President’s Message – March 2012

Dear Aquarist,

March is a warm month for us and it became sizzling hot when Tony Vargas came in to be our guest speaker. As always, Tony provides a fantastic presentation to our marine loving and freshwater members. Tony’s topic for the evening was “Successful Reef Aquariums Around The World & How They Got That Way.”  Tony provided dazzling pictures and phenomenal video clips of individuals’ giant aquariums and the audience ate it up. Tony has a new book out entitled “The Coral Reef Aquarium: From Inception to Completion.” Those who purchased the book through our website received a nice discount.  Tony had fun autographing the book for our attendees.  In case you weren’t aware, Tony did his first presentation at BAS, back in the 80’s. Tony hung around with a great group of guys that had gotten into salt water fish and corals and today are leaders in that arena. Are these names familiar- Joe Yaiullo, Greg Schiemer, Julian Sprung? If memory is correct, I think the majority of them started their speaker presentations at the Brooklyn Aquarium Society.

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April will bring in a great freshwater breeder, probably the greatest freshwater fish breeder ever – Larry Jinks. Larry has bred all species of tropical freshwater fish and holds the record in Brooklyn and North Jersey for the most first time spawns in the respective clubs. Larry moved to North Carolina last year and maintained his passion for breeding fish by creating a fully automated fish room. Needless to say, Larry’s topic for the evening will be “Creating My Fish Room.” So come on down and meet with us on April 13 at 7:30 PM.  As always, there is free parking and free refreshments.
We will be planning a bus trip to Long Island Aquarium & Exhibition Center, Riverhead, NY. We are looking at Saturday July 28, 2012. Anyone interested in attending, please let me know at the April event.

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I am asking for your help and support. If you want to see different topics offered, please let me know. The elected officials of the Brooklyn Aquarium Society are here to serve YOU! Please let us know what you want and why. It would be helpful to everyone. It is important that you visit and patronize our sponsors. It goes full circle: by helping them, they are also helping you as hobbyists and everyone is helping the Brooklyn Aquarium Society; so help us, help you!

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For more info please call our BAS Hotline at (718) 837-4455

On a more personal note – Any member who desires to attend a Board meeting, which are held at the Education Center of the New York Aquarium on the 1st Friday of the month, please notify me at (718) 238-1792 by the Tuesday previous to the meeting.

Joe Graffagnino
President