March Madness!

[gardengirl]

Wow what a great meeting! We had 60 people in the room and 108 items in the auction. Special thanks go out to our intrepid auctioneers, David Snell and Kurt Johnston. Thanks guys!

Arlene, our terrific gourmand did the shredded meat and lettuce wraps and banana bread, and Susan did the pasta salad, coffee and water. All the eats were delicious! Thanks Ladies!

Michael B. is was great to see you after your epic trip to Peru, and Larry T, looks like we both missed out on those adorable little cories! Better luck next time. It was great to see Li from Monster Fishkeepers there to cheer Rachel on. Shawn, welcome back to the fold. We missed you, Dude. JT, thanks for the laughs.

WOW, Rachel did an amazing job with her presentation! I thoroughly enjoyed hosting her at our home and getting to know her. Thanks Rachel! It was great to see Andrew B. there with the newest addition to his family. The little guy is adorable Andrew.

Thanks to Jeff G. and Larry W. for doing the auction change and recording for the mini-auction. And thanks to Gerry for coordinating that outstanding group buy, the Lands End stuff AND the 50th Anniversary party! Rick M., it was great to see you, and thanks for bringing the fish bags! Our own Robert was absent, but his mom May brought the Freebee box for the meeting. Feel Better Soon, Robert!

Thanks also to Frank and his wonderful wife, Carol for doing the raffles and doorprizes each month. What a team!

Paul, thanks for taking those notes at our meeting, and for all you do for Delta Tale. And thanks to John M. for stepping in in April to talk for us. It was great to see my sister-in-fish-keeping, Jen. I've missed you girl! And wonderful to talk "islands" with Rick D. Special thanks to Jeff, my non-fish-keeping spouse and techie guru.

Thanks to everyone who bought and sold in the auction, donated to the club, renewed their memberships, and those who ran in the auction. You all make me so proud! It was great!

[larry-t]

I had a talk with Rachael about the dwarf bumblebee cats (Akysis vespa) she donated. She mentioned that the only article on them she had seen was in Practical Fishkeeping Magazine, which I have access to online. I found the article and will be resetting one of my tanks to match their preferred environment with the hope of spawning them later this year.

[londonloco]

I bought 2 cpo's (orange), 2 micro crabs, 10 rummy nose, and 10 amano shrimp from Rachel. CPO's are in a 20g long waiting for a 10 gallon to cycle. They are investigating the tank, eating and just adorable! The Micro crabs went into a nano 3 gallon, haven't seen them since I put them in the tank. Tiny crabs, won't be buying them again. The 10 rummy nose and 10 amano went into a 75g I have bare bottom w/some Anubias and Java Fern (redoing the 20g and 75g, waiting for nicer weather to mineralize some soil). All are alive and eating today. Once I quarantine them, the rummy nose will go into my 120g planted. The Amano's need to grow a bit, then will be distributed around all my tanks. I also won at auction 2 bags of black bar Endlers which are in the 3 gallon, I’ll put them in my 26g Endler tank after they are quarantined for a couple of weeks.

It was really nice seeing some “ole” PVAS members I remember from 10 years ago. Thanks for a great meeting and auction. I’m looking forward to attending more of them.

[gardengirl]

Loni, It was great to meet you! Sorry I had to rush off, but I'm always busy on meeting day. I'm so glad you made it to the meeting. LOL on those crabs. I got a peek at the stock Rachel brought when she got to my house on Friday night and I saw them. They are so tiny!!! You would almost need a betta bowl or something to do them justice, or ever see them again! Rachel brought us wonderful stock and I am very thankful for her donation to the club. She did an outstanding job with her presentation, and I hope she'll come back again!


I hope it's not ten years before you come back Loni.

[Shawnc]

I really enjoyed Rachel's talk. She kept a good pace with alot of good photos and anecdotal information. She also has the coolest mohawk I have seen in a long time...not since Wendy O Williams of the Plasmatics or Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow but I am showing my age and musical taste in the past:)

It was also nice to have a very different type of topic as all of us have dealt with snails and most with Shrimp but she had so much useful information it makes you want to keep more snails and shrimp.

Larry... I have a biotype 20 long tank setup with 6 of those Bumblebee catfish that I got from Andrew at Scales (pause for reflection...) and have tried to get them to breed but they are tricky. They are from streams similar to hillstream loaches so I use a powehead to create a current for them with alot of hiding places but even when they have looked ripe and ready to breed have been tought to coax. I have been using RO water and added an airstone as many stream fish are used to rapid oyygenated water. Their mouths are fairly large for their size...they kind of look like a micro version of a wood cat so I would think that fry would be easy to feed but have not had or seen any fry from mine.

Rachel's generous donations were a big hit and while we still had a large number of lots that were plants, it was nice to see more fish, tanks and other equiptment offered at a monthly mini-auction. I cant wait for the April all day auction...always fun and lots to choose from.

[Susan Findley]

Awesome presentation. I loved it.

And I brought home a bunch-o-diamond tetras. My favorite fish.

How cool is that.



Susan

[Scientist0724]

I absolutely loved the presentation by Rachel! I'm really into my invert stage right now, and had a brief talk with her about my newly acquired red clawed shrimp (Macrobrachium assamense).

The Chili Rasboras that I won (Rachel's donation) are absolutely stunning once they colored up in the tank. I know that I have at least one dominant male. I read up on them last night and supposedly they are supposed to get even redder with age. They look striking with my Celetial Pearl Danios. I can't wait to transfer them into my "new" 40br tank that I got from JT yesterday. I'm going to try to aquascape that as soon as possible, and hope to use it as my showcare tank.

Arlene

[Larry Grenier]

Yep, Rachel was great!

I'm also an "Old Timer" and haven't been to a PVAS meeting for years; nice seeing folks I haven't seen for years.

Thanks to Loni, Don, & Cristy for haulin' Fluotite & Eco to the meeting for me. I have enough left for a few more 20s I put a little potting soil and tiny bit of crushed coral in my 65 and your stuff on top of that and added water Sunday. It's cycling now. Some of the organics in the "used" substrate as-well as water for "buba" the giant green terror's tank should be good for cycling so I'll be ready to buy a few fish and a bunch of plants at the April auction.