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2003: 2002: 2001: 2000:
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Q U E S T 5 / 25 / 00 Summary of the 4 / 27 / 00 meeting:Attending were Tim Brown and Val Walasek, Kristi Brueggen, Theodore Casper and Sara Olmstead, Andrea Diss, Bob Gilbertson, John Glaeser, Matt Hirvonon, Linda Horvath, Larry Jones, Melissa Maurer, Wayne Rayfield, Joel Redman, Dave Stalowski, Keith Strade, Susan West and Jim West. Joining us for the first time were Louie Blaser, Bobbi Eliasson, Jan Hoffman, Lee Rzentkowski, Mark Subramaniam and Rebecca Grossberg. Welcome! Lee Rzentkowki announced that Aquatic Specialties is offering 20% off the price of all aquatic plants for members of the Madison Aquatic Gardeners. Thank you Lee. And, thanks for providing good aquarium plants to those of us who are developing our skills with planted aquaria. ACTIVITIES Keith Strade brought in a sample of Ceratopteris pteridioides (Water Sprite). It was distinctive because of its stocky, thick, bright green growth. It almost looked like a small head of lettuce! Never saw anything like it. He uses an actinic 03 blue bulb, 7100K. The literature indicates the blue part of the spectrum promotes short, bushy growth and the red causes long, stretching growth. He chose this bulb because he didn't want his plants to get long and gangly. Shaping plants by using certain light spectra is an intriguing idea. Thanks, Keith. Andrea Diss amused us no end, by displaying a very weird looking algae. None of us had ever seen this before and someone likened it to a greenish, bubbly, slimy "B" movie monster skin. A few days later I brought a sample to Professor Thomas Givnish who subsequently provided preliminary identification of it. He reported the bubbly, goopy stuff is Chaetospora, a typically mesotrophic species. We look forward to finding out if Andrea found a way of getting rid of this curiosity. The observation was made that CO2 generation in the yeast / sugar bottle slows down with lower temperature. What can one do about this? Suggestions included wrapping a heating blanket around the bottle, shining and incandescent reading lamp on it, set the bottle on a heating cable the sort of item used speed up seed germination. Count on Matt to suggest using lager yeast. It works in cool temperature. Larry Jones gave a summary of his experiences with a "techie, bells and whistles" approach with aquariums. His set-ups included a wet-dry filter, CO2 fertilization with compressed gas regulated with a controller, quality lights on a timer, fertilized substrate and liquid fertilization. Larry likes to experiment and makes up his liquid nutrients from scratch which has been working well for him, until recently. Some of his plants looked like they could use a boost. After introducing more potassium , something unwelcome happened. Algae galore! Larry has provided us a nice collection of photos of his aquariums. If one looks closely you can see what he means. These photos will be on the exhibit table on the 25th. They reveal some pretty sensitive compositional arrangements. Quite nice! Thank you Larry. Andrea Diss suggested as topic for next meeting, something related to composing aquarium arrangements. An article to appear in the Fall issue of TAG, the Aquartic >Gardeners Magazine: An interview with John Glaeser, Founder of Madison Aquatic Gardeners TAG: When did you first become interested in planted aquariums? Glaeser: I started about fifteen years ago. Back then I needed a creative diversion to balance a demanding career as a television scenic designer for the local PBS station. The idea of combining the gardening experience of a planted aquarium with principles of design of my formal training turned out to be a perfect match. Being in touch with a little corner of nature paradise became a daily mini vacation. TAG: What made you decide to start a local aquatic gardener's club? Glaeser: Madison didn't have an aquarium club. Folks began asking me to get one started, one with the emphasis on plants. I had been having great conversations with customers visiting Aquatic Specialties, the small aquarium store in the neighborhood. I volunteer time there maintaining their two 55 gallon plant sales tanks. What caught the eye of customers was the artistically arranged, algae free 75 gallon show aquarium I had established. They wanted to know how it was done. A number customers started having success using the techniques employed with this setup. So, they were the ones who suggested the idea of a club. TAG: How did you go about finding a meeting place? Glaeser: I was familiar with Madison's Olbrich Botanical Gardens and the gracious meeting rooms they had available. Garden groups can meet here free. TAG: How did you publicize your first meeting to insure a good turnout ? Glaeser: A month prior to the meeting date I made a letter sized poster for the store. Extra copies were made as customer handouts. Then I called two dozen individuals with whom I had aquarium chats, figuring some of them might be interested. TAG: What goals did you have for your first meeting? Glaeser: We had two: Getting to know each other and defining what we would become. We started out with a round-the-table introduction, each telling a little about their interest in aquarium plants and sharing with us plans about future projects. Along the way some Q & A exchanges emerged. Refreshments were near at hand as were several tables of visual stimulation, my personal library of aquarium plant publications. Next came discovering our direction and meaning. After a rambling introduction we started brainstorming. I had prepared a list of topics. We began with this, adding many new ideas along the way. Someone said he liked this creative chaos. For sure, others would have preferred a more orderly procedure. We ended with some reflections and plans for the next meeting. All agreed we needed more focus. Someone suggested a presentation for the next meeting. One of the group who was taking a class at the University volunteered to connect with an expert who could address aquatic plant water quality issues. We decided on monthly meetings at Olbrich Gardens. Faster than we would have liked, we had gone beyond our allotted time and had to leave with too many ragged edges left dangling. TAG: How many meetings have you had and what has the attendance been? Glaeser: As of March, 2000 we have had three meetings. January 27, 2000 was the first one with seventeen attending. February 24 had twenty and March 23 netted nineteen. My sense is that out of a total of thirty active members we will see about twenty per meeting. This is understandable because individual schedules vary through out the calendar. We can expect a slightly different mix for each meeting. Our monthly bulletin provides agenda, meeting summaries and progress reports on club initiatives. It keeps us all abreast of what is happening and is especially helpful for those who can't get to all of the meetings. TAG: How have your last two meetings gone ? Glaeser: Good. Meeting # 2, February 24 / 00: Nine new guests showed up. Three goals came into focus: Fellowship, Education and Communications. For the March meeting we decided start at 6 PM to encourage mingling and library browsing until 7:30 after which the main event would begin. Our development grant ordered copies of important current reference books. Members would get a personal copy of each title. The club's water testing collection has continued to expand. One member had begun creating a web site for the organization. Joel helped us developed some insights based on his unsuccessful attempt to find a speaker for this particular meeting. We learned that before we search for an expert from the University to give a presentation, we would need to do some careful preparation to narrow the topic request. Example: Aquatic botany involves several science disciplines that cross over into each other. If an overly broad topic is requested an expert in one of the related disciplines might be reticent to respond, wishing not to appear as an expert in an adjacent knowledge area. Matt observed we actually have good resources within our group to find answers to questions that come up. Monthly seminar presentations by one of us seems a reasonable goal. The idea of inviting a well known expert in our field to visit us came up. Once we become more established we will try this. Mark Adams gave an excellent book review of Dynamic Aquaria, Building Living Ecosystems by Walter H. Adey and Karen Loveland. He was struck by their approach of integrating ecology and aquarium science. He was intrigued with the idea of transferring part of a natural ecosystem community into an aquarium setting. The value of this is the introduction of a complex nutrient mix, living micro creatures and bacteria capable of cleansing water on a continuous basis. He wants to try something like this. Come July, Olbrich Gardens plans to establish a modest experimental planted aquarium in the office of their horticultural staff. They see this as an opportunity for staff to get familiar with this gardening niche. Their facility expansion plans include a planted aquarium venue. We stand ready to provide technical support for this initiative. I suggested forming a club Board of Directors at some point. This unit would provide continuing guidance in areas of administration and programming.
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