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| FROM THE PRESIDENT... I'd like to start this message with a special "Thank You" to all those who helped out with the last newsletter. I think it was the best one yet, and I've heard a lot of positive comments from AMDA members. It takes a lot of work from all of us involved, but I'd like to give Jim Kostich as well as Mikki Ichinotsubo a special thanks. If it weren't for them, I doubt the letter would have gone out. On September 25-27, 1998, the Marine Aquarium Society of Los Angeles will be hosting the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America (MACNA X). AMDA will be having our annual meeting there as well. In this message, I hope to convince many of you AMDA members to attend. If it weren't for these type of conferences, AMDA may not exist at all. I believe the concept of AMDA came about when John Tullock mentioned the need for such an organization during the Western Marine Conference in Phoenix. For AMDA to continue to move along with its agenda , we must have input from the general membership. What better place to hold our meeting than with the best of the best marine aquarists at a marine conference. If you have never been to a MACNA conference, you really don't know what you are missing. One of the best advantages of attending a conference such as this is the information that you will pick up from the speakers: Martin Moe, Julian Sprung, Bruce Carlson and Mike Paletta are just a sample of who will be speaking. I am told there will be three full days of speakers. You will have first hand information months before your customers can read about it in the aquarium magazines. When it comes to being a quality marine dealer, knowledge is power. Top marine aquarium manufacturers will also be there to show off their newest "toys". You can be the first store in your area to carry these products, before the competition has even heard of it. Even more important is the contacts you will undoubtedly make during our meeting. By mingling with other AMDA members, you can share "war stories" as well as swap information and merchandising tips with other marine fish resources. Most of all, you will make lasting friendships with people from across the country. I personally have been going to these conferences since MACNA 3, and the group of friends I look forward to meeting each year could fill a small restaurant ( I think there are a few restaurants that don't look forward to seeing us fish freaks back). You work very hard at your business all year long. At MACNA you can kick back, relax, and get away. In closing, I hope to see as many of you as possible at what appears to be the biggest and best marine conference in history. I urge you to make your reservations early to be sure to get a room. For more information, contact your local AMDA director or write MACNA X, 1016 Burtonwood Avenue, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360. --- Rick Oellers --- MY ROLE IN THE AMDA
This will not be an "article" so much as an open letter to the membership. No doubt, many of you are wondering how I happened to step down as the executive director of this organization. There have even been a few speculative rumors, all false. Thus, I shall take this opportunity to set the record straight. From a personal standpoint, I became, quite simply, "burned out" on AMDA after two years of largely solitary efforts. There is simply too much to be accomplished for one person to manage. And while there were several members who willingly and generously helped out, most of the decision making and major initiatives were on my plate. I came to realize that, as long as AMDA remained what has been called "The John Tullock Show" we could not go forward. In order to be effective, an organization must be run by its members, not one individual. Another factor had to do with my personal goals. I have long been as interested in plants as in fish. In particular, I am passionate about the native wildflowers of my home near the Smoky Mountains and the Cumberland Plateau. Many of these plants are endangered, and I had often dreamed of being able to start a nursery that would propagate these plants. This would enable more people to enjoy them in their gardens, and help to protect wild populations from commercial digging. (One can hardly help note the similarities to the captive propagation movement in the aquarium hobby.) In October of 1997, the sale of some real estate made it possible for me to pursue this interest. Determined to meet that goal, I advised the AMDA Board of Directors that I would be stepping down at the end of the year. This action was, of course, a sink-or-swim approach, and I owe the directors an apology for dumping the organization unceremoniously in their laps. I am sorry, folks, if I caused problems for you. At the time, I strongly felt that this was the only way to ensure that AMDA would continue, but as a membership-based organization. Today, if you call my office, the greeting on the machine says "Backyard Nursery". I am pursuing my dream of working with native plants, something I also did with marine fish, and native freshwater fish, for that matter, now nearly thirty years ago. I have not, however, abandoned the aquarium business. I am writing new books about aquariums, two of which will be out soon from Barrons. I am doing research for a book on aquatic ecology issues that I have managed to convince James Lawrence at Microcosm (publisher of my most recent title, Natural Reef Aquariums) to consider for publication. I still keep in touch with hobbyists and the industry via reading the volumes of correspondence I receive as a result of my columns in Marine Fish Monthly, Freshwater and Marine Aquarium, Aquarium Fish, Aquarium Frontiers Online, and Pet Product News. I still work part time for Aquatic Specialists, the company I helped found with J.R. Shute in 1987. Besides the accounting chores, I help J.R. with maintaining a web site and answering customer questions on the phone and via email. Nor have I abandoned AMDA. Any member is welcome to write, call or email me at any time for any assistance you think I can provide, and I will try my best to fulfill your wish. My phone 423-573-0373 is almost invariably answered by a machine, but your message will receive prompt attention. Email (tullock@aquatic-specialists.com) is my preferred means of correspondence. If you write a long letter and send it via postal mail, please be prepared for a wait, as I receive far more letters than I can promptly answer. I repeat, however, that I stand ready to help any AMDA member in any way that I can. I also intend to keep AMDA and its activities at the top of my list of regular subjects for magazine articles and for inclusion in books. I have been pleased to note that other authors are beginning to do the same. For example, Bob Fenner’s new book, The Conscientious Marine Aquarist, mentions AMDA in a favorable light several times, and includes contact information in the Appendix. You might want to catch my review of this book that will be posted by Aquarium Frontiers Online (www.aquariumfrontiers.com) around the 15th of June. This is not only a good addition to your library and your inventory, but also elaborates on many of the issues that we regularly discuss, and which were the impetus for founding AMDA, such as cyanide, inappropriate species, and so forth. The publication of this, the second newsletter of 1998, sees AMDA with a slate of interim officers efficiently carrying out the organization’s efforts despite their hectic schedules and obligations to family and business. We are legally incorporated. We have an ongoing program of activities. We have a well done web site, which is receiving a growing number of hits. We have a representative in Washington, working with the MAFC. A mere nine months after I handed over the reins to the Board, we are in pretty darn good shape. So I guess I made the right decision. I shall continue to write an article for each subsequent issue of this newsletter. Please let me hear from you as to topics that might be of interest. Lacking your guidance, I plan to focus on the challenges of running a marine aquarium business. In particular, I hope to show you how retailers in other industries have succeeded, and how their lessons learned can be adapted to your business. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Rick Oellers, Lance and Mikki Ichinotsubo, Teresa Herndon, Andy Lee, Jim Kostich, and Tom White for rising to the many challenges of transforming AMDA into a viable organization. To all the other members, thanks for your continuing support and participation. Because of your efforts, I shall always be proud to be remembered as the founder of AMDA. But the past, as someone once said, is merely prologue. Let us now focus on meeting the challenges of the future as we strive for nothing less than profound, positive improvements in our industry. Any opinions expressed in this newsletter - including product endorsements or critiques - are those of the author, and may not represent the views of the AMDA as a whole. PARTING SHOT It’s one of those concepts we were supposed to grasp in high school Physics: the difference between potential and kinetic energy. Potential energy is like that found in a pack of AAA batteries. We know there’s energy in there, but as long as it’s still sitting there blister-packed on the shelf, it’s not doing anything useful. It’s not until we place those batteries into the radio, flashlight, or Walkin’ Talkin’ Drum-Beatin’ Mechanical Monkey that the potential turns into kinetic energy and actually accomplishes something. Sometimes it seems to me that organizations like the AMDA could also be used to illustrate that difference between potential and kinetic energy. We know there’s power in the hundred or so member businesses, but we haven’t managed to plug ‘em in and put that power to good use just yet. It’s as if we’ve gathered up a whole case of AAA batteries, but misplaced the radio, don’t know how to open the flashlight, and darn it, there’s never a Walkin’ Talkin’ Drum-Beatin’ Mechanical Monkey around when you need one! Our potential - and more importantly our kinetic - energy is needed by the AMDA. If we are ever going to have an impact on our industry, we are going to have to make a lot more noise, shine a lot more light, and just plain get out there and do something. If you can’t write, draw; can’t draw, take pictures - or type, man a booth, commend, complain, vote, run for office - or whatever it takes to get a little of that potential energy turned to kinetic. QUEEN CONCH AND RED SLIME By Rick Oellers One of the advantages of being a member of AMDA is the sharing of information. When a retailer finds a product that really helps the customer with his or her problem, everybody wins. This is the case with the Queen Conch. In our last newsletter, Teresa Herndon from Sea Critters mentioned that she had farm raised queen conches and it was believed that they will eat Cynobacteria or the dreaded red slime. How many times a week have you heard of the problem of red slime algae from your customers and the only advice you could give was treat with an antibiotic? Sure it may kill the slime for a while and, oh by the way, it may wipe out the biological filter. You could try using a phosphate remover and step up the protein skimming and it may go away on its own, in about two months. Well, I have tried the conches in four tanks personally and have witnessed the little buggers chowing down on Cynobacteria. Now this is what AMDA stands for: a way for us to help the mariculture industry, help our customers so that they don’t get discouraged, and make a buck at the same time. Speaking of problem solvers, I have been selling sally lightfoot crabs for several years for hair algae control. Along with red legged hermits they control just about any hair algae problems my customers have. If you aren’t selling them already you might want to give them a try. STOCKING YOUR FIRST REEF TANK By J. Charles Delbeek Determining what organisms to purchase for any aquarium is always a difficult and, all too often, frustrating task. This is predominantly due to the fact that one knows very little about the organisms and you often end up purchasing totally unsuitable specimens. This leads to frustration as they never do well and eventually waste away. What I would like to do in this brief article is recommend how to stock a first reef tank of about 150 gallons, so that your losses are minimized and you end up with a pleasing and healthy display. Of course this is only my own opinion and as such, is not written as "law" Furthermore, I am assuming that you have set up the proper filtration and lighting systems for the animals you want to keep, failure to take into account what you want to keep BEFORE you install filtration and lighting, is in my opinion, one of the major problems that beginners make. You must have some idea of what you want to keep, and then design the system to suite them. If you don't do this, then you will have problems right from the start and you will have a tough time knowing if the problem lies with the system or the selection of animals. Finally, I am designing this system as I would want it, that is very little Caulerpa, properly selected, cured and arranged live rock, and the emphasis on calcareous algae such as corallines and Halimeda. The selection and preparation of live rock is the first step. My opinions on this can be found in Freshwater and Marine Aquarium magazine December 1990 and Aquarium Fish Magazine November and December 1990. To summarize, I prefer to use "reef" rock that is rock of large size and a broad flat shape that is encrusted with coralline algae and no other macroalgae. The systems I have seen with this type of rock are superb and don’t worry, they will develop copious amounts of macroalgae later, if that is what you want. Cure the rock (keep in a filtered aquarium in the dark for a couple of weeks) either in the tank or a separate container and then place it in the tank in a loose arrangement with lots of overhangs and caves. A loose arrangement will facilitate cleaning and water movement. Once the tank has cycled and the rock looks clean and fresh, no white slime on it, then you can turn on the lights and start adding organisms. The key during the whole start up process is patience! Don’t rush at this point and add all sorts of stuff or else you will be disappointed later. The first things to add should be your "maintenance crew", that is the scavengers, algae and detritus eaters. These organisms are especially important if you use a substrate, i.e. they will help to keep it clean and turned over. Under this category are brittle star starfish and detrital feeding sea cucumbers (not sea apples!) which can be easily recognized as they have oral tentacles designed for sweeping over the rocks and substrate. They can be seen crawling over the substrate, using their tentacles as sweepers over the substrate. Herbivorous snails should also be among the first additions. Species such as Astrea tecta and the well known Turbo Grazers are especially desirable. I would also recommend that at this point you add your first fish which should be one of the tang species, preferably the Yellow Tang, to help control the growth of algae. At this point you can begin to add other invertebrates. What follows is a brief listing of soft corals that would make good first additions. Mushroom Anemones Star Polyps Leather Corals Cladiella spp. Other soft corals Gorgonians If, after 6 to 12 months, your tank is doing well and you have no microalgae problems then you can try some hard corals, However, I hesitate to recommend them to beginners and you can have a very nice and interesting tank without them. If you can concentrate on soft corals you should have a very stable tank that will grow quite nicely. Eventually you can propagate many of the soft corals from cuttings. Hard Corals Adding Fish. Again my feelings on adding fish can be found in the December 1990 FAM, but I feel that the longer you can hold off addition of fish (other than herbivores) the better the tank will develop. What follows is a list of fish families that do well. Damsels Clownfish Blennies Pseudochromidae Pygmy Angels Gobies Butterfly Fish Tangs Dragonettes Check to make sure that corals have no damaged areas and are fully extended. Also check for any hitchhikers on the rock, like nudabranches, snails and bristleworms that may damage other specimens in the tank. About the author: J. Charles Delbeek currently is on the staff of the Waikiki Aquarium in Honolulu, under the directorship of Dr. Bruce Carlson. Charles is a frequent speaker at the MACNA conferences, as well as the Western Marine Conferences and the noted co-author (with Julian Sprung) of the two popular reef volumes The Reef Aquarium Volume I and The Reef Aquarium Volume II. |
In this issue:
B-REEF NOTES Treasurer’s Report as of June 02 Delinquent Dues Notice: All members whose dues are not brought current by August 1, 1998 will have their membership in AMDA suspended and their listing in our Web page will be removed. All suspended members should not profess to be AMDA members if their dues are not current. All current members and previous members will be welcome at the General Membership meeting at MACNA X in September, but only those members whose dues are current will be allowed to vote. We offer our apologies to all members for not sending dues notices before May 1998. Those notices have now been sent, however, and it is time for all of us to get with the program and remember what AMDA is all about, what we stand for and bring our dues current! We thank you for your support! The annual World Wide Pet Association trade show is being held in Long Beach, July 10, 11 & 12, 1998. They have graciously provided us with a booth at no charge. This is the largest pet trade show on the West Coast. We will have the opportunity to introduce AMDA to those who are not familiar with our philosophies in an arena that will provide AMDA with exposure to the different levels of the pet trade industry. We hope the AMDA members that will be attending the show will stop by the booth to sign our guest book and say "hello". It is such a rare opportunity to meet our colleagues in person and make new friends as well. Also noteworthy: Jim Stime of the Marine Aquarium Society of Los Angeles, the host for MACNA X, has requested to share our booth with us, in order to help promote the conference. Brochures will be handed out and we'll be able to let the trade show attendees become aware of the country's largest annual marine conference. I have received the big OK from the WWPSA officials, so, we'll be having lots of fun! Please stop by Booth #2132 B, or better yet, mention our endeavors and goals to other "quality and responsibly oriented" professionals to stop by our booth and join up. AMDA is the wave of the marinelife industry's future! General Membership Meeting to be held at the MACNA X September 1998! What a meeting we have planned for this year! The agenda is full of exciting events, such as Officers Elections, the proposed Skills Recognition Test, a proposed Standards of Practice list, The Green Label Project, and other pertinent issues that must be addressed to insure the continuation and growth of AMDA. Our President, Rick Oellers, will conduct the meeting. Rick and the other officers are preparing a written agenda that will be handed out to all meeting attendees and Robert’s Rules of Order will be the protocol for the entire meeting. We have a lot of criteria to cover in just 2 hours; we must be expedient! The meeting is planned for Friday morning, September 25, 1998, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. The meeting will be in either the Barcelona Room or the Casa Blanca Room on the 3rd floor where the conference is being held. We will have coffee available. Do expect Proxy Notices to come to you in the mail by August 1st, 1998. If you are not able to attend the meeting, please vote by proxy. It is important that you are represented! You will need to pick an officer to do your voting for you. Please feel free to communicate with the officer or director of your choice, reach a level of comfort and give your proxy to him or her. (America: Isn't it great?)! See you at MACNA X! MEMBERS" QUESTIONNAIRE In the spring issue of the AMDA newsletter, there is a questionnaire that the Directors have designed for the members to fill out, cut out and send back to any Regional Director or the main office in Las Vegas. We are reporting that one and only one has filled his out and returned it. Congratulations Randy Fernley, of Coral Fish Hawaii for your quick and professional response! All of you members who want to know just what it is that AMDA is going to do for you, remember that changes cannot be made without data! These questionnaires are one of the few methods that we have to determine how to shape the future of our industry! If we are to know how you perceive your position in the marinelife industry, what your frustrations are and where you would like to see improvements, you must be willing to cooperate and participate. AMDA can only succeed with a willing membership and active participation! You want your voice to be heard? This is your opportunity! Please send in your questionnaires! AMDA HANDOUTS The American Marinelife Dealers Association offers a number of consumer handouts for distribution by its members. Any current AMDA member may freely copy and distribute these articles as part of AMDA’s ongoing commitment to education. The following handouts are currently available:
Master copies of these excellent articles are available on the website, or through the AMDA business office. BUTTERFLYFISHES
Butterflyfishes are some of the most beautiful and most difficult marine fish to keep. There are 114 species of butterflyfishes divided into 10 genera. Not all of these species do well in captivity, and some have special needs to be met to do well. Through the years I have gathered data on the species that best adapt to captivity and what each species specific needs are. The data includes what foods first trigger a feeding response in butterflies, what foods are needed to keep butterflies healthy, and what cures are best for the common diseases of butterflies. Over the next few issues I will share what the data shows to be the most successful of each of the major butterfly species found in the trade. First I will go over some general guidelines for the care of butterflies. There are a few needs that must be met to have any success with butterflies. The first is to establish an environment in which the butterflies will be comfortable. In order to do well in captivity, butterflies need to feel safe in their environment. The butterflyfishes are almost exclusively found around coral or rocky habitats. A similar environment is important to keep a butterfly in an aquarium for any length of time. A tank with lots of rocks and old coral skeletons to hide and pick at will greatly decrease a butterflyfish’s stress level. A decrease in the fish’s stress level will greatly improve the fish’s health. Butterflies are primarily found on the reef flat and the reef slope to 30 meters. This is an area of high currents and well oxygenated water. Adding a powerhead to the tank to increase water flow will decrease a butterflies mortality due to "Ich" and other parasites. The second need of butterflies is to get them to eat. The biggest reason for the butterflies reluctance to eat is because most species are adapted to eating sessile invertebrates, such as sponges, corals, and tunicates. When butterflies are fed in a tank, its food is normally floating in the tank in the form of various dried flakes and frozen foods. These foods fail to elicit a feeding response. However, butterflies can often be induced to eat if their food is offered on the bottom of the tank tied to a decoration. Butterflies can be divided into three categories in regards to feeding: the obligate coral eaters, the facultative coral eaters, and the non-coral eaters. The last two categories are the important ones to the aquarium trade. Obligate coral eaters are subdivided into specialists (those that eat one species of coral) and generalists (those that eat only corals but have no preference in coral species). Obligates do not do well in captivity because they will not survive without corals being a part of their diet. Facultative coral eaters consume corals as part of their diet but are not dependent on them as a source of food. Most of the species available to the trade fall into this category. The last category is the non-coral eaters which are primarily made up of planktivores. There are fewer of these species, but they are sold in the aquarium trade. In nature, butterflies feed on a wide variety of sessile and motile invertebrates. To get a balanced diet in the aquarium requires that we dealers get the butterfly to eat as wide a variety of food as possible. Some foods that I found to be important in the long term health of butterflies are frozen foods such as Angel Formula and Sea Worm Supreme, used in combination with Nori algae. These two products contain a wide variety of invertebrates that are important mainstays for their natural diet. Some of these important ingredients are sponges, mussels, sea worms, and algae. Suggested Reading: TRACKING LOSSES
by Jim Kostich Minimizing marine livestock losses is not only a matter of economics, but of ethics as well. But to reduce casualties, it’s crucial to first identify them and their causes. Such a vital task would seem too important to leave to guesswork or gut feeling; we need real data, and the willingness to let that data speak for itself. Tracking livestock losses, while a painstaking and somewhat disconcerting process, provides us with that data, and might even open our eyes to better solutions. Tracking losses amounts to little more than book-keeping, and various techniques might be employed to gather data. Perhaps the most intriguing method of record-keeping I’ve heard of is that of setting up a dummy account for lost fish right on the cash register. When an employee removes any dead saltwater fish from a tank, he actually rings the item up just as if it were sold, although no money changes hands, and the "proceeds" are not added to the day’s sales. This of course requires the use of a high-tech, Point-of-Sale computerized cash register, but the possibilities for data collection could be endless. Depending on how well the stock was entered into the system on arrival, the computer could track losses by source, country of origin, aquarium housed in, arrival date or almost any other factor. Of course, tracking losses need not be done in such a sophisticated manner. Over the past few years, I’ve made a serious attempt at record-keeping by leaving a simple notebook next to the cash register nearest the saltwater section of the store. When a lost fish is removed from an aquarium, the employee makes a notation in the book, or better yet, attaches the label from the animal to the notebook page. Other records, such as maintenance, chemical testing and treatments used, are kept in the book as well. While this method of record-keeping certainly wasn’t error-free, it wasn’t long before I could begin to spot trends. For starters, I was shocked by the number of times certain "hardy" fish - that I had always assumed were being sold by other employees - showed up in the book. Likewise, fish from certain sources or countries of origin made too many appearances on my list - again contrary to some of my preconceived notions. The records even helped to determine whether our maintenance procedures like water changing and filter cleaning reduced or increased the number of mortalities. As more and more data is collected, the second step to reducing losses - changing species stocked, sources and procedures - becomes clearer and better defined. And with a little effort, tracking losses might get easier and easier, with fewer and fewer losses to track.
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