Well January's meeting was going to be a tough act to follow - I was certainly happy to see that February didn't let us down. I don't know if it was the Mexican food, the fact that it was the 4th Monday of the month instead of the third, the great raffle prizes, the side bets on if we were going to destroy a perfectly good tank or not....
Regardless it was a great meeting with a TON of new faces. Considering that I walked in to my first DRC meeting about 4 years ago and there was a whopping 7 people there to walk in this month and see about thirty people was very impressive.
The food theme for this month was Mexican - I was a little disappointed we didn't get to see Paul and Ellen's Mexican Hat Dance but maybe next time. I was not disappointed in the least with being able to skip the wife's meatloaf and chow down on some tacos (both hard and soft) instead. The beverages were outstanding, and the cookies - although NOT chocolate chocolate chip - were good too.
The night started with a short presentation from our President Shawn regarding tracking and graphing parameter tests using an Excel spreadsheet. Things always seem to make more sense when you can see them on a graph and Shawn's spreadsheet does it for you automatically.
(and quite honestly - anytime you get to use an over-head projector it just becomes THAT much cooler)
The next event for the evening - TANK DRILLING -was probably the most exciting - but that could have been the side bets on how long in to the process Jon was going to crack the tank - not the 20 minutes of watching the drill slowly work it's eay through the back of Rich's new 65g aquarium. Andy and Jon did a great job and eductaed everyone on just how easy it could be to do this at home - with the right tools of course.
Nice clean back
Always good to make sure you don't get thirsty during the drilling
Ok so it was water they used to keep the drill bit cool and the glass shavings cleaned away
Right....
Everyone take a deep breath
Careful.....
"Look it's a hole - we did it - it didn't break - HOLY CRAP - with all these people watching we didn't screw it up!!!"
Glen is our local shop foreman - he gave his approval after checking the hole truly did go all the way through.
The grand finally (well for those is us who DIDN'T win a brand new RODI
) was a great presentation and Q&A session on Clams from our clam expert Chris (of Chris_Barb) from
reef-geeks.com. Chris was able to dispel many of the myths we've all learned over the years about clams as well as make sure we all learned more about the different types of clams, what they eat, where they live, how they attach to rocks as we could ever hope to. I know I personally learned quite a lot and am much more comfortable with having clams in my tank now that I know I am caring for them. Thank you very much Chris for sharing your wealth of knowledge with us.
Obviously everyone was transfixed with his knowledge, his presentation, his captivating smile...
Ok - it was his "shells"
Specifically the size of his shells
The night wrapped up with our frag raffle:
jjhanson picked up a couple Acans
Ken grabbed a small blue zoo colony
Brett got a nice green & silver Acan
The "Golden Ticket" item this month was a.....
Switching to cheesy TV game show announcer voice againBRAND NEW CAR!!!!!!
OK maybe it was just a brand new RODI unit, but for a split second you really wished you hadn't skipped the meeting to watch men's figure skating didn't you?!?!?!?!?!
A HUGE congratulations to 1st8reefer for winning the RODI donated by our sponsor and maker of all things water purity
airwaterice.com.
All in all it really was a fantastic meeting. It's great to see so many new people coming out. Stay tuned for details on next months
hey real quick use your cheesy tv announcer voice again for this last part MEETING EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!
