September 26th, 2015

The NJAGC held its September 2015 meeting on the 26th at the home of Egbert and Caren in Denville, NJ.

Those members that attended were:

Egbert A.	Hank S.	Paula B.
Ross A.	Darek K.	Phil H.
Jerry S.

The meeting started at 11 AM and Caren was busy setting out a wonderful Southern BBQ featuring Chicken wings, BBQ meatballs, corn bread, deserts and much more. It was all very, very good. A big thanks to Caren for her cooking skills.

As we all arrived we started with a brief talk by Jerry S. on the need to mix dry trace fertilizer mixes like CSM+B before measuring out what you need to ensure as representative a sample as is possible. Nutritrace CSM is designed to be mixed up by the bag full in the commercial greenhouse industry. Our usage of these types of products is on a much smaller scale. The particle sizes in the mix tend to sort out and segregate when stored in a container. If you don’t mix up the container before using it, you may not get a uniform batch of trace elements when mixing up your solutions.

 

 

The meeting area contained a partially filled 20 long with plants just floating in it from Egbert’s recent move into this house. The floor was not completely installed yet and we/Egbert needed to decide if we were going to set up the new 75 gallon tank Egbert had in his living room. The decision was to go for setting up the tank, knowing it would be moved into final position at a later date. The stand was set on cardboard to protect the new floor while the tank is moved later in the Fall.

 

 

Paula found a wonderful piece of wood outside under one of Egbert’s trees. It was quickly brought into the house for use in the tank.

The substrate is Red Flourite over clay pieces cut out of a block of pottery clay from Caren. Muriate of Potash was sprinkled over the bottom of the tank along with some Dolomitic Limestone before the clay was mixed in.

 

The wood was weighted down with stones found outdoors after it was installed in the tank and it was a perfect fit as if Egbert had spent hours looking for it.

Even better is that it looks great from 3 sides. This tank will be a room divider and so it must look good on all sides.

 

 

Darek planted with plants from those brought by members for the plant swap. A filter was added as well as a small LED light until the one in the mail arrives. CO2 will be added later as well. A bag of guppies brought by Paula will be the first fish in this tank.

 

On behalf of NJAGC, We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to Egbert and Caren as our gracious hosts and for the DELICIOUS SOUTHERN BBQ!

Thank you to our members for your attendance and ongoing support. We look forward to our next meeting in October with a Roundtable Discussion on Nano tanks.