Dear Aquarist,

The May giant auction was a huge success. We had over 200 items up for grabs and a packed house of members and friends looking for (and finding) great deals. We had an enormous selection of marine fish, invertebrates and corals, as well as freshwater plants, fish and interesting shrimp and snails.  We needed our three auctioneers because there were so many items that their voices were getting tired really fast. Dennis Alestra, Bill Amely and former President Seth Kolker all pitched in and made like a tag team, giving breaks to each other when needed.

We also had several tables represented by Your Fish Stuff manned by Bill Arndt and his lovely wife (who won the 50/50 drawing), Python Products, and Charles Stein aquatic supplies, in addition to BAS equipment with a special $1 only table. Members and friends departed the evening with many great deals.

June will be our final event for the year.  As always, we shall finish it off with a big bang and who better to end the year with than Todd Gardner, whose topic for the evening will be “Getting Started In Marine Aquaculture.” Todd is an aquaculturist at the Long Island Aquarium & Exposition Center. For a great night of educational fun, join us on June 8 at 7:30 PM.  As always, there is free parking and free refreshments.
We are planning a bus trip to Long Island Aquarium & Exhibition Center, Riverhead, NY, on Saturday July 28, 2012. Anyone interested in attending, please let me know at the June event.

I am asking for your help and support. If you want to see different topics offered, please let me know. June is elections month; please consider running for a position as an Officer or a Board member. If anyone is interested in running for a position, please let me know at the beginning of the June meeting. Believe me, we need all the help we can get.

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!

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

Dear Aquarist,

The warm winds of April blew in a good friend of Brooklyn – Larry Jinks. Larry is the apex fish breeder. He stands alone in his entitlement as the “Grand Poobah Yoda” of fish breeders, with greater than 4,000 BAP points. This is truly an unbelievable achievement. How many guesses do you want for what Larry’s topic for the evening was? Yes, about fish breeding, BUT Larry went one better – his topic was creating your own fish room. What Larry did was visit and take notes from every person who breeds a lot of fish. He took all the best and none of the worst hints and created the ultimate fish room for breeding and raising fish. It was a fantastic evening. Larry drove up from North Carolina and brought with him many species of fish that he generously donated to our club.

May not only brings the flowers, but it also brings our Giant Auction! Yes, on May 11 there will be no speakers, only fish, plants, corals and aquarium products. As always, this will be a lively event that brings people in from the surrounding areas. It is not to be missed, with the best and most hard to acquire species any hobbyist has ever seen.

There will also be several vendors available that have many unique and interesting items. So come on down and join us on May 11 at 7:30 PM.  As always, there is free parking and free refreshments.

 
We will be panning 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 May event

 
I am asking for your help and support. If you want to see different topics offered, please tell me. 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!

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

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

Happy Birthday, Brooklyn Aquarium Society! February 14th is our birthday when we turn 101 years old. We had a great time at our birthday party with a beautiful fish birthday cake. We had a special birthday gift with  several memberships through Amazon Local. Many new members signed up using that unique method.

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For our 101th Birthday event, we had Peter Warny as our guest speaker. Pete’s topic for the evening was “Visiting Various City & State Aquaria.” Peter’s talk went into environmental pollutants and what they do to fish, turtles and frogs. He also discussed many ways to combat the detrimental effects of pollution. Peter travels around the country to assist Health and Wildlife centers identify and battle water and ground pollutants. It was a real eye opener for us and we thank him for informing us of these problems.

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Next month our guest speaker is an old favorite; Tony Vargas! Tony is an author, lecturer & aquatic photographer. His topic for our March 9th event will be “Successful Reef Aquariums Around The World & How They Got That Way.”  Tony has a new book out entitled, “The Coral Reef Aquarium: From Inception to Completion.” Purchase it through our website and get a nice discount. The book sells for $45 at Drs. Fosters & Smith; via the BAS website, it’s $33.71.

ORDER HERE >> The Coral Reef Aquarium: From Inception to Completion

Once purchased, bring it into the event and Tony will autograph it for you. So come on down and meet with us on March 9 at 7:30 PM.  As always, there is free parking and free refreshments.

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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 should please let me know at the March event.

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I am asking for your help and support. If you want to see different speakers or try different things, 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!

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

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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

I want to start off by wishing a Happy New Year to all of our members and their families.  Another year has gone by and I don’t know if it is just me, but they seem to be going faster as you get older.

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Our January meeting was a cold one, but our members still showed up for their monthly meeting. I am not sure if it was just to hear Joe Yiallo or for the great auction we had. Joe spoke on nutrient control in his 20,000 gallon reef. Just to put that in to perspective, for those of you who have a 100 gallon tank, multiply that by 200.  That’s pretty impressive, right. Joe, as always, gave a great talk and also donated some great frags from his famous reef tank. I myself actually bought two of them. Joe always seems to captivate the audience with his talks, no matter how many times we have him here. I guess when you have a 20,000 gallon tank; there is always new material to speak of. If there are actually any members who have not been to the Long Island Aquarium and Exhibition Center, you don’t know what you are missing. The pictures of Joe’s reef just do not do it justice. We will be auctioning off another pair of tickets to his aquarium in February.

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This was the first time BAS has ever done a 50/50 donation, and I think it went well. With over 200 bags to auction, the die-hard members that stayed to the end got some great buys, though they probably didn’t get much sleep.

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February brings us a new speaker to BAS, in Peter Warny.  Peter will speak on visiting Aquaria in various states. The doors will open at 7:30 as always, and the speaker should go on around 9:00.

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Please visit our new website where you can read the Bulletin and enjoy a full color Aquatica. The interactive forums and sponsor sections are truly enjoyable. Provided you have given us your email address, you will be getting notifications of club events via email.

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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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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 Joe at (718) 238-1792 by the Tuesday previous to the meeting.

Steven Matassa
First Vice President

The new season kick-off meeting of September featuring Joe Caparetta was a great success. Joe’s topic for the evening was “Unique Corals You Can Keep.”  We had “technical difficulties” with the PowerPoint presentation, so Joe had to “wing” it and just talk about keeping marine corals, fish and the proper maintenance to sustain these livestock. The Q & A went on long after Joe went off camera. Everyone enjoyed this very different type of presentation.

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October brings our Fall Giant auction featuring marine fish and corals, freshwater plants, fish and invertebrates. As always, we will have many bags of your favorite species. Great bargains will be available, so make sure you come to the greatest auction in New York on October 14th. Our unique sales tables will be open for shirts, hats, books, magazines and other aquarium equipment and supplies. We will also have a giant raffle for our members and guests.

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I hope to see everyone at our October 14th event. As always, there is free parking and free refreshments.

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Please visit our new website where you can read the Bulletin and enjoy a full color Aquatica. So far, feedback has been very favorable.  We put a lot of effort and hard work into this new web site and we want your reaction as to how you like it. Please get back to me on this. The interactive forums and sponsor sections are truly enjoyable. Provided you have given us your email address, you will be getting notifications of club events via email.

I am asking for your help and support. If you want to see different speakers or try different things, 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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On a more personal note – Any member who desires to attend a Board meeting, 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