Re: [AGA-mcm] NEC Notes

[Paula Hofmann <paulahofmann@montana.com>]

Nice summery, Erik.  Thank you!  Paula

On Sun, 2009-03-22 at 23:06 -0700, Erik Olson wrote:
> Well, I've been back a few hours, and the 9.5 hours of taped video are 
> transferring to the computer (the 11 hours of hard drive video is already 
> there).  Jotting down some notes that might be fleshable into an article, 
> before I forget it all.  [it's too scattered to be an article in this 
> form]
> 
> Ghazanfar did the same excellent caliber talk that he gave in Seattle 
> (which you can download for free via bittorrent at 
> http://www.gsas.org/torrents/ghazanfar.torrent ).  I was actually a little 
> bummed that he didn't get a bigger audience, especially since we paid for 
> all/some of his talk.  The folks that were there seemed to enjoy it, 
> though not quite with the frenzy I saw in Seattle.  I suppose it's that 
> 2PM Friday thing.  Karen suggested we invite him to AGA 2010, and I 
> completely agree.
> 
> I took a peek at Bailin's bitchen nano aquascape and the usual 
> self-service AGA booth in the vendor room.  Interestingly, they've moved 
> their vendor room to be right next to the talks, kinda like we do with our 
> conventions.  I think it's better that way.
> 
> OK, so after Ghazanfar's talk it was Wolfgang Staeck, who is one of Kathy 
> & my heroes, co-author of our first well-worn cichlid books: the Tetra 
> 'apisto book' and 'Westie' book; at one point, the latter was all that was 
> available in the hobby to read about the many species Pelvicachromis 
> taeniatus (think pre-Aqualog).  Of course, he talked about totally 
> different subjects this weekend, Characins and Tropheus.  Very nice guy, 
> very pleased to be speaking in the US for the first time ever.
> 
> I missed Bruce Turner's talk on livebearers in the other room, because I 
> sat with Bailin bagging and labeling our plants for the Friday-night 
> All-Plant Auction.  I schlepped a few ziplock bags of stuff out of my 
> tanks and since they weigh nothing, I figured, what the heck, maybe make 
> back some of the money I spent on plane fare and videotapes.  The 100 or 
> so lots went for good money.  Doug Patak and the other auctioneer were not 
> plant nuts, so Ghazanfar and Bailin were conscripted to describe the bags 
> as they were auctioned.  It worked well.  I think that if this were 
> perhaps a bit better publicised, especially to some of the big hobbyists 
> in the area, participation could be improved next year.  My personal 
> highlight of the auction was that Kathy wanted some pygmy chain sword for 
> my nephew, who has been bitten by the hobby in a big way.  The stores in 
> Seattle either don't have the stuff or want $6 for a single node.  I was 
> happy to win the single bag of the stuff (about 10 nodes) for three bucks.
> 
> OK, but before the auction was Ole Pedersen's first talk, on CO2 
> fertilization.  I'm thinking I've seen this before, either he or Troels 
> did this material in San Francisco in 2006.  The red-eye plane flight was 
> starting to catch up on me majorly, so I zoned out a little on the talk. 
> I'll discover what it was really about as I edit it anyway.
> 
> They worked the room purposing VERY cleverly this year.  It's your typical 
> hotel ballroom, in three sections.  The third section can further be 
> subdivided into three 1/9 scale rooms.  So they put the vendor room in 
> section 1, the screen and podium in section 2, and then section 3 was 
> being continually changed.  A second "satellite" room was used for 
> counter-programmed talks and to keep people out of the ballroom while they 
> re-configured it.  Initially section 3 was walled-off as part plant 
> auction staging area, part hospitality room.  The talks took place in the 
> middle 1/3.  Then they pulled back the walls for the plant auction (2/3 
> space) and the following morning's "breakfast talk" continued in the 2/3 
> space.  Then they had a single talk off in the other sattelite room, and 
> while this went on, they re-walled the ballroom so that the next two talks 
> were in the middle 1/3 again, the right 1/3 now walled off as a lunch 
> lounge.  Once again, they held a singlet talk in the satellite room, while 
> the 2/3 ballroom was set up for the banquet.  The entire time, the podium 
> stayed put, right under the Gen-3 LED spots I had set up.  Couldn't ask 
> for more.
> 
> OK, to day 2, and this is the part I said I'd cover for TAG as Bailin and 
> Scott had to leave.
> 
> First up Saturday morning: Les Kaufman gave a wide-angle view of fish 
> conservation, touching on areas familiar to me, such as Lake 
> Victoria the efforts of Project Piaba in South America, but also some 
> unfamiliar, including reef damage and reconstruction.  As I mentioned, 
> this was acually a sort-of "breakfast banquet" with awards presented 
> afterwards, to make the evening banquet a little shorter.
> 
> Dr. Staeck did his second talk, this time on the genus Tropheus from Lake 
> Malawi.  Cool to see it given by a different person, but this is the sort 
> of thing Ad Konings has presented quite a lot at ACA conventions.  I'm so 
> freaking jaded. :P
> 
> Then they went into the crazy competing sessions that NEC is infamous for. 
> Stephan Tanner spoke on Loricarid nutrition in the big room (drawing a big 
> big crowd), while Bruce Turner gave a killifish talk to a significantly 
> smaller audience.  Walking back and forth between the talks to make sure 
> everything was taping, I never got to hear either in too much detail.  But 
> Tanner seemed to give a lot of good pointers in his presentation that I 
> anticipate referencing as we breed our Ancistrus.
> 
> The second pitting was Rusty Wessel, famous but apparently new as an NEC 
> presenter, talking about the genus Thoricthys, vs. Justin Credabel, a 
> teacher and coral propagation expert.  Oddly, Justin was not the only 
> person present at the convention with a big mohawk.  In fact, this is the 
> first convention where I've seen a woman with both a mohawk and a baby 
> stroller.  Justin's doing a lot to promote coral husbandry to high-school 
> age kids though the various programs he's involved in.  It was pretty neat 
> to see that.  I've seen Rusty's talk before, so again, I'll check it out 
> in post.
> 
> The last main talk was Ole's second presentation - "The Algal-free Planted 
> Aquarium - Is it Really Possible?"  This was something entirely different 
> from anything we saw in 2006.  In fact, the whole program was Ole's 
> experiements on various algae removal techniques, one (does Excel work?) 
> even apparently arising from conversations at the 2006 AGA convention. 
> Ole tested the effacacy of various grazers (Amano shrimp, cherry shrimp, 
> SAEs, etc) directly on identical soiled tanks, ranking them, giving actual 
> numbers!  He also had some nice videos of cleaning in action.  This was my 
> favorite talk of the convention.
> 
> Before the banquet, we were treated to a Star Wars re-enactment troupe 
> that was selling photo ops for charity.  Someone, I think maybe Jeanine, 
> pointed out it's pretty cool to see another group of hobbyists who are 
> just as crazy/passionate as we are.
> 
> Finally, the banquet talk was given by our own Karen Randall.  Yes, the 
> fifth plant-specific event in this convention!  We saw a variant of this 
> back in November at the AGA convention when Karen talked about her trip to 
> Thailand in early 2008.  Since then she has become a Google Earth Geek 
> (tm), noting some of the collecting spots on the first trip are connected 
> to the same drainages.  She's also gone back to Thailand for a second 
> time, comparing these collecting spots and digging deeper.
> 
> I breathed a big sigh of relief when my technical support time was over 
> and I could hang out in the hospitality suite (1/3 banquet hall) with old 
> friends (and new)... until I realized I had to be in the lobby at 7 AM 
> this morning to go home.  Ah well.
> 
> So looking back: Holy crap, four plant talks at a fish convention?  Add a 
> live demo, and it's nearly an AGA convention.  I wish more plant geeks had 
> come.  The attendance seemed low, almost on par with an AGA.  In this 
> economy and the slow trend towards Internet-ization and forum-ization of 
> everything, I wonder if the days of the big fish convention are numbered. 
> I've already seen two regional shows go under in the Pacific Northwest 
> over the last ten years.
> 
> Anyway, good to be home.  I will edit something for Cheryl after I edit 
> some of the videos!
> 
>    - Erik
> 
> 
> -- 
> Erik Olson
> erik at thekrib dot com
> _______________________________________________
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> AGA-mcm@thekrib.com
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