Have fun guys
Those that attend the Swap. Please show us or let us know what you got!! and how was the gathering?
chaos doesn’t describe the scene well enough. mayhem, confusion, and mass hysteria, along with some beautiful setups and amazing coral frags. excellent prices and some not so. lotsa setups were leds. eggcrates filled every square inch. but there was no order to the swappers. you had to go through aisle after aisle to find a person with whom you had an arrangement, and some were late, some didn’t show. as hot and humid as, say… woodstock. almost as crowded. dogs and people galore. saw at least 10 club people. no pics there but maybe some later. a long trip, but worth it. i ended up w/ about 12 frags [zoa, monti, acans and one garf bonsai from zona, a sponsor here] and a tiger pistol shrimp from tfp. tfp had some beautiful clams but way too $$$. 30% off their low prices on drygoods and the same on corals, which were about 50% too high to begin with.
i would gladly go again.
“mayhem, confusion, and mass hysteria” Sounds fun!! wish I could have made it. Paul, can you show pics of your frags? Guess I’ll have to get with Zona about getting a frag of the GARF Bonzai.
You have a great way with words , Paul. You framed the scene exactly. It was hap hazzard at first, searching out the people i had reserved frags from. but one by one, just sortin through the crowd i found them all. they each had all the corals they had reserved plus much more. they are a pretty prolific bunch of reefers these NCPARs guys and gals! Im tickled pink, or maybe Neon green ot Teal Blue with the frags i reserved. and after i secured all of those, well, I just roamed around and found some more. I came home with 11 nice frags and about $200 lighter. but Im happy. Still unpacking them now. still floating in the frag tank under the lights, showing colors. Took in a couple guest speaker prestentations too. Reeds Mariculture’s talk on raising rotifers for feeding larval fish or corals was great. And with the cover charge, we got a swell Swag Bag too! That was nice.
In the imortal words of Jaws:
We’re gonna need a bigger Frag Rack!!
Or something like that.
thanks ken
the best pics i could get for now; top down, most of the zoas came today aog’s, kedds redds lord of the rings,
three acans from the swap. blasto ive had a few months
kryptonite candycanes
no flash
lousy pic or orange rics
missed taking a pic of zona’s garf purple bonsai. beyond tiny. 1/4 inch, but wow!!
Nice pick up Paul. Hoping to see the Bonzai but, next time. Thanks for the pics of the new corals
I’ll take some pics of my stuff tomorrow after I clean the glass. I picked up 7-8 new items today including a blue acro, another blue something, a green chalice, a red chalice, a pink birds nest, and 1 or 2 more things I can’t think of the names. All very pretty corals and all at great prices.
I think I got out for about $85. Zona322 HOOKED ME UP!!! (thanks Craig)
It was mad chaos, but fun mayhem.Met a few different people from a couple different clubs/forums. Met Anthony Calfo, and some people from Brightwell, and Red Sea - both of which i hope to be able to get to come present to the club.
I met several people interested in becoming frag sponsors for the club so hopefully we will be able to start getting some of these nice NCPARS type frags included in our upcoming raffles.
I also talked to a current sponsor who has promised something BIG (and bright) for a Golden Ticket item shortly!!!
Oh - and I just popped over to Reef-Geeks and found out that after I left I won a top down box so I can start taking proper pictures of my tank!!! (well I would be able to if I didn’t suck a taking pictures of my tank)
So the back story here is that NCPARS had the cutest kid walking around selling raffle tickets. Not being able to say “No” I bought a couple. THEN found out the raffle wasn’t going to be until 4 and you had to be present to win (we were leaving at 2) - I offered my tickets to a fellow reefer who declined, but said she’d hold them and if I won she would ship it to me!!!
I spent $10 to get in, $2 on raffle tickets, will spend $4 on shipping and am receiving a Top Down box that TPP was selling for $30!!!
Nice corals Paul!!
Congrats Craig!
It was fun. I did not get time to look at other peoples stuff since the people I had to wait for this morning did not eat breakfast even after 3 of them showed up here over an hour late needed lunch… but thats a good thing I could have spent way more if I would have stayed LoL. I will post pictures tomorrow prob after everything opens up.
I picked up-
2" Superman monti
3/4" hollywood stunner chalice
2" kryptonian chalice with a ton of eyes on it
2-3" purple plate monti
4 frags of random colorful zoas
4" 2 stalks of finger leather that already opened up real nicely
tiny pieces of pink birdsnest (not mounted) should I mount it or leave it be for now?
4bulb odyssey light with led moonlights
Oh how I could have bought so much more verdict_in verdict_in verdict_in
It was a great time!, just wish they had some more elbow room…
anyway, here’s what i grabbed. A purple bonsai, and a pizza chalice… actinic shots
wow jon really nice
wish i could buy some coral for the tank, but no light yet haha.
so sounds like a good time. were there more ppl there than last year?
While I wasn’t there last year I heard plenty about the poor turn out. There were easily 200-300 there yesterday. Probably 20-30 vendors. Some with really good deals - some that believe people in this hobby will pay any price if you call something “rare”.
totally agree craig. numerous sellers who had really cheap stuff, too. i had tran125 basically double the size of the frags i signed up for.
Very fun day and it was nice to meet and talk to everyone.
Heres a few pics and a video for everyone that couldnt make it.
Out side of TFP
The dry goods section
Salt water fish section
Where the frag swap was held
And some shots of the display tanks at TFP
[quote=“saltcreep, post:32, topic:3698”]
It was a great time!, just wish they had some more elbow room…
anyway, here’s what i grabbed. A purple bonsai, and a pizza chalice… actinic shots[/quote]
Great pictures. What camera/lens and settings are you using to get such great pics?
I have a canon powershot S5IS and on the aquarium w/macro setting I just can not get the pictures to come out looking that good and that true in color.
Thanks Guy…I use a canon T1i…these pics were with an old zoom/macro lens
[quote=“saltcreep, post:32, topic:3698”]
It was a great time!, just wish they had some more elbow room…
anyway, here’s what i grabbed. A purple bonsai, and a pizza chalice… actinic shots
[/quote]
Nice pick up on the Bonzai!!
Thanks for posting the pics of the swap Chris.