The May meeting of the NJAGC was held on Saturday, May 13, 2017, at the home of Hock N. Those in attendance were: Laurie S., Khanh T., Jerry S, Darek K, Gavin D, Sheila G, Darin P, Steve M., Myron D’S., and Hock N. our host. Oh, and Hock’s cat, Sophie, was also hanging out with us too.
The meeting began with Khanh welcoming all to the meeting and thanking Hock for hosting us. Our Librarian Jerry, encouraged us all to consider a membership in the AGA and its magazine, The Aquatic Gardener and also a subscription to Amazonas Magazine. Both are very worthwhile reading.
We enjoyed the wonderful feast provided by Hock and other members. Myron is really an accomplished backyard Barbeque chef and smoker. He brought some chicken he smoked that morning before the meeting. It was delicious!
After everyone got a chance to eat, Hock gave us a tour of his fish room (laundry room!). While there, we compared TDS measurements using several handheld meters and Jerry’s “professional” meter. We got varying readings. Next meeting, we will have some TDS calibration solution to make a better comparison.
CO2 is supplied using a citric acid/baking soda DIY setup. This is really a pretty neat system. It produces a pretty good flow of CO2.
This is a 10 gallon tank housing guppies and 4 panda garras. 
Blasphemy, no planted/cichlid tank should have plastic decorations!!! These have sentimental value so we will allow it on our site.
Here is a 10 gallon emersed tank with several cryptocoryne species, Piptospatha ridleyii, monte carlo and Hydrocotyle tripartita.
Hock is also starting a jewel orchid collection. Pretty amazing patterns.
This is a 30 gallon tank housing mostly cories, neons, pencil fish and a few bristlenose plecos (thanks to Sheila and Gavin!).
Here is the 40 gallon breeder with 2 Finnex 24/7 LEDs and a hydroponics light fixture.
This is a 20 gallon long housing several cories, chili rasbora, mollies, brilliant rasbora, zebra nerites and a very prolific egg-laying mystery snail.
The risers for the LED fixture are built using DIY parts from servocity.com (Actobotics robotics parts).
Lagenandra meeboldii ‘Red’
This 10 gallon tank is filled with Dragon Stone purchased from the club. It is used mostly as a quarantine/holding tank at the moment.
Here is a 20 gallon tall low-light, low-tech tank which houses mostly guppies.
This is yet another 10 gallon tank which has a group of Boraras merah (Phoenix rasbora).
2.5 gallon betta tank (the betta is probably hiding behind the big rock)
And last but not the least, there was a 5 gallon tank with red cherry shrimp and various bucephalandra.
We ended the meeting with a plant swap. Jerry also brought some pH buffer and pH electrode storage solution for anyone who was interested.
We all had a great time and thank Hock and his wife for having us over for another great meeting of NJAGC. To those of you reading this and are not yet members: What are you waiting for? Joining the club is free. Meetings are fun and full of surprises and goodies. Not to mention the lunch we all enjoy. Join us and get in on the fun and education.
It’s great to find people with passion for this awesome lifestyle like. I recently moved from Costa Rica and should leave all my aquariums there. I’m looking advises about where to buy and where I can find some species of fishes because I just visited a few store and I feel disappointed about my findings. Also I would like to have advises about having tanks with this kind of water (that I cannot drink I’m living in bloomfield by the way) and how to keep a nice temperature along the year. Thank you
Click on the ‘Join Us’ link above and join the club. You can ask all your questions in the forum.