What would you like to see in the PSAS?

[Gudwyn]

Ed, I'm not sure if you were responding to my suggestion.

It's not so much about a tank-buddy (but that's a likely positive side effect).

Rather it's just a way to create small "club-within-a-club" groups that really get to know each other and get to spend time seeing each others tanks in detail.

There are a lot of subtle things about keeping a good aquarium that are more likely to come out with 5-6 people spending 2hrs looking at each persons setup over the course of the winter. By spring, you have talked to that same small group for ~10hrs and gained a lot of insight and made good connections for advice/tank-buddy/etc.

I've seen this work well in other situations (church groups, professional networking associations, etc) After a couple years, you'll have a web of association thru the club - for any other person in the club you are likely to share a common acquaintance that can introduce you.

 

[reedman]

Gudwyn,
This sounds very intriguing to me. So you are suggesting these smaller break out groups in addition to the monthly PSAS meetings for the complete group? I agree that smaller groups allow for more in depth discussions and information sharing.

 

[Gudwyn]

Yes, in addition. Voluntary signup basis.

5 ppl in a group is five meetings. So one breakout session each month for oct, nov, jan, feb, mar is roughly how they tend to work out.

Hosting for fish people is pretty simple (unlike hosting a professional society). "Over here is my reef and over there are some chips and soda." 90minutes and you are probably done for the evening.

 

[reedman]

That sounds very interesting. I might be interested in that. You could certainly have the group focused to the type of reef you are keeping and maybe get conversations going that are more focused to your particular interests (and those of the people you are meeting with). I think I like that.

 

[plack]

So is anyone going to get a list at the next meeting to sighn up for this
I guess I could make a sighn up sheet help me out here you'd need: name, city , phone #, anything else? Do we want years reefing so a group has at least one more experienced person? Anything else ?

 

[reedman]

I think we need the areas of interest. For instance, I really don't have any interest in sitting down to talk about xenia, devils hand, or damsels. On the other hand, if we were talking SPS, anemones, or more advanced reef keeping methods...yeah....I'm in.

 

[bradreef]

I will start the bellevue SPS group. five people in Bellevue join me and we can have a meeting at my place in a month or so.

Reed, DIy two part addative. The club can buy it and group members can buy the results at the end for cheap still.

 

[Gudwyn]

Brad, I'm interested in the Bellevue area SPS group. Dave Dunn ([email protected]).

DIY two part? Why does club need to buy it? You can get Peladow CaCl at HomeDepot in convenient 13oz bags for $0.89 (labeled driZair) and Arm&Hammer Baking Soda is pretty easy to find. Epson salts you can get at the drug store.

Only thing I can't find locally is MgCl. If the club wants to buy that and split it up, it would be great.

 

[reedman]

DIY two part? Why does club need to buy it? You can get Peladow CaCl at HomeDepot in convenient 13oz bags for $0.89 (labeled driZair) and Arm&Hammer Baking Soda is pretty easy to find. Epson salts you can get at the drug store.

Only thing I can't find locally is MgCl. If the club wants to buy that and split it up, it would be great.

This is what I'm talking about. A lot of people don't know that these products work. They don't know that you can go to HD & Safeway and have a two part additive to maintain Ca & Alk. Or that you can use Epsom salt to maintain Mg (for reasonable loads on Mg anyway). Just an interesting topic that people might be interested in. Not necessarily a huge savings for people vs. doing it on their own, just info sharing and something DIY that the club could do without much prep work.

 

[bradreef]

I think it would be like a 9th grade science class project. If we do a DIY workshop with like 3-4 stations where you can do these things. You can buy shrouds for the MJ's at mjmods for like $5 We could do a group order and have people bring there on mj, they pay like $15 for the parts, also the 2-part, maybe a small phos reactor and, and something else,

Dave we are the first two here in bellevue. we need 3-4 more.

 

[Gudwyn]

This is what I'm talking about. A lot of people don't know that these products work. They don't know that you can go to HD & Safeway and have a two part additive to maintain Ca & Alk. Or that you can use Epsom salt to maintain Mg (for reasonable loads on Mg anyway). Just an interesting topic that people might be interested in. Not necessarily a huge savings for people vs. doing it on their own, just info sharing and something DIY that the club could do without much prep work.

Ok, I get it. Yeah, that would probably be a nice little session.

If nobody else wants to do it, I would be happy to set up a little station with handouts showing links to Randy's articles, the recipes I use, and samples of the products that I use. I can also include the names of the stores that I get this stuff at.

To make it easy for me, I calculated the amount of water in the recipe to consume 1 box of A&H and one packet of CaCl each time I make a batch.

I don't mind bringing a bunch of CaCl packets, some bulk MgCl, and a case of MrsWages so people can take some home with them (I'd sell it off with no markup). The A&H and epson salts take way less digging to find, so I probably wouldn't bring more than one or two boxes.