clovenpine

Tl;dr: I'm starting a local fish club in our area and we have our kickoff auction event coming up in two weeks. Advice and support is much appreciated! About a year ago, a group of local hobbyists and I decided to form a local club for our area on the Space Coast of Florida. Fast-forward through some false starts, leadership changes, and disappointments, and here we are, gearing up for our kickoff event and first local auction on May 7, 2022. Friends, I. Am. Terrified. I've never even attended a club auction, let alone run one. Luckily there are folks on our team who have done this before and we've gotten great support from another club, but I'm so worried it's going to be a disaster. What if nobody shows up? What if too many people show up and we're overwhelmed? What if no sellers show up, only buyers, and we have a bunch of people wanting to buy fish but nothing to sell? What if there's a hurricane? What if a guest is so overwhelmed with disappointment and rage at the lack of fish they have a heart attack and require CPR? What if we run out of water bottles? What if a bunch of drunken yahoos show up and crash our party and start playing Cornhole with the fish bags??? We do have about 30 people so far who have registered; more buyers than sellers. I do have lots of products to include in the raffle. We've gotten support from local stores. The venue (a pavilion at a public park) is booked and confirmed. We've promoted the heck out of it both online and with hard-copy flyers. I feel like all the logistics/administrative tasks are in hand. But... I'm in a panic! I'd love some advice, tips, potential disasters I haven't considered, or just words of reassurance and good wishes.

I'd say the shuttle launches are better, but that's likely because I support NASA and we hype our own stuff over the SpaceX ones. SpaceX does a lot more night and evening launches, and those are always more exciting to see. You should definitely consider making a trip to see the Artemis launch - it's history in the making!

I'm right across the river; the big launches rattle my windows! You'll definitely be able to see Artemis when she goes up 😊

I've noticed some overlap between fish nerds and space nerds, so here's something y'all might find interesting Yesterday at work I was detailed to support the Artemis I "mega moon rocket" on her trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) aboard the Crawler-Transporter to the launchpad to prepare for Wet Dress Rehearsal. The trip takes about 12 hours with max speed 1mph. Artemis is hard down at the pad now. We'll load all fuel except for the final propellerant, check for any problems as a result of her slow processional, and run through launch sequences to test equipment and emergency safing. Then she'll head back to the VAB for updates and repairs to await the scheduled launch date, when we'll make the trek again and finally send her to the moon! My job yesterday was to walk the crawlerway and "support communications." It was simultaneously exciting and incredibly tedious 😂. Enjoy some cell phone photos of our girl on her maiden voyage!

Oh man, these guys are TEENSY! What are you going to feed them?

This happens to me All. The. Time because I keep primarily livebearers and they go crazy and start popping out fry as soon as they get in the QT tank. At least it slows me down; I can't buy new fish until the fry from the previous batch grows out enough to go in with the parents 😊

I love this thread! It looks like youve done a lot of great planning here.

I actually copied the idea from Serpa Design: https://youtu.be/ld9WkDIP_o4😂. Make sure to post photos when you get yours up and running!

@Biotope Biologist, I have both Lemon Button Fern and Rabbit's Foot Fern in there.

I finally took the plunge and built a mini pond for my screen porch! Faux barrel from Tractor Supply, 15" high x 24" across, approximately 30 gallons. The hardscape is broken sandstone pavers and driftwood to form a waterfall powered by a 130 gph submersible pump. The back of the platform is lined with weed mat filled with fluval stratum substrate. I'm really proud of how it turned out, and the 24kt gold guppies look amazing in the sunshine

Mollies eat plants: a cautionary tale. I have a 75 gallon tank with assorted rainbows that used to be lush with various species of hygrophila, crypts, val, and some stem plants. It had a yucky hair algae problem due to nutrient imbalance, but I was manually removing it and it was a small price to pay for the great plant growth. A couple months ago I was clearing out a molly breeding setup and needed to re-house some juveniles, so I plonked them in the rainbow tank to grow out. I had heard that mollies can be good for algae control, so I figured I'd see if they lived up to the hype. They mowed through the hair algae like a herd of goats! Cool! Now I had a gorgeous algae-free tank, my mollies had growout space, everybody wins, right?!? Wrong. When the hair algae was gone, they started chomping on my plants! They decimated my hygros, ate my crypts down to the substrate, and even chewed on the tough vals! Even worse, it took me several weeks to realize what was happening. I spent those weeks mucking around with various ferts and trace minerals, thinking that maybe my plants had some kind of deficiency and that's why they were struggling. Finally I got some good advice from @Cory at Aquashella- he said that it was a learned behavior that started when they were eating the algae off the plant leaves and started seeing the plants as a food source. I relocated the mollies to my shell-dweller tank where they're munching algae off the plastic plants and eating higher-protein food, and I'll likely move them among my other tanks as necessary. When they're big enough I'll sell them to local farmers for ponds and stock tanks since they like algae so much. I've salvaged or replaced most of the hygros and the crypts are re-growing, so I'm hopeful that the tank will be back to its previous glory soon. So I learned a hard lesson - sharing in the hope that it saves other hobbyists the same heartache. 😊

@813aquatics, you did a great job summing up the experience. I was super nervous to attend (I've developed some kind of weird covid agoraphobia), but I'm so glad I went! The George Farmer workshop was definitely a highlight. It was a little disorienting seeing so many of my favorite "celebrities" just walking around or running booths like regular people! I just wandered by and was like, "holy crap, that's George Farmer!!" The Coop team were incredibly efficient, kind, and welcoming. I loved the member meetup and hearing all @Cory 's stories. That guy is a great entertainer, and he never seemed tired or impatient or frustrated. I was surprised at how approachable and genuine he stayed after like 12+ hours of meeting fans. The member meetup was a really chill and relaxing experience after being overwhelmed all day at the convention. It was cool to meet people and realize, "oh, you're that member in the chat who has the 75g 'nano' tank! I remember you! Do you have any photos??" All this to say: the club has given me a sense of community and social interaction during a really difficult time for me, and this event helped me overcome some major hurdles. I'm so grateful to @Cory for coming up with the idea, to @Zenzo for his hard work to make it a reality, to @Irene for her support at the event, and to all the club members for their support in making it happen.

@Odd Duck, now I'm going to find the raffle and freak out your buddy John 😂

Coming to you live from Aquashella Orlando! The Aquarium CoOp Show on the main stage was a great presentation and a nice change of pace from the typical PowerPoint "fish talk." I got to meet Cory, Zenzo, and lots of other creators. It's hard to get close to the vendor booths, but freshwater seems well-represented. Looking forward to the member meetup later.

I also have super hard and high pH water... I've just kind of accepted that there are some fish/plant species that I can't keep (just not willing to do all the hoop-jumping it would require). I have really good luck with valisneria and most crypts, and the fish I buy at my LFS are locally bred and acclimated to our water. I've also bought fish online from sellers who have similar water parameters to mine. But I still HATE calcium deposits. My zen acceptance doesn't extend that far! 😂

Lurking this thread hoping for photos from last night's event!

Thanks for the input, @Solidus1833! I think wheeled containers/ carts can be really helpful. Also small pumps to move water in and out of containers for water changes.

TL;DR: I've been thinking recently about accessibility in the hobby and I haven't found much information out there. I'd love to hear your ideas, tips and tricks, and thoughts about how to make the hobby more accessible to people with disabilities. Personally, I'm colorblind (not a protected class, but a total pita when it comes to fishkeeping). Yes, I could spend hundreds to thousands on special glasses or aquarium monitoring systems that eliminate color-reading problems, but that's not really possible for me. CoOp test strips have been a godsend for me! It's so much easier to ask someone to read one strip vs. several test tubes, and now I test ALL THE THINGS. This got me thinking about people with other disabilities or mobility impairments and what tips and tricks might me out there to make the hobby better for them. I'd love to hear others' experiences and advice, with an idea to maybe submit a blog post or article on the topic within the next year.

Maybe not the first, but an early and VERY happy memory for me: When I was maybe 8 or 9, my mother used to drop me off at the public library each Saturday while she grocery shopped. Next door to the library was a very small LFS owned by a dude whose picture is probably beside "gruff old fish nerd" in the dictionary. Each week after I selected my 5 books I'd walk over to the fish store and talk to the owner until my mom came to pick me up. He was so patient with me and let me "help" scrub algae, feed fish, etc. One day, he walked me out to the car with two huge boxes of old issues of tropical fish magazines and books that he was getting rid of. He said since he could tell I loved reading and fish, I'd probably enjoy them. I wish I still had those!

Does anyone have experience with the Edsal Muscle Rack, specifically using the 48" size for a 55g? The reviews online are mixed, but I've seen several YouTubers use these with no problems. They're comparable to the ones Cory used for the 40g breeder rack setup (same manufacturer, newer model) and they're rated for 800lbs per shelf. The logical part of my brain says they should be fine, but the anxiety mosquitoes are sending me visions of broken glass and dead fishes. 😄 I think I'm just looking for an actual human person to tell me they're fine and that I should just calm down.

Sorry, just a quick rant: NO, you can not keep multiple male and female bettas together. Not even in a "big" 20g. Not even if you give them plenty of "hides" or "escape routes." THEY DON'T WANT TO BE TOGETHER. I see posts in betta forums where people have these elaborate setups so they can keep a "school" of bettas and I'm just like WHY? Why do that? They want to be solitary, they live longer and healthier lives when they're solitary, LET THEM BE SOLITARY or choose another species! I don't personally get the appeal of a betta sorority, but I've seen it done responsibly. I'm specifically complaining about people who want to keep a school of males and females.

I provide admin support for rocket scientists* at Kennedy Space Center! * Actually I'm supporting the team who are designing the new mobile launcher, so they're ground engineers and not rocket scientists...it just sounds cooler that way. 🤣

This supplier carries sailfin mollies and they look great! I hope to have success with the mollies as I'm in central FL and I've read they do well in our hard water. I'm doing well with the platies so far, and that's what I've ordered to get a sense of the quality of their stock and their shipping practices.

I just ordered live fish on the internet!?! Technologyis wonderful. I found a supplier local to me (about an hour away; it would probably be cheaper to drive over and pick them up, but Covid) who will ship ground. I have high hopes considering their water parameters will be similar to mine and the fish get to cut out the "middle man" and travel directly from the tank/pond where they were raised into my tank. If all goes well, I'll use this supplier to stock my upcoming 55g molly species tank; they have some gorgeous livebearers!

and you'll always find the answers you seek. I've been researching mosquito larvae as a food source and hadn't found a definitive, "yes, you can grow and harvest regular old mosquitoes and give them to your fish." Then last night I was listening to and old live stream about fish foods and Cory said those magic words - I can just fill up a bucket and grow my own! The truth...is out there.