Interest in Missoula Reef Club?

[dsmhero]

Hi my name is Kelan and I so addicted to reefing that I would love to start up a reef club in Missoula. Dan from Reef Missoula suggested I join this site to gauge interest. Is anyone interested and willing to participate in a monthly reef club? Any questions please feel free to ask.

 

[CarlaW]

Hi, and welcome to RF. I helped form this bunch of reefers from NW Montana. It has been a struggle to get people to come to meetings monthly, especially in the summer. The people we have are a very knowledgeable bunch, there is one lady, Vicki, who has been at this at least 25 years, she knows her stuff. Most of the folks in this club have been doing this for at least 5 years. I myself have been at the saltwater thing since 1997. My current reef, is in a state of flux, this is my second attempt at an full blown sps reef, and it looks like this one is headed the way of the first effort, which is really sad. Anyways, I digress. If you can find some interest in Missoula, more power to ya my friend, good luck

 

[dsmhero]

Thank you for your comment. I will keep updates going on this site if I have any progress.

 

[DevonM]

Hello Kelan, glad to see there is another reefer in Missoula! I'm not sure there is a strong enough base in Missoula to start a club but I guess you could always try. As Charlie mentioned, summer is an extremely difficult time to get people together. It just seems there is too much going on. If I were you I would set up a sign up/in form at Dan's to maybe see how many people are in the area and willing to participate. You may also want to define the club's purpose as often there tends to be two types of clubs that form. One for beginners and one for people who have been reefing for a while and just want to hang out with people who have similar interests. Unfortunately, these two types of clubs don't seem to mix very well in the long-run. Often the beginners want some advice but soon learn there is too much research and "don't do thats" offered up by the "Old timers" (people who have been in the hobby for awhile, no age discrimination here ). Anyway, I'm not saying that there isn't the possibility for a new club, I'm just saying that there is more to it than one would expect.

 

[Bennettp]

I just found out about this forum tonight. I would absolutely love to have a reef club in missoula. I didnt really think there was anyone else into reefing in this area. I didnt even know about reefmissoula until a few months ago, which prompted me to set up a new tank and rekindle the hobby.

 

[dsmhero]

Welcome! I still would like to do a club but I have been slacking a bit because this summer has been crazy busy for me.

BennettP - Would you like to introduce yourself and what tank are you setting up?

 

[DevonM]

Yeah now that Fall is almost here, life should get back to normal and hopefully every will have some time to meet!

 

[Bennettp]

Well I guess I will talk a little about myself. I'm 22 and have been married for about a year in a half. I just moved back to Missoula about 1 year ago. I was attending a college in Minneapolis. I began reefing when I was in High School in WA and moved to Missoula about 5 years ago and brought my reef tank with me. I lost hundreds of dollars in corals when I moved here because of heat and stress and eventually got out of the hobby because of the lack of other people in the area with the same hobby. I went to college for 3-4 years and now I'm back. I wanted to get back into the hobby when i was in college but I knew I would be moving so I never did. I discovered reefmissoula a few months ago and I instantly fell back in love with the hobby. I picked up a reef ready Oceanic 58 gallon tank off of craigslist with a coralife MH fixture, sump, Genx 1190 gph pump, and stand a few weeks ago. I also had a 9 gallon AIO tank, and a 28 gallon frag tank which I traded to Dan at reefmissoula towards a pm bullet protein skimmer. I pulled my Coralife light fixture apart and repainted it and retro fitted it with some DIY Cree led light strips I purchased off of ebay. My tank is running very well right now with around 30-40 pounds live rock and 4 fish, 3 domino's, a blenny, and an angel. The tank is only around 2 weeks old, but it cycled very quickly and my water parameters are spot on. I'm focusing my funds towards equipment right now because I may move in around 1-2 years, so I'm scared to put to much funds into the livestock. I am very interested in growing out some frags though and truly excited to see the new advancements in this hobby such as led lighting.

 

[dsmhero]

So that was your sweet acrylic tank Dan just got?

 

[Bennettp]

Ya, that was it. I had it custom made by advanced acrylics on ebay. I would have kept it, but i needed a good protein skimmer, so I traded to dan and he knocked $150 off the price of the PM bullet skimmer for me.

 

[dsmhero]

What ratio of leds did you get and how are you liking them? Maybe a link to what the strips look like. I am deciding whether to go full LED for my 12DX or just going to do 18W of RB for supplement. My 40BR setup is going full LED once I get that started.

 

[Bennettp]

I have 20 leds that are 20,000k and 4 mixed in that are blue. I think they are cree's. I know for sure they are 3 watt. I like them so far, but they seem to run hotter than I would like and the blue led's create a bit of spot light, so I wish the optics had been more broad. The colors look great and the intensity is insane though. I won them in an ebay auction for $80 per strip. The guy I won them from said he lost money on them. I'm having a hard time getting my computer to post pics. I think it may be because I don't have enough posts or something, because I keep getting an error message. I tried re-sizing them down several times until they were thumbnail sized and they still didn't post. The lights are on a 20" long strips of finned aluminum heatsink that are about 1 1/2" wide. the wires are hidden inside the heatsink. They look very nice for what I paid. The guy on ebay said he had a company custom make them which required him to order a minimum of $5000 worth of Led strips which he then sold to his LFS and friends. He only had 4 strips left and I purchased 2 of them.

 

[dsmhero]

Very interesting. I cant wait to upgrade my lighting.

So does sometime in October seem reasonable to try and meet up?

 

[Bennettp]

Very interesting. I cant wait to upgrade my lighting. So does sometime in October seem reasonable to try and meet up?

Anytime sounds good to me. I would love to check out some other peoples set ups and get ideas. Do you have any idea how many people on this forum live near enough to missoula to meet? Im already thinking about selling my 27" imac to build my dream setup lol.

 

[dsmhero]

I am not sure yet how many. I may make a sign up sheet for Dan's to see if there is much interest there as well.

 

[DevonM]

So that was your sweet acrylic tank Dan just got?

The short acrylic tank in a Dan's looked like a good clam tank.

 

[Scooterman]

Glad to see you aboard dsmhero, I sure hope you can spark more members to join us here and help the club! If you need anything from me just shoot me a pm!

Sorry for the late welcome!

 

[DevonM]

I was in for salt and pods yesterday but must have missed the sheet.

 

[Bennettp]

I was in there yesterday as well and Dan said I just missed you Devon. I also saw your old tank at tropical world today too lol. Dan was calling my old acrylic tank his anemone tank when i was there yesterday. It would probablu work great for that or clams. I forgot to ask him about Kelan's sign up sheet when i was there. I may go there tomorrow to look at float switches for an ATO.

 

[dsmhero]

Glad to see you aboard dsmhero, I sure hope you can spark more members to join us here and help the club! If you need anything from me just shoot me a pm!

Sorry for the late welcome!

Thank you for the welcome! I need to check out the rest of the forum more.

I was in for salt and pods yesterday but must have missed the sheet.

I was in there yesterday as well and Dan said I just missed you Devon. I also saw your old tank at tropical world today too lol. Dan was calling my old acrylic tank his anemone tank when i was there yesterday. It would probablu work great for that or clams. I forgot to ask him about Kelan's sign up sheet when i was there. I may go there tomorrow to look at float switches for an ATO.

Sorry guys, work has been crazy. You would be surprised how many people wreck their cars. I will create the sign up sheet ASAP and post here and let you know when it is up.