Wheres that smiley putting a bullet in his brain when you need it! >LOL<
Soooo I guess I didnt win anything…
I volunteered to do the first one in January. I will try to have the write up done by the 28th, so that everyone can take a look over it before we post it. If we are going to call these, “of the month” it may be a good idea to assign due dates in the future. Perhaps one week ahead of time, so that we can have a chance to proof read things before they go public on the site?
Andy, Craig, and Icy have also volunteered for future "Creature of the month"s. When I present the first creature of the month I would like to ask for other volunteers and try to mix in some non-moderators to get some more people involved.
How specific should we try to get with these creatures? Should we try to narrow it down to a single genus of animals or should we let someone talk about “clown fish”, “tangs”, or “crabs”? I was thinking of perhaps doing a talk on “Convict Blennies” Pholidichtys leucotaenia or “Yellow clown gobies” Gobiodon okinawae. Personally I would prefer to get more specific then “clown fish”. How do you guys feel?
I think specific species of creatures would be most useful.
I will do Febuary. I was thinking of either a wrasse of some sort or an assessor.
Assessor! Sweet! Didn’t someone mention this would be a good idea to bring up some species of fish that people might never have thought of keeping before.(that sentence just doesn’t sound right) I’ve never really thought of keeping an assessor before and have 0 experience with them. I was trying to think of something new I could keep in my 75 for the last several weeks. Have you kept them before?
Problem I see with doing a talk about an animal that most have never thought about keeping, is that we probably don’t have it either. So for us to talk about an animal we do not keep then we are merely reitterating information we have read elsewhere and don’t have any personal experience to include.
:TWOCENTS
Fear not reef cronies! I will have my yellow assessor soon enough!
Jon - dont bite my ideas, you better not get a yellow before me! >LOL<
"Problem I see with doing a talk about an animal that most have never thought about keeping, is that we probably don’t have it either. " You think most of the people in the club have the same 120 species of coral I have? How many people in the club besides me have kept a frogfish before? How else besides Shawn has a Regal? Who else besides you has a B&W perc? Craig you really don’t think some of us will have odd ball animals which some of the newbies and experienced wouldn’t benefit hearing about? We don’t have to always make them about oddball items either, neither of the fish I was thinking about doing are rare at all.
I really really don’t want this to be something where we only share our experience. I got in a debate with a guy in RC who claimed the only way to keep yellow clown gobies was to hatch brine shrimp daily to feed them. The only time he could keep them was when he hatched brine, so he took it as being a law of nature with out doing any further research. Ken does not hatch baby brine shrimp daily and has had yellow clown gobies for as long as many of us have had marine tanks. If people are just reporting on their experience Bret will be telling everyone how perfect a power blue tang is for a 24g aquapod, lol.
I was picturing a well written article followed up by a thread where people can leave there comments on these fish, the first comments could be made by the author and there personal experiences. That way people can share their experiences and still create an article strictly based on solid information. What do you guys think of this?
Oh and Shawn don’t worry I kind of liked the blues a little more then the yellows… but maybe I should give the yellows another look if you think they’re better. 
Valid points Jon, I was just concerned with the fact that after 4-5 months we will have covered all of the “rare” fish we actually keep and would be relegated to reporting on fish and items we read about instead of keep.
To me it sounds like a good excuse to acquire more unusual animals!
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:31, topic:937”]
To me it sounds like a good excuse to acquire more unusual animals![/quote]
Now THAT is a great idea.
I dont see why we cant do them on fish that we dont actually have as long as we do our research. I was thinking of this as a way to introduce some members to fish that are better suited for reef tanks or less likely to be seen in the hobby but good reef creatures. For instance Glenn had never heard of the Mcormicks flasher wrasse untill about a week ago. This may be a good one to do becuase you dont see it that often in MOST lfs, and it is a beautiful fish that is completly reef safe.
[quote=“Cdangel0, post:30, topic:937”]
Valid points Jon, I was just concerned with the fact that after 4-5 months we will have covered all of the “rare” fish we actually keep and would be relegated to reporting on fish and items we read about instead of keep.[/quote]
I think we should mix things up. Let some one like Bret present something on a particular clown we always see in the hobby. Then we could throw in an oddball and the next month RBTA could do an article/talk on a red bubble tip anemone which I am not even sure he has currently. We can represent some creatures we have seen before, but present them with some information they may not have known before so people can see them in a new light.
[quote=“icy1155, post:33, topic:937”]
I dont see why we cant do them on fish that we dont actually have as long as we do our research. [/quote]
Completely agree.