The President's Pen:

The club has really grown in recent months, and the BOD hopes that you continue to enjoy and benefit from the membership. Our message board buzzes with activity, and truly if you want to know the latest you need to be there. Livestock and dry goods go up for sale and minutes later are claimed by others. Group buys are saving the members money on various items. And when people need help in a hurry, there always is someone there online to help provide the necessary answers.

The end of the year is almost here, but before that can occur, our club will have its Annual Winter Social, where members can sit, eat and visit with one another for a couple of hours. We've rented a room at the Ft Worth Botanical Gardens this year, and Coburn's Catering will be supplying the meal. We hope those that attend will enjoy their time spent together. There will be a raflle of dry goods, with each member receiving a free raffle ticket. Please have your membership card at the door to receive your ticket. For more information, please read this page. Seating is limited.

The pre-ordered golf shirts with the club logo are almost done. We are waiting on the embroidering now. I'm just as anxious as you are. One more current project is the 2005 Calendar, which should be going to print soon. When these become available, the information will be posted on our site, the message board, and via email notification.

The 3rd Next Wave Conference update: We are contacting speakers for our one-day conference scheduled March 26, 2005. Steve Tyree has already confirmed he'll do a presentation. Our hope is organize a nice event, and to invite other neighboring clubs to attend Next Wave. MACNA is pretty costly for most hobbyists, but some of the clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana may decide they can afford to attend a one-day event.

Marc Levenson
President DFWMAS

The Dallas Aquarium of Fair Park was kind enough to host our annual Frag Swap again, and we had 125 people participate this year. Taking an informal poll on our message board, posts indicate that 400 frags were sold or traded, but my estimate is that there were probably 500 frags available! It is our hope that next year's Frag Swap will be even better, now that people have seen how much fun this can be. Not only did we have all those frags on hand, but many brought drygoods to sell or give away, and then we concluded with a fantastic raffle that included $500 worth of SPS corals and clams, books from Anthony Calfo and more.

Here are a few images of the event.

 
 
 

Message Board News

A FAQ page has been compiled to assist you in using the message board and more. Please use it.

Renewing your membership: Just click on the link for "memberships" on the FAQ page, select your payment option, and your status will be updated. If you are new to the club, you can join now with the same link.

Occasionally a number of members like to participate in a "Group Buy" to save money on an item. Be sure to check out the Group Buys Forum, as it might save you a few dollars. A group buy is very simple. The person that leads the buy takes everyone's order, gathers up the data and places the order with the vendor. Because it is a group buy, there is a good chance the vendor will offer some type of discount or add extra items for free. Due to it being shipped to one location, shipping costs are greatly reduced or spread out between the group buyers.

The intent of a group buy is to save the membership money, and no one person should gain financially from the order. However, if the organizer states clearly that they will be profiting so that all are aware and they are agreeable, the BOD has no issue with the organizer.

Once the order comes in, the buyers are notified via the Group Buy thread, and arrangements are made to pick up the items promptly.

Payment may be collected before the order is placed, or with the vendor the order is coming from, or paid to the organizer when the item(s) are picked up. This is should be figured out in advance so that no-one is left 'holding the bag', so to speak.

Overall, DFWMAS has had many good group buys, but the membership should always be careful whom they are dealing with. There is always a risk factor that should not be ignored. I want to trust people as much as the next guy, but it is plausible for an organizer to collect funds from the membership and disappear the same way they showed up. Fortunately this has not occured to us, but should be on the minds of the buyers.

DFWMAS has a number of sponsors These vendors have purchased a forum from which they can offer their goods and make their names visible. They are in business with their own set of rules. If you have not had a transaction with a vendor yet, check with others from the club to see what their experience was. Sponsors are not club-sanctioned and members should not blindly assume they are "safe." Do your homework.

Featured Tank of the Month

No Featured Tank This Month

Would you like your tank featured in our newsletter? If so, please let me know. What we need is some basic information about your setup, and a few pictures. I have visited a number of member's homes to take pictures, but many of you are quite skilled in photography and you could email me the images and related information if this proves more convenient.

Please contact Marc if you want to have your tank featured in a future newsletter.

Product Review Trigger Systems Protein Skimmer
- by Stanley Tomaszewski

I had a chance to meet with David Derrick (and his equally if not more addicted to saltwater tanks wife Nicki). He was helping me out with a DIY project I am working on.

After we were done checking out their three saltwater tanks, a Sea Horse tank (man those things are mesmerizing) and two large fish only with live rock(FOWLR) tanks, lots of beautiful and a few uncommon fish, we headed out to his shop to talk about my DIY project and get some piping he said he had laying around and I was more than welcome to. Well when we got there I was a little surprised. He had more then a little piping laying around, his shop was full of it. We started to talk about it and he told me all about his Trigger Systems skimmers and I had a chance to see David's operation and product first hand.

David is an avid hobbyist whose interest in making his own DIY skimmer escalated into Trigger Systems. David uses a Beckett injection system to create the foam for the Trigger System skimmers. I did get a chance to see one running on his 215 gallon FOWLR tank and the unit looked awesome. It was installed in an out-of-sump configuration. It was producing very milky white foam in the reaction chamber and the skim mate in the waste collector was dark and nasty looking, just what you want. I saw no escape of micro bubbles from the unit into the sump.

Now I know this sounds like a sales pitch but it is not. I just had a chance to see the stuff first hand and I was very impressed. David is an electrical engineer by trade and his attention to detail and design were very apparent in the product. The skimmers are very well designed and built, can be run in or out of the sump, and offer a complete skimmer solution. All you need to supply is the pump and plumbing.

The thing I liked the best about the set up was the waste collector that attaches to the skimmer cup. It is designed to shut down the skimmer flow if the collector should get full. This is a common problem with skimmers due to the fact that a skimmer can go nuts and just start pumping out a ton of wet skim mate overflowing the waste collector. It can be especially disastrous with an out of sump skimmer where an undetected overflowing waste collector will result in a flood and potentially result in harm to your tank. He showed me how the float in the waste collector shuts off the air flow to the collection cup and forces the air bubbles out the skimmers water exit flow. Very neat and effective.

I have been researching skimmers lately and I was really impressed with the way David’s Trigger Systems were designed. Other design features that made it user-friendly are how easily the unit disassembles (all flanges are keyhole drilled so you just need to loosen the nylon thumb nuts, turn the piece slightly and lift, great for taking it apart and cleaning), the simple design of the recess mounted O-ring seals (these give the system the tight seal required to make the auto-shutoff of the collection chamber work so well) and overall consistently clean look of the product (he must have had 20 units sitting in the shop and they all looked great). So if you are interested in or looking into getting a new skimmer, Trigger Systems is a choice I would recommend considering. If you would like more information here is the URL for the David’s web site: http://www.triggersys.com/index.html

Earlier I mentioned that the Trigger System skimmer uses a Beckett-style injector. Just for reference and in case that you were looking at the Euroreef/ASM-type as well the Aqua C stuff, here is the difference in how the air bubbles (foam tower) are created between the three:

• The Euroreef/ASM uses a pump with a venturi and a needle wheel impeller to create foam. This pump basically draws air in a small air hose into the water stream on the intake side of the pump. The needle wheel impeller helps chop the bubbles up finer.
  
• Aqua C’s EV-series and Remora skimmers use a spray injection nozzle shooting a water stream into the surface of the water to create foam. It sort of looks like if you took some PVC piping and pinched the circular opening on an X to make it look like a 4 leaf clover. A good example of this would be to take your garden hose and fill a bucket. Now put a nozzle on the hose and turn it on full blast and hold it just above the surface of the water. You can see the how the bubbles are created.
  
• A Beckett injector is sort of like the venturi in the Euroreef/ASM skimmers but it goes after the pump and draws air in and mixes it with the water. It works something like the attachment that normally comes with power heads that you stick on the out put of the pump to draw air into the water stream but is a much more complicated design. David described it as sort of a ball in a tube with little holes drilled around it. The natural tendency of the water is to flow around and next to the ball but as it passes the openings it sucks in the air.

Another thing to consider is that each style requires a different pump. I know that Beckett-style injectors need a lot of pressure to perform optimally. David was running a TS300 with a Mag Drive 12. The TS300 it is rated for 50-300 Gallons. Similar Euroreef/ASM skimmers, G-3 (250 gallon rating) or G4 (350 gallon rating) come with a Sedra 5000 pump. An EV-240 (80-350 gallon rating) can use a Mag Drive 12, Dolphin DP 1200 or Iwaki MD 40RLT. So the injection-style skimmers do require a stronger pump which use more electrical power.

One last thing to consider is maintenance/cleaning. This can be either the regular daily to weekly cleaning of the skimmer's collection cup and/or waste collector or the monthly to semi-annual cleaning of the entire unit. Skimmers inevitably gunk up near the top of the foam tower where the bubbles break and the green smelly stuff pours over and is caught by the collection cup or waste collector if you skimmer is equipped with one. Ease of removal of the cup is an important feature to consider but this is usually not much of an issue. Some may take a little more time then others but if it is not an easy task you might want to take that into account when making a purchase decision. The same goes for ability to clean a waste collector if your unit has one. As far as cleaning the entire unit goes, this is something that I personally do at least every two to three months. This usually includes disassembly of the unit as much as possible, a good soak in water and vinegar and then a scrub to get all of the gunk and build up out of the unit. I currently have a Remora skimmer that uses a Maxi Jet 1200 for a pump. Most of the cleaning procedure is pretty simple but there is one spot in the reaction chamber that is very hard to get at and so a pain to get clean. The rest of the unit is pretty easy to get at including a small access screw in the tube that holds the spay injection nozzle. This I think is an important feature because this is where the bubbles are actually created. A dirty injector could mean less bubbles so less efficiency. The same goes for keeping the needle wheel and veturi clean on the Euroreef/ASM skimmers or the Beckett injector on the Trigger Systems. So just make sure that you can get to all the parts to clean them.

Each solution (venturi/needle wheel, spray injector nozzle or Beckett injector) produce what we need - fine air bubbles. Does one create better bubbles then another? As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on that one. Each type has its followers who will swear theirs is the best. I think the most important things to consider when choosing a skimmer are the form (how it is built, how it fits into your system) and functionality (how easy is it to use and maintain). This will differ for each person's unique situation (tank/stand size, location, configuration, etc…) and what is important to them (initial cost, power consumption, possible future upgrades, etc…). I suggest that you choose a skimmer that is rated at or above your system size (I feel more is better) and is as easy to use/maintain as possible (If you do not keep it clean. it cannot work its best). Lastly, I have often heard/read that as far as system components go the skimmer is one of those things that you get what you pay for, so keep this in mind when you are considering which style/make is best for you.

Next Meeting:

Our next meeting will be on January 12, 2005. This is a Wednesday evening meeting, from 7pm to 9pm. Our host is Fish Gallery. We look forward to seeing all of you there.