Next Meeting:

May Meeting:

Summer Social

 Meeting details:

Monday, June 14th at 7:00PM

Loren's house
430 N 470 W #17
Lehi, Utah

(#17 is in the north-east corner of Boardwalk Townhomes)

Refreshments will be served

11/16/08

NACU as well as our favorite LFS, Fish-4-U were well represented at the AGA 2008 Convention in Atlanta. It was a good time to be had by all. We were able to go on a behind the scenes tour of the Georgia Aquarium where we saw their planted tank setup, fat rippling Beluga whales and 22ft whaleshark, as well as the copyright correct clown fish mascot named "Deepo." Then we saw a "rivetting" presentation by the Seachem CEO on Iron Uptake. Who knew that Fe3+ and Fe2+ had such an intense relationship in plant ecology. Needless to say we had a good nap. Other than that though, most of the other presentations were great! This was all capped off by presentation and aquascaping demonstration by Takashi Amano and Jeff Senske.

NACU with Takashi Ammano!

10/27

Our october meeting has been pushed back to November due to circumstances beyond our control. Our original planed venue is not available, and being a day before the meeting, it is too late to plan another location. We will cover terrestrial planted aquariums as well as our experience at the upcoming AGA convention for our November meeting. See you guys there!

9/25

We had a good turn out for our Cryptocoryne meeting! Our next meeting will be a real treat! We're changing venue's to Kate's house, where she will be giving a presentation on terrestrial planted tanks. Also remember! AGA convention is November! it's not too late to register and get plane tickets. Beat the Utah cold by enjoying a convention dedicated to planted aquariums with special guest Takashi Amano in sunny Georgia!

One last note, Aquatica in Orem has recieved a shipment of ADA products, including a variety of aquasoil and the ADA fert line!

http://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/convention.html

9/15/08

Our next meeting is all about Cryptocoryne's. For many this will be the perfect plant species. Cryptocoryne's can typically grow well in low light with little or no CO2. They come in a dazzling array of shapes, sizes and colors. Also they're fairly slow growing. Come on over to our next NACU meeting to learn more about these versitile and low maintenance plants! We will also be auctioning off a 20gallon tall tank with ADA Aquasoil! I anticipate it to go cheap, so no matter what it'll be a great deal just for the Aquasoil alone!

Also, the website has been neglected for a long while, but in the coming months I will be trying my best to update the content of the site and impliment new features. E-mail me kevin@natureaquariumclubofutah.com for anything you'd like to see on this website.

Kevin

6/7/8

Echinodorus species, also sometimes called "Sword plants", are a huge genus of plants from South America. The genus contains one of the largest selection of true aquatic plants rivaling the other easy-to-grow genus, Cryptocoryne. Echinodorus come in many varieties, colors, sizes and shapes allowing them to be used in almost every aquascape. As always, the meeting will be scientific enough for the experienced aquascapers while still covering the basics for the beginner.

I would also like to thank all that came out to our "Dueling Aquascapers" meeting @ Fish 4 U. We had a great time, and came out with some great 'scapes.

ERiK

5/26/08

During NACU's June meeting Kevin and I will be setting up both the 60-p and a PASS Iron Chef style. That's right, dueling aquascapers face off in a planted tank frenzy. The 60-p will be set up with all the best hardware - glass pipes, excellent lighting, powerful filtration, pressurized CO2, etc. The PASS will have a few extras it normally doesn't have to allow easier maintenance for Fish 4 U.

This is our first meeting at a LFS, and Fish 4 U plans to have a large plant order correlate with our meeting. I've also been pushing hard to have lots of other plant related materials there too - like substrates, dosing stuff (Pfertz), lighting, and who knows - maybe an ADA tank for sale. Hopefully, when Fish 4 U sees how strong the planted tank community is they will be bolstered to support it better.

I hope to see all of you there to support NACU and Fish 4 U in this first big step in creating a true Utah nature aquarium community.

ERiK

5/1/8

As some of you may remember, I offered a challenge to all the members to compete in the 2008 International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest. Well, the contest entry deadline is soon approaching (May 31st) and many of you may be wondering how to best take pictures of your tank.

Aquatic photos are an interesting challenge, and planted tank photo shoots can be quite involved. So, for May's meeting see how to do a competition photo shoot on a planted tank.

ERiK

4/1/8

Hooray!!! We've made it one year! Thank you to all the people who have attended meetings and supported the budding of our little plant club, NACU. So far we've been very happy with the turnout and community that we've managed to put together.

Since we're so excited to be almost one year old, April will be as big of an event as possible. I've already talked to local fish stores about sponsoring the event with good results so far. Beyond the LFS, we will have lots of plants available to purchase at prices lower than you will find anywhere else. We might even have shrimp.

The topic for April's big meeting will be "Dreaded Algae: How do I get my tank from green soup to sparkling wonder?" I know the title is a bit cheesy, but we always try to prevent the meetings from being too boring and dry.

Along with a great topic and plenty of free stuff we are officially kicking off our new, one year memberships for $20. Until recently, only six month memberships were available, but now we feel as though we have plenty to offer our members.

I look forward to seeing you there and meeting the new people that show up!

ERiK

2/1/8

January's meeting, presented by Bryce Miller, was a great success! Bryce showed deep knowledge on the subject of plants and plants in huge aquariums. He inspired many of us to try new plants, and hopefully get into high-tech planted setups.

February's meeting we have decided to talk about plant fertilizing. Dosing is a huge subject, so we are focusing on the Estimative Index, or EI. Click here for more info on EI In addition, we will talk about how to use an EI method on a low-tech tank, aka low light and little to no CO2.

I would also like to extend a challenge I've brought to the NACU presidency: I would like to challenge you to compete in 2008's International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest by ADA. I believe this is a great way to inspire us to create the best looking aquascapes we can make! For more information please talk to me at the next NACU meeting.

ERiK

1/8/8

Happy New Year! We hope you had a good holiday season, and are ready to get back to aquascaping.

We are really excited for January's meeting. We are in for a special treat with guest speaker Bryce Millar coming to us from Idaho. Bryce is an experienced aquascaper and moderator on APC. Bryce, aka guaiac_boy, also maintains a 180 gallon high tech planted tank. For more information on Bryce and his extremely cool tank, click here.

As usual we will have a mini auction; this one should be good since Bryce will be bringing some plants, and ERiK is taking down his 13" cube.

In other news, ERiK's little 13" cube was chosen as December 2007 tank of the month on APC. Details can be found here: 13" cube tank. The tank will still be up for January's meeting, so see it while you can!

10/23/07

We had a great turnout! A lot of old faces we haven't seen in a long while as well as a few new ones. Erik gave a great comprehensive presentation on just about everything about plant basics. Next meeting "Setting up your planted tank," will give some basic tips about starting a tank, as well as some more advanced aquascaping ideas.

These coming weeks the web site will be going through some sweeping changes, so stay tuned!

Also, NACU is proud to present the "Planted Aquarium Starter Setup," or PASS. The PASS includes a rimless 10gallon tank with everything you need to start a planted aquarium.

PASS includes:

- 10gallon rimless tank

- ADA Amazonia substrate

- Current USA 40W Dual Daylight PC fixture

- ZooMed 501 Canister Filter

- Glass CO2 Diffuser

- Sugar/Yeast CO2 generator

- 50w Heater.

This is EVERYTHING you'll need for a planted tank. Just add water and plants and you're set. All the products in the PASS are quality pieces that we use ourselves.

The PASS is $200. All proceeds go directly to NACU.