Come join SFAS for our annual Holiday Celebration at the Steinhart Aquarium. Food and drinks will be served along with an opportunity for members to participate in the special behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities. The members-only tour begins PROMPTLY at 3 PM while festivities run from 4-6 PM on Sunday, December 6th - we assemble at the BACK Entrance of Cal Academy, not the front. See you all there.
Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C370
David Cripe is the Special Exhibits Coordinator at Monterey Bay Aquarium. He has worked for Monterey Bay Aquarium for 13 years, the first 8 and a half years was as an Aquarists, working with everything from corals to sharks and the last 5 years as the Special Exhibits Coordinator. In this position, David works on a core team that designs installs all temporary exhibits and remodels that take place at the Aquarium. He is responsible for all aspects of the live animal component, including Life Support Design, Tank and Rockwork design, and installation of all these components. As the special exhibits coordinator, he has had the opportunity to work with everything from freshwater planted exhibits, to coral exhibits, to river otters and penguins.
Monterey Bay Aquarium’s most recent temporary exhibit is titled Secret Lives of Seahorse. David will talk about this newest exhibit and some of the amazing animals that are displayed in the exhibit. In addition, he will give a preview of the newest exhibit that is currently under construction at the Aquarium, titled Hot Pink Flamingos and Other Stories of Hope in a Changing Sea.
Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C260 (Room change)
This month we will be welcoming back Pam Chin to the San Francisco
Aquarium Society. Pam will be presenting about her latest trip to
Africa in the Malawi National Park. She will be discussing cichlid
conservation and anti-netting devices used to curb beach seining. Pam
will also share her secrets of breeding and keeping Malawi cichlids.
Along with her husband Gary, Pam is currently maintaining over 200
aquariums in her fish house filled with cichlids from Lake Tanganyika,
Lake Malawi and Central America. Pam is an Honorary Life Member of
the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (PCCA) and past editor of the
PCCA's award winning publication; Cichlidae Communique. She has
been a long time member of the American Cichlid Association and in the
past has served as Secretary and Chairman for the Board of Trustees.
Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C370
It has been a long wait since last September, but the San Francisco Aquarium Society is holding our annual Mega Auction. This is your chance to buy great used gear and livestock from your fellow members. Of course you don't have to be a member to buy at the auction, but you do need to be a member to sell. It is easy to become a member with our online form and here are some great tips from Dick Au to help you sell your fish and gear. Sellers, please print out and complete your auction form ahead of time.
As an added bonus, we are holding a raffle with the grand prize being a brand new Edge Aquarium. All current members get one free ticket. Additional tickets are also available for $2.
Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C370
This month we welcome back Gary Lange to the San Francisco Aquarium Society. Gary has been keeping fish since he was 10 and has been associated with the organized hobby for the last 27 years. He is a member of the Missouri Aquarium Society (MASI) and is active in the club. He is a grand master breeder in MASI, and has won "Best Fish In Show" on four different occasions, twice with rainbowfish.
He has been keeping rainbowfish since 1984. In the fall of 1987 he started the Rainbowfish Study Group of North America (RSG). He got in fish photography mainly because there weren't many quality pictures of rainbowfish. He has had his photos published in FAMA, TFH and AFM and has published several articles for the Aquarium Fish Magazine and TFH. In 2002 he was the first to import eight new rainbowfish from the world explorer, Heiko Bleher, including the Millennium rainbow, the Zigzag and the dwarf Parva rainbowfish. In 2003 he made his second trip to Australia and did some more collecting while there. In 2005 he took the rainbowfish collectors dream trip – collecting in Irian Jaya (New Guinea). He made another trip back in 2008 and brought back rainbowfish that have NEVER been in the hobby until now. He is currently running almost 100 tanks and keeping over 60 varieties of rainbows and blue-eyes.
Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C370
Wendy McKenna has been breeding and showing bettas, as well as a variety of plecos
and cichlids, since 1999 and has served as former Board Member-at-Large for SFAS, VP of California Betta Society, President of the Las Vegas Betta Society, and Board Member of PCCA. She takes great joy in helping hobbyists raise "difficult" cichlid species in a more low-tech way and loves to experiment with color in betta breeding.
In her talk, she will be speaking on Betta color varieties and how to achieve them.
Fort Mason Center, Building C, Room C370
Jim Atchison, the dude behind The Bug Farm, has kept fish on and off since he was six years old. Throughout his long love affair with fishes, Jim has kept as many as 280 aquariums. His hatchery was over 6000 gallons of water in 2000 sq feet of shop with over 1000 feet of airlines keeping nearly 16,000 fishes. The average water change in a day was about 1000 gallons. His website, www.livefoodcultures.com, attracts nearly 1.5 million visitors each year. Jim holds degrees in Art from the University of Idaho and is an honorary member of the Grimsby/Cleethorpe Aquarist Society in the UK.
Jim will be discussing the art of raising, harvesting and feeding live food cultures for fish in aquaria. He will detail when to use live foods and the proper application of the various cultures. The use of live foods can make your fish healthier, more colorful and prepare them for spawning. Please join us this Friday to listen to this fabulous presentation by the man behind the Bug Farm.
Dick Au will give an overview on the selection, keeping and breeding freshwater angelfishes.
He will also provide some tips for those who wish to breed angelfishes as a means to support the hobby.
3rd Floor Classroom, California Academy of Sciences
John has involved in the aquarium hobby for over 40 years. While he maintains, and breeds, a variety of species, his main focus over the past twenty years has been in the keeping of livebearers, killie fish, and rainbow fish, and when possible going into the field and collecting. He is currently involved in a study with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama on the distribution of Brachyrhaphis and Rivulus species in Panama.
John's talk will cover his January 2009 trip to Panama. This was the fourth trip in conjunction with a study he is conducting as to the distribution sites as well as explore new areas. The highlight of this trip being the discovery of what he believes to be two new species of Rivulus and Brachyrhaphis.
3rd Floor Classroom, California Academy of Sciences
Ron Coleman is an Assistant Professor at California State University, Sacramento. Ron and his students study the reproductive biology of fishes in the lab and in the field. In particular, Ron has been studying fishes in Costa Rica since 1989, and he goes to Costa Rica at least once each year. His main interest is in how fishes take care of their kids. His website is http://cichlidresearch.com
