November 14, 2007

November 2007 Meeting

The ninth meeting of the NJAGC was held on Wednesday, November 14, 2007.

It was hosted by Mike Firrincili and Lorraine at Mike’s home in Hawthorne, NJ.

The meeting kicked off with a quick run through of the business side of the club, membership, the online forum, new initiatives, etc… Then Walter gave the status of the treasury, which is doing ok.

Mike’s opening remarks with George and Jay looking on

There was plenty of food and drink including Mike’s “Pasta Suprema” (ok, that is my name), and Elissa brought munchkins from DD (thanks!).

Sustenance

 We then progressed into a discussion of Mike’s farm tank.

Farm tank stuffed to the max

As you can see by the density of the plants in there, this is not a “scaped” tank, but rather a tank where Mike cultures his latest finds and trimmings until he either sells them, trades them, or, uses them in his other two tank’s aquascapes.

He discussed some of the special “features” of keeping this farm growing, including massive CO2 dosing, dual filters, just some sparse fish. He uses an assortment of green Eheim hard plastic tubes, Eheim suction cups (which he readily admits to hoarding), and wooden dowels like this:

Eheim suction cup with wooden dowel growing moss

He also explained about his trick for propagating Anubias species, by removing almost all of the leaves, leaving just enough for photosynthesis, and “notching” the rhizome, he says he can kick off new growth. This was evident in some very nice Anubias barteri v. nana ‘golden’ he had growing in there, near algae free.

He also ran through the large variety of plants he grows in there, including, but not limited to:

Red java fern, which is only red when the leaves come in. Once the leaves are in, they are not really red anymore, Tropica Fern, Windelov Fern, Cryptocoryne crispatula var. balansae, Süßwassertang, Blyxa japonica,
oh, and you need a mermaid in your grow out tank.

From there, Mike reminded everyone to have some food, and carried on with a discussion of his 38 gallon tank, which was recently re-scaped with some help from other NJAGC members.

Mike explaining the 38g setup

Not only does this tank have a nice front view, but, since it can be seen from 3 sides, Mike takes care to keep it looking nice from those views as well.

He also adds some special growth chemical (sounds like a bad commercial – start the dance is it?). That “special” item he uses is Green gain. A product from ADA that he not only swears by, but produces a cool effect when introduced to the tank.

38g Side view

The tank was originally onyx sand, then aquasoil, now mostly sand and aquasoil. The tank also has Tek-Lights, and an outflow on his 2126 that he just loves, but sorry, you can’t get them any more (or at least I don’t think so).

Nice Blxya Japonica growth

After Mike went over the “plumbing” of the 38g and fielded a few more questions on it, we moved to the 75 gallon show piece.

In what seems to be a bit of a tradition now, Mike did his “reveal”. I’ll leave the “cloth” comment for Mike to answer…

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Mike thinks he has 4, 5, 6 different plants in there – Telanthera Rosefolia (Alternanthera reineckii),

Pogostemon stellata ‘broadleaf’, Blyxa Japonica, Glossostigma elatinoides, Hemianthus micranthemoides, Anubias barteri v. nana ‘petite’, and some moss.

Mike also demonstrated how he doesn’t have to get his hands wet (saving money on paper towels too) with all the nifty tools he has.

He demonstrated trimming and positioning the HM with the use of his micro-alligator (my name for it), which is a 18″ to 24″ long metal apparatus with tiny little snips at the end.

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Mike showing Elissa about the HM he just pulled from the 75g

There was good discussion on the placement of the plants in there, and Mike explained how he has to keep up with the stems a lot, pulling each stem individually, trimming and replanting to maintain the look. I’d say it is worth it!

Wow, just wow!

He doses this tank, and the the others, with a 2x recommended strength of excel daily, after “lights out” aside from the CO₂ injection. And on this 75g, he uses both a diffuser and a reactor for better distribution of the CO₂.

In our usual fashion, we closed out with a plant swap. Again, there was a good variety of common and not so common plants there.

Plant swap offerings

But, if you left after that, you missed Mr. “Patience” Firrincili doing a little re-modeling of the 75. I guess there were enough comments about moving that plant off to right.

Before

After