December's meeting

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted here...Not even sure if anyone frequents the blog...but...


NACU presidency has been debating whether or not to have a December meeting, and we have a final decision.

This is what we've come up with:

NACU Inter-active Aquascaping and Holiday Social
Thursday, December 18th 7:00 pm
@ ERiK's apt.
2285 s. 200 e. #5

We've setup a few different tanks for our meetings, but we've never setup anything as a group of aquascapers. This is your chance to actually participate in a new scape. You can help decide the hardscape, choose plants to fill it in, and even put your hands in a tank. I've got a couple of tanks we can choose to aquascape, and I'll make sure we have several hardscape options with tons of plants to choose from. This is a great chance to learn techniques the more experienced 'scapers have learned, and share your perspective on what aquatic planting should be about.

In order to make this meeting work we need your participation. I urge you to attend, bring plants, and a little bit of creativity. The more plants you bring, the more options we'll have to aquascape. And...as a bonus, all the plants we don't use will be auctioned off at the end.

We'll also be providing refreshments as part of the Holiday Social aspect of the meeting.

Since this is not during our usual time, let me know if this Thursday works for you. Also, let me know if you can help provide snacks/sweets/plants.

Thanks, to all our members so far, and let me know what you think!

ERiK

June's Super Big Meeting @ Fish 4 U - Dueling Aquascapers

First, thank you to all who showed up to May's meeting despite the beautiful weather. I know it's hard to think about your aquarium when it's so nice outside!

Anyways, we are very excited about June's meeting - I know I say that a lot, but this one is going to be particularly good.

During Kevin and my trip to San Francisco we bought a 60-p ADA tank for Fish 4 U. This is the first ADA tank in a Utah fish store, and to celebrate Fish 4 U has asked NACU to set it up.

During NACU's June meeting Kevin and I will be setting up both the 60-p and a PASS Iron Chef style. That's right, dueling aquascapers face off in a planted tank frenzy. The 60-p will be set up with all the best hardware - glass pipes, excellent lighting, powerful filtration, pressurized CO2, etc. The PASS will have a few extras it normally doesn't have to allow easier maintenance for Fish 4 U.

This is our first meeting at a LFS, and Fish 4 U plans to have a large plant order correlate with our meeting. I've also been pushing hard to have lots of other plant related materials there too - like substrates, dosing stuff (Pfertz), lighting, and who knows - maybe an ADA tank for sale. Hopefully, when Fish 4 U sees how strong the planted tank community is they will be bolstered to support it better.

I hope to see all of you there to support NACU and Fish 4 U in this first big step in creating a true Utah nature aquarium community.

ERiK

June's meeting:

"Dueling Aquascapers"

June 24th, 7:00 pm

Fish 4 U
4010 s. Highland Drive
Salt Lake City

As some of you may remember, I offered a challenge to all the members to compete in the 2008 International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest. Well, the contest entry deadline is soon approaching (May 31st) and many of you may be wondering how to best take pictures of your tank.

Aquatic photos are an interesting challenge, and planted tank photo shoots can be quite involved. So, for May's meeting see how to do a competition photo shoot on a planted tank.

May's meeting information
"Photo Shoot"
Tuesday, May 20th, 7:00 pm
2285 south 200 east #5
Extra: Hear about Kevin and ERiK's San Fran trip and see all the new tanks ERiK has setup. Plus, we have plenty of hardware to auction off - tanks, filters, etc.

Success

We had a great 1 yr. anniversary meeting. There were plenty of new faces as well as familiar ones. The early birds swarmed my little apartment, looking at all my tanks, and were able to grab a soft seat. The auction and membership drive exceeded expectations, and almost everyone went home with at least one new thing they didn't have before.

I'm so glad to everyone who came and supported NACU. Thank you!

About the 1 yr anniversary meeting

Hooray!!! We've made it one year! Thank you to all the people who have attended meetings and supported the budding of our little plant club, NACU. So far we've been very happy with the turnout and community that we've managed to put together.

So, since we're so excited to be almost one year old, April will be as big of an event as possible. I've already talked to LFS about sponsoring the event with good results so far. Beyond the LFS, we will have lots of plants available to purchase at prices lower than you will find anywhere else. We might even have shrimp. We just got a generous donation from one of our members, so we'll also have lots of hard goods (power heads, CO2 equipment, filtration, etc...)

The topic for April's big meeting will be "Dreaded Algae: How do I get my tank from green soup to sparkling wonder?" I know the title is a bit cheesy, but we always try to prevent the meetings from being too boring and dry.

Along with a great topic and plenty of free stuff we are officially kicking off our new, one year memberships for $20. Until recently, only six month memberships were available, but now we feel as though we have plenty to offer our members.

I look forward to seeing you there and meeting the new people that show up!

ERiK



One year anniversary and membership drive:
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:00 pm
"Dreaded Algae: How do I get my tank from green soup to sparkling wonder?"
2285 south 200 east #5 in Salt Lake City
Aquascape auction at the end of the meeting

The first post

For our 1 year anniversary we are expanding -
We have a blog!

Welcome to the Nature Aquarium Club of Utah blog.