[Zapins]

Hello Everyone,
I made it back alive from the skiing trip - it was great! Amanda and I have had a chance to speak about club activities for the next few months and have come up with a list of activities for us. Some activities may need to be changed slightly in the future but for the most part you can put these in your calender from now.

January 22: Emersed Plant Culture Workshop
Feb 19: Visit to Local Aquarium
March 19: ???
April 23: Tissue Culture Workshop
May 21: Wood and Rock Collecting Field Trip
June 18: Local Plant Collecting
July 23: Road Trip Another State - Collection
August 20: Local Trip

The January 22nd meeting will cover how to convert, grow and maintain a healthy culture of aquatic plants grown out of water long term.

The meeting will be at my house (I will send the address by email).
-Michael

 

[LiveHumanSkeleton]

Hello Everyone,

It's going to be an excellent new year!

I don't want to hijack the meeting thread, but I have a couple of items I'm looking for. Does any club member have some Nymphoides sp. 'Taiwan' I can try out and I'll also need a few more assassin snails. If you have one or both--let me know. Thanks.

-Bruno

 

[khanzer22]

I'll see if I can make it for this month's meeting...

 

[asukawashere]

I'll be there! Anything you need me to bring for the workshop, Michael?

Also, everyone bring your bettas if you have them! We'll be comparing them on the 22nd to see who wins the betta growing contest

(... it probably won't be me. My betta turned out to be crooked. I feel cheated.)

Also, anyone who wants to swap specimens of plants/fish/whatever, feel free to bring them - I'll be bringing some of my spare stuff, as always.

btw, just a thought - for our winter meetings, we should schedule a snow date, just in case the date we scheduled coincides with a(nother) blizzard or something...

Yesterday I had to dig my car out of a 2 foot snowbank.

 

[Zapins]

Oh yeah me too. The driveway never seemed so long... Took me about 2 hours to dig through the snow to the road. Then as I reached the road a snow plow came past and shoved about 3 feet of snow across the top of the driveway

Yes, everyone bring your bettas. We will compare them based on biggest fish and healthiest/best looking. The prize will be a brass plaque that I made. It can be hung on a fish tank

We may be getting a new member for this meeting. He is a firefighter and wants to set up a large planted tank in his basement. He wants to talk to people about their experiences and what they use in their tanks to make them work.

People can also bring plants, snails, fish, etc... to trade.

As for a snow date, if we get a huge snow again we can just postpone the meeting to the following weekend. For example, if it snows on Jan 22nd we will have our next meeting on Jan 29th (saturday).

As for the workshop, please bring a few submersed grown stem plants, rooted plants, etc... My plant stocks have been purposely depleted so I don't have many types to do a demo with.

 

[LiveHumanSkeleton]

While it wasn't exactly what I'd been looking for, I found some of those "lily pad bulb" packages at Walmart yesterday and figured why not give it a shot. I'll let you all know if this goes anywhere, the label claims it's supposed to start sprouting in under a month. But with my shaky luck...

 

[khanzer22]

I'm still 50/50 on this, I just checked and the wifey is working Fri-Sat-Sun nights :/

@Zapins - You said that this new member (Firefighter) is planning to setup a big tank? Does he have one already? I asked because I'm currently selling my 120gal tank/stand and other stuff for a great price

 

[Zapins]

He doesn't have a tank yet so he may just be interested! I'll let him know.

 

[khanzer22]

He doesn't have a tank yet so he may just be interested! I'll let him know.

Great! Hope his looking about that size of a tank

 

[asukawashere]

New hitch in my plans: on my way to House of Fins today, my car keeled over. More specifically, should anyone care, the belt that controls the water pump - and thus the cooling system, as well as the power steering - turned into a big garbled mess, complete with smoke and burnt rubber.

Fortunately, there's a place across the street from HOF that specializes in European cars. Unfortunately, they're not open 'til Monday.

In other news, the sports bar next to HOF, which we ("we" consiting of Kristina and her friend Edmund and I) were stuck in for 2 hours, is easily the biggest dive in all of Greenwich. Their personal pizzas are tasty, though.

Anyway, hopefully, they'll be able to fix said car quickly and won't need to order any special parts or whatnot. *crosses fingers* If they can't fix it before Friday, I won't be able to make it to the meeting.

I'll update later in the week when I have a better idea on the whole car-fixing thing. Who knows. Maybe I'll get lucky and it will only need a new belt and they'll have it right on hand.

My brain hurts. It's been a long day

 

[LiveHumanSkeleton]

Sorry to hear about your predicament. I can't help but wonder what became of the putt putt mobile. I noticed at the last meeting you were driving around in your father's BMW. If I wasn't still debating my own appearance at the meeting, I'd offer you a ride. Best of luck.

 

[Zapins]

Ahh darn. Aren't car troubles the worst? I've had my fair share of them with my clunker. I hope your car can be fixed monday!

 

[khanzer22]

Hmmm, Got a 'check engine' on my wife's car this afternoon after digging it up from the pile of snow (it's about time, right?) and starting it... Not a good time/season for cars I guess

 

[Zapins]

Yep, the Honda I drive is also giving me problems. It won't go into gear when it is initially turned on. I've had to turn it off, shift, turn on, drive a bit, repeat... several times to get the gears working.

 

[asukawashere]

Well, the good news is, my car is now fixed. Only needed to have 3 pulleys and 2 belts replaced So I will be at the meeting after all.

On the other hand, I talked to Kristina, and she won't be making it to this meeting. Instead, she'll be road tripping back home from Texas... I told her she had to go ditch collecting while she was there.

Sorry to hear about your predicament. I can't help but wonder what became of the putt putt mobile. I noticed at the last meeting you were driving around in your father's BMW. If I wasn't still debating my own appearance at the meeting, I'd offer you a ride. Best of luck.

Actually, we sold the putt putt - my father insisted that it was a waste to have 4 cars and 3 drivers. Naturally, the minute we sold the spare, the one I was using broke... but anyway, the BMW is mine now

Hmmm, Got a 'check engine' on my wife's car this afternoon after digging it up from the pile of snow (it's about time, right?) and starting it... Not a good time/season for cars I guess

LOL, most of our cars always have the 'check engine' lights on. After a car reaches a certain age, I think something in those circuits just malfunctions and it lights up when there's no problem.... 99 times out of 100, they mean nothing. I hope that's the case for your wife's car, too.

Maybe the engine is just complaining about the snow.

Yep, the Honda I drive is also giving me problems. It won't go into gear when it is initially turned on. I've had to turn it off, shift, turn on, drive a bit, repeat... several times to get the gears working.

that does sound like a problem... you might need a new transmission. Good luck if that's the case - it might be cheaper to just buy a new car.

 

[LiveHumanSkeleton]

I'm sure this is not news to anyone, but we'll be looking at more snow for Friday. It's supposed to die down by nighttime, so it's likely to get cleared by Saturday. That's not going to do much for the temps though, it'll likely be in the mid 20's with wind chills in the single digits.

 

[asukawashere]

I've had it with snow. I'm starting a petition to start spring early... but I doubt the weather will listen Ugh...

Ah, well, maybe they'll cancel Friday's classes... I hate my Friday class, it's a 5-hour studio pain-in-the-rear. My attention span lasts 1 hour, maybe 2, but 5? I can't deal with that. Obviously I will never hold down a job with regular working hours.

I am so going to drop out of school and become an aquatic farmer one of these days. I swear.

 

[Zapins]

Haha, I know exactly what you mean Amanda.

If we are expecting snow on friday I think it might be a good idea to use that snow date we talked about (next weekend). They don't always have the roads clean enough to be very safe the next day. What do you all think?

 

[khanzer22]

I second... Our baby sitter just bailed out on us this Saturday because of the snow :/... If it's going to be next Saturday, I'll be there for 95% sure... 5% is just for any unforeseen circumstances that may occur

 

[asukawashere]

The snow tonight/tomorrow is supposed to be over by late morning, and only 3-6 inches. I suspect the roads will be clean by Sat. afternoon. But I'll abide by the decisions of the group if we vote to meet next weekend instead

On the other hand, darn, I wanted to see if anyone had new plants to swap/sell me this weekend. I'm supposed to be getting in some of the new German hybrid swords (Kleiner Prinz, Tanzende Feuerfeder, Altlandsberg, Rose, and Franz Stoffels) either tomorrow or Saturday, and if I'm going to be getting out the potting supplies to pot those for my emersed tank, I might as well screw around with some of my other tanks as well

'Course, I also have to put together a pile of plants to fill an order from PurrFect Pets this Sunday - they're starting a couple big tanks to expand their planted tank offerings and decided to hire me to consult on plant choices, setup, tank design, and all that jazz. From the perspective of the club, this is a good thing, as I can push for the aquisition of species we might want to buy that aren't so common in pet stores. So... if there's any planted tank product you want to see a reasonably priced store in Milford offer, bring it to my attention.