFisher]

I would be interested in meeting a few of the reefers here in Edmonton and see a few different setups.

[Glampyre]

I'm in the westend, about a 10 minute walk from AI. Speaking of, Dez is starting to sell frags from the farm.

Beverly, my small pond is 3500 gal (I have three more on our family farm 50,000 gal each, so 40 gal counts as a nano for me. :lol:

[Beverly]

Beverly, my small pond is 3500 gal (I have three more on our family farm 50,000 gal each, so 40 gal counts as a nano for me. :lol:

Okay, that explains it. In your case a 40 gal IS an nano :eek:

[Glampyre]

Beverly, speaking of nano's, I have a 10 I use as a hospital, but not very often, so I'm thinking of doing it up for sea horses. Any suggestions? :question:

[Beverly]

Beverly, speaking of nano's, I have a 10 I use as a hospital, but not very often, so I'm thinking of doing it up for sea horses. Any suggestions? :question:

Someone else from this board recently PMed me about seahorses.

Basically, I told them that SHs are a PITA to keep. They are not like normal fish who, when seeing you approach the tank, come running for food. Seahorses are very shy feeders, and are prone to health problems that aren't found in regular marine fish.

Before you even consider seahorses as pets, do research upon research upon REASEARH to make sure you're up to the rigors of keeping these lovely but often frustrating animals.

Two places to go are:

http://www.syngnathid.org/

http://www.seahorse.org/

10 gallons isn't going to be big enough to house anything but a pair of small horses, or a whole bunch of dwarf horses. Dwarfs need a constant supply of enriched live food in order to survive. Small SHs, if captive bred, will very likely be trained to eat frozen Zoe-soaked PE mysis.

But they're still a PITA, if you really want to know what I think. I love my horses, but they're worse than having a newborn baby in the house sometimes.

Wish I could send you more positive reviews of SH keeping, but they're very tough to keep, even when captive bred.

HTH.

[Glampyre]

Thanks Beverly,
I was thinking of doing dwarves. I talked to a guy a while back that has plans to fly to the states so he can get several pairs from Oceanriders. It'll cost, but he said he'd be willing to bring back a pair for me. That gives me about three months to prep (or chicken out?)

[Beverly]

Thanks Beverly,
I was thinking of doing dwarves.

You're welcome :smile:

Dwarfs are going to cause all kinds of problems, imo. You're going to have 2 or 3 or 4 brine shrimp hatcheries going at one time to feed them properly. The brine eggs also have to go through a decapsulation process before being put in the first stage of the hatchery process.

I initially considered dwarfs, but after understanding the full extent of the undertaking of culturing baby brine shrimp then enriching them, I knew I wasn't up to the task. I cultured live food for our finches a number of years ago, and it was a definite PITA. Culturing bbs for dwarfs is infinitely more tedious and time consuming.

But if a person has the patience, time and a huge amount of desire, dwarfs would certainly do well in a 10 gal.