[Zapins]

Hello Everyone,

Just a quick reminder, the next meeting will be April 24th (saturday), it will be at my house. The second club auction will be held then, and I am trying to organize a pilot raffle. The main prize will be a small donated fish tank with supplies. I have also spoken with the owner of Aquatic Wildlife in Manchester (near the mall) and the May meeting will be held at his shop where we will be aquascaping one of his show tanks as a club group project. He will be ordering a huge amount of plants, so we will have plenty of fresh stock to use and buy. A plant auction will also be held then at the coffee shop right next door his shop.

In further news, Matt and his wife Lindsay have designed our very own club website! The site is http://connecticutaquaticplantenthusiasts.com/ it is still in the process of being fully programmed with all the features, but so far people can sign up and post comments and pictures of their tank, or log into an online chat filled with other aquatic plant nuts like us from various websites across the internet. I hope everyone will make an account and post pictures of their tanks, and I hope to see everyone in the chat room at some point! I will be posting general club information on the site in the near future and updates.

We were able to raise enough money to host the site from last meeting's auction! Future meetings and auctions will help fund other great club projects, prizes, speakers and other similar endeavors.

Please let me know if your will be attending the April 24th meeting.

-Michael

 

[asukawashere]

I'm about 90% sure I'll be there (assuming I don't get lost on the way there, lol!) I'm also trying to persuade my father to come, because he likes looking at pretty tanks (though aqua-gardening was never really his thing so much as the fishkeeping)... I'm hoping to get him hooked so I can convince him to set up our 125gal in a planted, pretty fashion sooner rather than wait another twenty years for it to see any substantial use (save for as a place to stick goldfish during pond dredging).

Aaaaaanyway, at the very least I'm intending to get there unless something drastic occurs (i.e. my house blows up, the fish are dying, a sibling is kidnapped, fish are deathly ill, the Merritt parkway has some sort of weird failure like it does every alternate day or so, epic fish sale starts in some other part of the state, etc.), so please mark down one more person and a hesitant 2nd. I'll be sure to bring some spare vegetation to auction off (still have a little leftover Najas g. to spare), and I'll look forward to "shopping" for new plants. Statistically, I'm very much liable to spend more than I sell, lol.

Speaking of the auction, is it, strictly, plants and supplies only, or will there be fish involved? I have some Ancistrus fry that I can bring, and some Neolamprologus brichardi I'm looking to part with (either 1/2" fry or an adult trio)... should I bag 'em and bring 'em? (Also, if anyone else attending has any smaller loach species they want to sell, I'm probably interested. I <3 loaches. Just not the huge ones like clowns. Not enough space right now, lol).

Also, if anyone has a pond or water garden container/tub/summer fish breeding thing, I can bring along some cattail shoots. I have to weed mine. Badly. And, for that matter, I propose we devote a meeting to dredging out my pond, lol! It could use the help, and I'm sure some people would appreciate the chance for insight into outdoor aquatics/aqua gardening. I can give free tadpoles to anyone who shows up (though they might become frogs by then...hmm...). Or the aforementioned cattails. Or some goldfish, even. And scummy algae-encrusted oak leaves! It'll be an entire pond wildlife kit! (Sadly, I am only half-kidding, and if there's really any interest in such a thing, I'd totally be willing to discuss scheduling something.)

As for the Manchester thing, there's very little chance of me making it to that. Manchester is probably a solid hour-and-a-half drive from here, and it's just not worth it for an event that lasts only a few hours. Sorry

-Amanda

 

[Riverboa]

How did the meeting go?

 

[khanzer22]

This month's meeting was great (last Saturday)... Eventhough only a handful showed up, we had a great time going to ponds in Bethany to collect specimens... Found some Elatine Americana, Dwarf Hairgrass (unknown), Eleocharis sp. and a lot more! You should come on our next month's meeting, we're gonna scour Fairfield/Easton area

PM Zapins for more details...

 

[asukawashere]

Yeah, last meeting was really cool, we collected a whole bunch of interesting plants BTW, did anyone else's val specimen keel over after the potassium permanganate bath? I don't think mine much liked it... but the hairgrass looks nice in my guppy and endler tanks.

Anyway, I'll work on compiling a list of stuff we'll encounter on our collecting trip next month, which I'm hosting... we're going to meet up in my basement fishroom to laugh at my pathetic, tiny little tanks and then venture forth to find plants. At the end we're taking a trip up to Southbury to find driftwood. We'll work up a more detailed itinerary closer to the meeting... speaking of which, we're looking at June. 19th, right? (not that it matters much to me, since I don't have plans for most of June... but I'd like to forewarn my family before random people start appearing in our driveway, lol)

 

[Riverboa]

Cool, thanks for the updates. I'll see how my schedule is like on the 19th, I would love to join you guys.

Btw, the URL to CAPE website doesn't work? Has it been taken down? or was it never launched?

 

[asukawashere]

I've been having trouble with the CAPE site as well, but I know the site was launched and it initially worked for me, so perhaps there's a server problem?

In any case, we'd love for you to join us next time, Riverboa. The more the merrier! And we'll bribe you with free plants, too. Fun times...

 

[khanzer22]

Seems there's an error with the site's theme code and not the server...

Anyway, it would be nice if you'll join us Riverboa on the 19th... Save the date!

 

[Zapins]

Yes please do! I'll start a new thread soon with more details about what we will be doing during the next meeting.

And yes there does seem to be a problem with the site. I'll send our all knowing tech-members an email about it so we can hopefully have it up and running soon!

 

[asukawashere]

Yes please do! I'll start a new thread soon with more details about what we will be doing during the next meeting.

And yes there does seem to be a problem with the site. I'll send our all knowing tech-members an email about it so we can hopefully have it up and running soon!

I sent you an email last night with a document full of suggestions and lists and driving directions and whatnot for the next meeting. Did you get it?

Hope the site is back to normal soon, too

 

[Zapins]

Yup, I just sent out a mass email. I'll make a new topic in this section with the same info as the email.