March 23rd meeting presentation

[charlie]

This month OVAS is pleased to have Robert Di Marco visit our club to deliver a exciting presentation on Breeding the clown fish, his presentation is titled  " Clowning around in Montreal",Robert is long time hobbyist, writer, speaker, see his bio for details.

Bio:
After a short stint, during his youth with freshwater fish, Robert wandered aimlessly, like a lost "sole", until he discovered the love of his life, which he married, and Clownfish to which he became a slave!
A Canadian living in the "Great White North" on the island of Montreal, Robert was one of the first members of the Marine Aquarium Society of Toronto (MAST). He is also a member of both French and English Montreal aquarium clubs, the Breeders Registry and various other societies in Canada and USA.
Robert, has been a saltwater aquarist for over 35 years and raised his first Clownfish in the late 80's. He was certified as the first anemone fish breeder in Canada by the Société d'Aquariophilie de Montréal, for his first large quantity rearing of the Amphiprion ocellaris. To date, he has raised nine different varieties of Anemone fish, the Amphiprion Ocellaris, common name Percula Clown, A. Clarkii, commonly (although erroneously) referred to as Sebae Clown, A. Frenatus, c.n. Tomato Clown, A. Epphipium c.n. Red Saddleback Clown, Premnas Biaculeatus c.n. Maroon or Spine Cheek Clownfish (white and gold bars), A. Polymnus c.n. the Saddle(back) Clown, A. Melanopus, c.n. the Cinnamon Clown and Amphiprion Percula and one species of peppermint shrimp.
After being challenged by Charles Delbeek, Robert produced his first article for Atoll, the newsletter of the Marine Aquarium Society of Toronto. He subsequently authored numerous articles, for aquarium club newsletters, the Breeders' Registry, Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine and a recent article in Aquarium Systems' Sea Scope.
He has been involved in television and video interviews, as well as numerous speaking engagements and workshops on the saltwater hobby to aquarium societies in Canada i.e. Montreal (the French and English societies), Toronto and Brampton and in the USA in Vermont, Pennsylvania, New York and Houston Texas. He has acted as a consultant to Rolf C. Hagen Inc.'s H.A.R.S. facility (Hagen Aquatic Research Station) and has assisted their web site in responding to Internet questions sent by hobbyists.
Robert also been active in conferences and conventions as a speaker at the Aquarium Convention in Quebec City, the Canadian Association of Aquarium Clubs Convention in London Ontario, he has been speaker twice at the Annual Conference of the Aquarium Societies of New England (NEC) and twice at the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America (MACNA XV in Louisville, Kentucky & MACNA XVIII Houston, Texas).

http://ovas.ca/index.php?page=2


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[charlie]

Fellow OVAS`ers, to update you on the meeting events, the club will be waiving any mini -auction commission fees for the March meeting only, in lieu of this you are asked to label your items with your name & a item # - example " charlie item # 001, charlie item # 002 ", Please note their will be no pre-registering/on line registering or printed labels of auction items for this meeting only, you must label your own items as described.
This is the perfect opportunity for our Marine hobbyist to bring whatever marine equipment, livestock etc. to the meeting  and partake in the mini auction with no cost to you, this will augment the feature topic of the evening, hoping to see you out in large numbers, expereincing our meetings ( meeting fellow aquarist & making friends), remember our meetings are a good place to interact with a bunch of humans that share a common passion,regardless of what type of aquarium we keep.
See you on the 23rd @ 7.00PM

[charlie]

It`s here, today is the day  , for anyone interested in joining us for supper, we will be at "the The Village restaurant" located in the Travelodge hotel on Carling Ave. @ 5.00PM

[bitterman]

Very interesting speaker thanks!!!!!

This is I believe the site for Florida Aqua Farms that the speaker was mentioning for supplies.

Thank-you for the great talk!!!!

Bruce

[dan2x38]

Got a call to go to Mtrl today for a shipment so missed the meeting... I know very little about saltwater fish or their set-ups. I hope a lot of OVAS hobbyists FW & SW took advantage of the opportunity to hear about the saltwater hobby? How did it go over all? Was there a big crowd? Was there a mini auction?

Oh yeah I missed my cookies & coffee too...   

[charlie]

I would like to extend a great big thank you to Robert & Louise for taking time out from their hectic schedule & making the trip to Ottawa to share their fantastic passion of breeding the clown fish, as was evident by the presentation the literal thousands of baby clown fish of various species , it was a honour to have them at our  OVAS meeting on a Monday evening, thank you again.

To the members & the few visitors that made it out to take in this spectacular sharing of valuable information thank you, it was a pleasure to hear non marine hobbyist commenting how much they enjoyed learning from Robert about the clown fish, unfortunately the support in attendance from our marine hobbyist was not as expected, in fact it was very dissappointing, i would also like to thank the couple of folks that brought corals to the meeting for the mini auction, thanks for your efforts, congrats to all our lucky raffle winners, prizes included Korilla power head , a couple of signature Robert Di Marco T shirts with a picture of one of his tank bred fish.
Regards
Edit to add pictures.

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[washefuzzy]

Enjoyed Roberts presentation even though I'm not a salty.  Very informative and entertaining.

[charlie]

And our final Lucky raffle winner

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[dan2x38]

Sounds like I missed a good one...    Geeze strange not more saltwater folks came out - Wonder why?

[charlie]

Sounds like I missed a good one...    Geeze strange not more saltwater folks came out - Wonder why?

Don`t have a answer, but interesting to note, we had members from the Valley who took the long drive down and are not into salt water.

[RossW]

I can only speak for myself...

I did not make it as I do not have a lot of free time in my schedule with work, two kids, activities, etc. and I feel that the subject of raising clowns is not of much interest to me due to the effort involved.  Based on my observations on the web, it is not as easy as the typical freshwater breeding of cichlids I am accustomed to and requires much more patience and effort with multiple cultures etc.  Also, my interests tend to be more coral focused than fish focused.  Maybe when I retire I will give it a try.

Sounds like I missed a good one...    Geeze strange not more saltwater folks came out - Wonder why?

[Vincenzo.]

Well I Was One Of The Saltwater Kids There...Yes That's Me Hiding


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[Nerine]

My hubby was actually going to go with me to the meeting! But we missed due to a very long day at the doctor & play group, the baby had enough by 4:30!  Didn't have a sitter if hubby was coming, so we just stayed home and napped!

Looking forward to the next meeting though!! sorry I missed such a good meeting!

[gvv]

Really glad was there!

Thank to all who managed to organize it and to Robert for wonderful presentation. The movies were awesome!
Also got the answer why my clown juvies behave completely different from what I saw in the presentation

[Kenny P]

picked up huge coral frags for cheap (40+ colony for 2$ ) and learned a lot about a subject we are so close to but hardly ever see. We see and buy fish , but how is it done? well now we know....
Thanks to Robert for the presentation
thanks to the regular OVAS crew for the hard work
Kenny

[zima]

Sounds like I missed a good meeting as well. I'm not a marine aquarist, but would have enjoyed the talk for sure. Too bad our salty counterparts didn't show up en mass..

[Basile]

I'm so mad i was sick that day, that must of been some great meeting, bummer!

[wish_Fish]

that was an awesome presentation/speech... tho im not a salty, yet, I'm glad I went and I learned so much about things i had no idea.  I'm also thrilled that Robert took some of my cherry shrimp home with him.