mikelaubach
New member
At the beginning of the month, I had a wedding to go to in Phoenix. My wife's cousin was getting married and we were arriving on Thursday night and staying until Sunday. That leaves ALL DAY Friday and half of Saturday to do stuff. So I hop on the Phoenix forum and see what is up and if there are any places like Greenwich Aquaria. "No, not really" was the basic answer, though I was told to blow off the wedding and come to their party. Tara asks "What time is the party?" :beer:
So we hit some stores and saw some neat stuff, and then eventually went to the wedding Saturday and left the wedding at 10:30 and headed out to Chandler a half-hour away. Tiffanie and Bill have a 180 gallon reef that is a room divider. And the funniest thing was that I remembered her build thread from TWO years ago!! :eek2: Of course, when someone makes a motorized canopy that lifts to the ceiling by taking apart a Rascal scooter and installing that in the attic (they have single story houses there) that sort of thing sticks with you! It is a bit noisy, but not bad. Her tank is simply stunning. The coral are all huge (some near basketball sized) and everything looks very happy. Tara was really tired since she tried to stay on East Coast time, and for her it was 2am when we got there, so we only stayed for an hour and headed the half-hour back to the hotel.
So where does the Tour of Reefs come in? Simply, the party was their normal monthly meeting. It started about 3 and went until after we left at midnight! The bulk of the group came for the regular stuff, the raffles and giveaways and trading, and left by 5 after burgers and beer, but then the "rowdy" crowd stayed. They take donations for the beer and food, and anything that is in excess of the cost of "supplies" goes into the club budget. I believe she said they always had money left over to deposit.
I think it would be interesting to do something like that here. The hard part is sometimes getting folks to host. Take me for example - I am more than willing to host, have ample parking (heh, it's not much worse than the Lutz anyway with parking on the street everywhere) and the house, yard, garage and deck is large enough to hold the last meeting we had there (ok, maybe it'll be tight), but who wants to come check out my 29 gallon "reef?" It'll take all of 5 minutes. Ok, maybe 10 since we'd have to shuffle folks in and out of my office. Then we have the other side, the ones still at home whose parents are not going to let 50 strangers show up and cook on the BBQ and drink beer. "Mom, Dad, these are my fish-club buddies, most are cool. Watch the tall skinny one, he's out there." [I meant me Jeff, not you!]
Phoenix has the meeting and party and all at one place and my understanding is that they rotate throughout the summer. Maybe we make an actual tour of it. Two or three places some Saturday and then a cook out at some place. I know we have a cook out planned for sometime this summer don't we? Thoughts on this anyone? I know there are tanks out that I'd like to see, and questions I'd like to ask of their keepers.
So we hit some stores and saw some neat stuff, and then eventually went to the wedding Saturday and left the wedding at 10:30 and headed out to Chandler a half-hour away. Tiffanie and Bill have a 180 gallon reef that is a room divider. And the funniest thing was that I remembered her build thread from TWO years ago!! :eek2: Of course, when someone makes a motorized canopy that lifts to the ceiling by taking apart a Rascal scooter and installing that in the attic (they have single story houses there) that sort of thing sticks with you! It is a bit noisy, but not bad. Her tank is simply stunning. The coral are all huge (some near basketball sized) and everything looks very happy. Tara was really tired since she tried to stay on East Coast time, and for her it was 2am when we got there, so we only stayed for an hour and headed the half-hour back to the hotel.
So where does the Tour of Reefs come in? Simply, the party was their normal monthly meeting. It started about 3 and went until after we left at midnight! The bulk of the group came for the regular stuff, the raffles and giveaways and trading, and left by 5 after burgers and beer, but then the "rowdy" crowd stayed. They take donations for the beer and food, and anything that is in excess of the cost of "supplies" goes into the club budget. I believe she said they always had money left over to deposit.
I think it would be interesting to do something like that here. The hard part is sometimes getting folks to host. Take me for example - I am more than willing to host, have ample parking (heh, it's not much worse than the Lutz anyway with parking on the street everywhere) and the house, yard, garage and deck is large enough to hold the last meeting we had there (ok, maybe it'll be tight), but who wants to come check out my 29 gallon "reef?" It'll take all of 5 minutes. Ok, maybe 10 since we'd have to shuffle folks in and out of my office. Then we have the other side, the ones still at home whose parents are not going to let 50 strangers show up and cook on the BBQ and drink beer. "Mom, Dad, these are my fish-club buddies, most are cool. Watch the tall skinny one, he's out there." [I meant me Jeff, not you!]
Phoenix has the meeting and party and all at one place and my understanding is that they rotate throughout the summer. Maybe we make an actual tour of it. Two or three places some Saturday and then a cook out at some place. I know we have a cook out planned for sometime this summer don't we? Thoughts on this anyone? I know there are tanks out that I'd like to see, and questions I'd like to ask of their keepers.
