Quest

2003:
11/4/03
10/9/03
9/19/03
9/6/03
8/23/03
8/8/03
7/13/03
7/08/03
6/21/03
6/13/03
5/19/03
5/06/03
4/20/03
3/25/03
3/23/03
2/18/03
1/5/03

2002:
11/11/02
10/11/02
10/03/02
9/1/02
8/10/02
7/14/02
7/2/02
6/4/02
4/6/02
3/14/02

2001:
6/28/01
5/31/01
4/26/01
3/29/01

2000:
11/30/00
10/24/00
9/28/00
8/21/00
7/27/00
6/22/00
5/25/00
4/20/00
3/10/00
2/24/00

Q U E S T Newsletter of the Madison Aquarium Gardeners Club 11/4/03

NEXT MEETING: Thursday, November 20, 6:30 - 9:00 PM.
Science House, 1645 Linden Drive, UW Campus

Topic: Aaron Glass and I'll be sharing our impressions of the November 14-16 AGA (Aquatic Gardeners Association) meeting, hosted by the Dallas-Ft. Worth Aquatic Plant Club. I'll take notes on presentations, snap a few pictures and pick up ideas on what other local aquarium clubs are doing these days.

Report: Paul Williams is training Olbrich Botanical Gardens volunteers and staff in mini-aquaria techniques. Olbrich wants to interest kids in planted aquariums. Mini venues using cola bottle shapes is a low cost way to get stated. It would be nice to hear how things are going with this outreach.

Forum: Reviewing some current club activities and looking at additional ones we might try.

1. Executive Committee. How about a group charged with arranging meeting content?

2. Web Site. Does it stimulate our personal growth in the hobby? Does the site exist for the benefit of scanning visitors?

3. Have a talent for writing incisive book reviews or researching a topic and writing it up? WOW, this could be great stuff for our a web site!

4. Sharing our planted aquaria artistry with each other would be nice. Our web site gallery is a nifty way of showcasing our work. Don't have a digital camera? Borrow mine or have me take some pictures.

5. Create a seminar. Want to know a lot more about some aspect of planted aquaria? Get together a group. Ferret out insights. Share them with us.

6. Quarterly meetings? How about Nov 20, Feb 26, May 20, Sep 23 ?

7. Home aquarium visits.

8. Add to the list.

We are busy folks and simply won't be able to start too many new commitments. At least this is my sense. Understandable.

Question: If I take a sabbatical from club leadership, the group can carry on, right? Anyone for scenario building with this one?

SUMMARY OF OCTOBER 23 MEETING: Good crew of 15 made for an energetic time, even though we didn't get over to Mark Wagler's Living Machine in Randall School. His main tank crashed. What a mess. So, we spend time theorizing about what might have caused the disaster.

Main culprit seems to have been a rapid pH drop from around 7.8 to 6.8. Lesson learned: If one has a compressed CO2 bottle with adjustable needle valve, think twice if you increase CO2 infusion on a Friday afternoon and are not in a position to tweak things until Monday morning.

Monday morning: Four 5" sunfish floating, decaying and creating an outrageous stench!!!!! Open the windows! Install a venting fan!

A quick change in downward pH can ruin the guts of a fish.

Some of delicate plants regressed. Hornwort was not affected and Vallisneria was somewhat weakened. With a major water change, substrate vacuuming and an addition of freshly harvested "water weeds" from lake Wingra, the Living Machine is making a come back. However, many of the new plants aren't acclimating too well. We'll keep working to develop a fully planted tank. For now, one way to increase plant mass sufficiently is to introduce lots of my surplus aquarium plants. Then, next summer we can replace them with Lake Wingra plants.

See you in a little while.

John