Next Meeting

How much are those nipples and can we use them over and over?? In another club, we made a mold, very much like cookie sheet with hole in it. we'd make a batch, let it solidfy, pop em out and do it again. But regular wood won't do, unless we coat it with something. We should start a new thread to discuss how and what we need.
 
I guess I am open to anything that will not "Break the bank" I just had saw the nipple thing but if the wood thing works I am fine with that too. If there is any other thing that we can do to I am open for that. We don't have to do plugs if it will be to hard or take a long time to do..

James: Did you find out any info on the plugs?
 
The wood may be expensive too, the Renwood that is. The best temporary thing that I have seen are egg cartons filled with a little sand in the cups to provide a flat surface on both sides. EVERYONE can start saving those things and the are essentially free. Ask your coworkers to bring in theirs. If everyone brought 2 - 4 cartons, we would be more than set.

Sorry, I did not check into the recipe's. I will do so immediately. If anyone else wants to start digging, that is what the club is for, using the group as a whole to investigate things. So please, at your leisure, investigate Frag Plugs and what it takes to make them. We need to get materials together and ready for the meeting.

I suggest we skip the introductions, excluding new people and jump right in on the project. It could get messy and if James and Tiffany don't want the mess or have the space, we should move this out to the summer where we can do it out doors. Agreed?? Tiff, speak up if you don't want the mess.
 
Thats a good point James we don't want to make a big mess inside. I will do some more brain storming and see what else would work for a mold. I could make a mold out of wood I kind of have an idea but it would be hard to discribe. I may just make one up and take a picture. If we don't do the frag plug what else would be a good little project to do??
 
Keep in mind that regular wood is too pourus. It will not work for the plugs.

Kalk drippers is a good one, but everyone has to buy into using it. I showed off the one I made at the meeting at my place and gave it to someone?!? I am using a 5g bucket currently and manually filling it every other day or so. Everyone could bring in their own ideas.

Have to think of other ideas for the group to do. hmmmm....
 
You gave it to me but know I have a kalk reactor so I don't need it, if you wanted it back I can bring it!! I am not at work today so I might run to Home Deopt and look around and see what I can round up!
 
Bring it with you and we can discuss it again, maybe with more vigor this time. I don't need it, but maybe someone can.
 
I have a different topic idea. Anyone have good recipes for homemade food? We could each bring an ingredient and blend it all up and distribute. I'd love to try that. Garrett, I know you were asking about it a while back. Anyone have good tips?
 
OwenInAz and I used the following recipe. This recipe comes from Dr. Sanjay Joshi of and is passed on with his permission. The recipe yields about 2 Lbs. of food and the fish go ballistic.

• 1/4 lb. of fresh ea. of squid, clams, mussels, fish filleted, scallops, shrimp.
• Put the seafood in a blender and puree adding water to get a consistency of thick soup.
• Then take 2 or 3 sheets of nori cut into one inch strips and add to the blender, add more water to maintain the thick soup consistency.
• Then simply put about 3 tablespoons into a small sandwich bag, repeat until you use all the mix, double bag the excesses and freeze. when you want to feed break off one third of the bag defrost slightly then add it to the tank.
We didn't do the last bullet. After mixing it up, we poured it in a 9x11 cookie sheet, spread it out flat (probably about 1/2" thick) and froze it right on the cookie sheet. Once it froze, I cut it up into squares the size I wanted.

one more
Ingredients:

1 lb Raw uncooked shrimp
.5 lb Fresh sea scallops
.25 lb Calamari
.5 lb Whole smelts
1/2 cup Freeze dried cyclopeze
1/2 cup Freeze dried krill
.5 bottle Vita-Chem
.5 bottle Chromoplex
2 Sheet Nori
1.5 Cups of RO/DI water
 
by blennieluvr
I have a different topic idea. Anyone have good recipes for homemade food? We could each bring an ingredient and blend it all up and distribute. I'd love to try that. Garrett, I know you were asking about it a while back. Anyone have good tips?

Excellent idea!! I have done this before and still do. Sky's the limit on what you can put in there. I would avoid certain raw fishes (too oily) IME. Makes your skimmer go absolutely nuts.

Raw (not cooked) items like scallops, mussels, clams, certain fish, cyclopeeze, krill, plankton, zooplankton, shrimps (like mysis), rotifers, squid, etc... Attached below are some pics of my past food making. I use ice cube trays and stack them in the freezer in plastic bags. (The lime was for my drink that night)

I just found out I will be in Detroit for a plastics conference April 15th - 18th and will be returning on Friday late. Hopefully!! So I cannot commit totally. I am working to get out of it, but I think I am going regardless of my own agenda. The nerve of some people to schedule a national conference the day before our reef club meeting!! Sheeesh!!

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We could use egg create to put the food in also that way we would not have to try and break off small chunks or maybe get some of the packages that you would get if you bought frozen food like mysis shrimp.
 
Well I have lots of assorted flakes and pellets, plus a bunch of frozen fish food if you can add that. I've always been curious about making your own food.
 
So we will do the food and wait on the frag plugs till the summer? So now what should we all bring?
Let make a list of what we need.
 
I'd like to try one of those recipes that Garrett listed. I think we need to determine how much everyone wants first or do we just try one recipe and split it up just to see how it is done?

Sorry Val, I can't even say for sure what I do. I am so used to only feeding my fish every two to three days to avoid algae breakouts. That's what I did with my 55. However, now my tank looks like it's starving. I suppose because of the bigger skimmer.? Anyway, I'm still trying to figure out what's going to work. This week, I'm feeding 1/2 pellet of frozen food every day. (after thawing and rinsing in RO water, or course) Next week, I might do something different. Remember, I only have 2 fish. I think it's different for everyone depending on their livestock.
 
One more

“Pappone” Recipe â€"œ Italian Coral Food (Updated 1/14/2007)

Materials:
5 Oysters
5 Mussels
5 Clams
5 Shrimp (NOT cocktail shrimp, the big scampi type w/o the head and the shell)
1 Tablespoon of Sugar (not corn syrup, etc.)
200 mL of RO/DI water
10 g of Red Algae (Palmaria palmata; Bisck uses Julian Sprung's brand)
and/or 10 g of Spirulina, 10 g of Nori (spirulina is what Bisck prefers)

Methods: Make SURE that all ingredients are the freshest possible and DO NOT use frozen foods (unless it is impossible for you). Make sure everything "live" is rinsed and cleaned before putting it into the blender. Put all the ingredients into the blender and blend for 5 min, wait 2 min for it to cool, 5 more min blending, 2 min of waiting again, then finally another 5 min of blending (the pausing is so that the solution doesn't get too hot and "cook" from the heat of the blender/blades). Pour into cube forms (approx 10 mL each). Then freeze it allâ€"you want to minimize how long everything is at room temperature.

Procedure: One hour prior to turning off your lights, you have the option of adding Amino acids to the tank*. (For example, 11pm Halides off, add AA’s, 12am, actinics off, then add pappone). Take off the cup of your skimmer, but leave the skimmer running (so you don’t have a massive drop in O2 levels overnight). After the lights are off, start with only a ¼ of a cube per WEEK for every 400 L of tank water (approx 100 gallons). Be sure to measure NO3 and PO4 the next morning so that these parameters don't spike after feeding. You can reduce the amount fed if you are having nutrient problems. Also don’t forget to put the skimmer cup back on the next morning before the lights go back on.

*If everything is going well. It is good to wait and see how the tank is doing for awhile before trying this. The whole point here is that you don't want to change anything too fast, because nothing good happens quickly in this hobby. (Another method to grind up amino acid pills in the next batch of food; however Bisck found that it sometimes causes diatom outbreaks in his tank).
 
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