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1999 OCTOBER UPDATE - OCTOBER 28. 1999

SMALL SCALE CORAL FARMING RESEARCH

GARF 1999 Coral Farming Seminar

LeRoy and Sally Jo Headlee

Good day to all. This past month has provided GARF with many gifts and many items to write about. Sometimes when writing these articles I find a question mark in my head on what to write about next, now I am just trying to figure where to start. This reminds me of the many people who want to start a reef system I often reply you "start by starting." I am indeed sorry that everyone could not come to our Coral farming seminar. We had many interesting people in attendance and five Individuals who came from five different Countries. This year we had visitors from England, Israel, Italy, and Canada.

A GREAT TIME WAS HAD BY ALL AT GARF'S 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

Many of you donated raffle items to help us secure funding for future events. We realize that we would never be where we are today without your support and undying love for these animals. I also want to thank Linda for sending me GARF's first ever propagated Elegance coral. It is so beautiful and growing like one would never believe. We need to learn how to grow these Large Polyp Stony corals so the burden is removed from the wild. As well as we know the propagated animals ship better and live better. We are dedicating some time on this research next year and will keep every one posted.

Many issues have been brought to light this past month in regards to the wild reefs and freight issues. It is so important that we be the voice for these animals. There are some big issues on how the reef hobby will be effected with new air travel proposals. Meetings are taking place focusing on the wild reef and the future of it. If you want to become vocal now is the time.

I wanted to run up stairs and wake up Stuart who was staying with us
through an internship from Oxford England.
I watched a little longer and when I was certain that my eyes were not fooling me
I ran and screamed to Stuart to come into my office. He to could not believe it.

Other than the coral farming conference which I will go into detail shortly I had the surprise of my life over a week ago. When walking into my office and starting to add the SeaChem supplements I noticed one of my blue damsels laying in a old clam shell and it was black. The damsel looked like it was grasping for every breath. I watched closely and it wasn't long before eggs were laid all over this once empty shell. Then came the other damsel going right behind the first one fertilizing the eggs. I could not believe my eyes. I wanted to run up stairs and wake up Stuart who was staying with us through an internship from Oxford England. I watched a little longer and when I was certain that my eyes were not fooling me I ran and screamed to Stuart to come into my office. He to could not believe it.

My first inclination was to remove the shell with the eggs on it an place it in a tank by themselves. I know, I know what's the big deal about raising baby captive damsels. I say it is a big deal and I will do everything I can to be successful in rearing these young. I have the biggest part of the challenge already and that is a mating pair. Not only did they pick front and center for me to watch and learn as much as I can about this they waited for me to come into work. I never would have found the tiny little eggs if I had not seen it with my own eyes. The damsel has torn legs off my starfish she spits hermits across the tank and she is defending her little guys against the other fish. It is a good thing I did not remove the shell for this is the third batch of eggs in two weeks.

THE FEMALE DAMSEL IS GUARDING THE EGGS

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

The first batch of eggs hatched out four or maybe closer to five days. The next morning came her second set of eggs they hatched Sunday. On Monday morning at the same time as the last two the third set of eggs were deposited. I am hoping to catch some of these this time and work to find a food source for them. The fry are absolutely little. You can see their eyes forming in about two days and they begin developing little bright blue specks right before they completely hatch out. Wouldn't be nice if I could figure this all out and give away a free blue damsel with every Reef JanitorTM order.
I know that is many steps away from happening, but I do have Damsels in distress:) I am almost certain that the fish in the next tank are working on doing their own mating game. This is one of lives miracles and makes me even that much more proud of this tank. Almost 100% of the food the fish eat comes from the reef because I only feed flake food about twice a week.

I have been calling around trying to get as much information on this subject so I can hopefully raise the young outside of the tank to help this mom continue to perform and keep laying eggs. There are a great deal of hiding place in my tank so if left alone one would think some of the hundreds of fish that hatch out will make it even without my help. Everyone who came from the Seminar took turns visiting my office but we allowed mom to keep her privacy.

MR. HESLINGA OPENED AND CLOSED THE LECTURES

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

I have a great deal of information to share about this seminar. Each year it seems to get bigger and better. I am recovering from the long nights, and loads of work that goes into making this seminar happen. I would like to state how grateful I am to the speakers, raffle donations, staff members and volunteers who helped me pull this off. I don't care what one has to go through for a entire year, having a weekend like this past one makes each second of each day worth it.

I would like to share our very rewarding experience with our Intern who came from England to stay with us for two months to learn hands- on how to propagate and maintain marine life. His name is Stuart Gould, I am almost certain it won't be long before we start seeing his name as an author sharing his love and understanding of these incredible animals. Before Stuart came he was told that one could not propagate these animals commercially in a closed system. He left GARF with the knowledge of how to propagate hundreds of corals both soft and hard. He learned how to maintain the tanks, and how to tear down and setup new systems. GARF feels empty without his English accent and love for these animals. Our next Intern is applying to work with us for three months next Spring. He will be coming in from France. Stuart's shoes will be awfully hard to fill.

We held an entire day of hands-on work shops. People learned to make AragocreteTM from the famous rock maker Eddie Postma. Everyone was able to make an Aragocrete rock in the sand filled fish boxes. We watched as Eddie made caves, arches, and tables using nothing but a small stick and a garden trowel.

LeRoy had a group of people help him make a new Xenia system using Plexiglass. I had visitors all day in my office and the speakers and I answered questions. I always leave these seminars wishing that my head had a zip drive so that I could down load information and start over.

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

We actually extended Stuart's internship for a couple of weeks so that he would not miss the seminar and so he could meet some of the true pioneers of the Hobby. It was a great thrill to watch him teach so many people to propagate corals all day Sunday. We had about 70 people present for the two days, loads of information was shared as well as every single person left with a deeper love , appreciation and understanding for these animals. It was also exciting for me to put faces to the voices I have been working with viva e-mail. The speakers consisted of Mike Paletta, Dr. Morin, Jerry Heslinga, and Dr Lake. I will fulfill my promise to share as much about what happened these two days as I can. We know that it is expensive to fly to Boise for these conferences but it is well worth it and many people told us that this was indeed the best thing they ever did in this hobby. I want to go into short detail about all of what the speakers shared but want to remind you that the next sixth annual coral farming seminar will be help in the third week of October in the year 2000 please take a moment and write this one your calendar it is a must see. You can get a great price on airline tickets if you plan ahead. LeRoy always says that the trees in Boise are beautiful this time of year. This year the colors were better than ever!

Dr. Lake is the Cancer Research Doctor we have been working with and donating animals to. The animals being tested during the first part of this research is the Sacrophyton. GARF now has about 33 separate strains in our genetic bank. Thanks to our trading program you have given us many more to test. Dr. Lake has written many publications in his field of cancer research and provided a four page bio on he has done in his field of study.

I am very excited to report that Doctor Lake shared the results of his findings while testing the animals that came from GARF. He showed us how he extracted the toxins by grinding up the coral and injecting it into cultures of separate cancer and human cells. First he had to test it to see if this animal would be toxic to human cells and toxic to tumor cells.

STUART GOULD AND DR. LAKE DURING A BREAK

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

I am delighted to report that the research results are very positive. It was not very toxic to human cells and very toxic to the tumors. He worked with breast tumors and lung tumors and several others. We, as hobbyist also may have a much bigger role in Bio Medical research. For as Dr. Lake shared many of the medicines that we are using now are derived from plants. Now scientist are looking at the Sea in hopes of finding new cures to many life threatening illnesses. He also explained that because sea life is some of the oldest life around these animals have so many complex defense mechanisms that learning as much as we can will hopefully provide many new answers. We promise to keep you posted and thank all of you for your donations. The sad side of his report was when he stated that it takes 220 million dollars to bring a new drug candidate through the considerable research needed to meet FDA approval. So much more work needs to be done and loads of money needs to be secured. But the next step is being taken.

Mr. Gerald Heslinga, the owner of Indopacific Sea Farms, honored us by speaking here at the GARF seminar again this year. Mr. Heslinga gave everyone many new ideas on the subjects of reef farm marketing and the science of mariculture. Jerry explained that sometimes we miss out on marketing opportunities by not paying attention to all the potential ways to generate funds. He also explained that coral farming was not for everyone and that he has seen many people fail at an attempt to be successful.

JERRY HESLINGA SOAKING UP SOME IDAHO SUN

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

This man has an incredible gift for coming up with new products and he shared his insight and his vast experience on this subject. Jerry did much of the early work on farming giant clams at MMDC in Koror, Palau.

Jerry's facility in Kona has grown a great deal from when I first met him. We are indeed very grateful to him for taking time out of his busy schedule to share his wisdom and we thank him again for his support of GARF's work. If you have not already visited his web site it is one that you should spend some time with. Jerry has come up with some fun products such as Tang Heaven and Coral Heaven.

Jerry grows some of the finest sand formed live rock in tanks using a flow through system. We are trying to twist his arm to come to our next seminar and allow all of us to see once again how much his company has grown. We will never find the right words to express our thanks for his commitment to this hobby.

DR. MOREN, SEATED AT DESK ANSWERED QUESTIONS ALL DAY
GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

I was extremly delighted to meet Dr. Leo Morin, the head of the SeaChem company. I have wanted to meet this man for years. I have spent many a night trying to figure tables and gain some type of understanding of chemistry. For the most part this was the hardest topic for me to deal with.

Dr. Moren gave one of the best lectures on water chemistry that we have ever attended. He has a way of teaching that makes this very complex subject crystal clear and fun. He is a very sincere human being and this hobby is lucky to have a man like him paving the road to new horizons for the hobby.

I really enjoyed spending time with him and have asked him to come back to GARF again next year. He did not just give us a lesson in chemistry 101 it was 1001. I feel a great deal of respect for Dr Morin and his willingness to hold nothing back in providing first class products to make our reef experience the best.

I am certain he had no clue how wonderful and beautiful GARF's systems are. He wanted to take my 55 gallon SPS brood stock tank home and label it SeaChem's tank:) What a great human being he is and his honesty went along way to make him as one of GARF's leading hero's.

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

Mike Paletta talked about the future of the reef hobby. He explained his concern for the hobby because he does not see very many young people entering the ranks of reef keepers. He gave us some ideas of what he felt might be causing this. Some of his concern for youth entering the reef keeping hobby is because of the cost involved and the difficultly with setting up so much equipment. He did feel very positive that this may change as the new methods of natural reef keeping show people that they can have a great reef that costs less than the high tech reefs we are used to.

MIKE PALETTA SHARES HIS VAST KNOWLEDGE

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

He showed us slides of many beautiful, breath taking aquariums, and some of the newest ways people are setting up new systems. He also expressed concern for the future of the wild reef as well as concern for the airlines restricting air travel for the animals.

Mike helped us indentify some of the rare corals we have traded for. We were able to send Mike home with several new corals for his reefs. Mike answered many questions during the breaks

We will also keep you posted on these subject, if you are interested in getting involved with writing letters to committee members and so on please let us know. Mike also has a great new book out it is really geared to the beginners but even I learned a great deal from this book.

We want to invite you all to plan to come to Boise for the year 2000 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR that is coming up next October. I am researching doing a coral judging contest for this event and will keep you posted on speakers as well as what the date will be. LeRoy and I are off to teach in Hawaii for the International Marine Ornamental Conference and will give you an update in the next issue.

GARF hopes to promote captive growing of all the needed animals for a healthy reef aquarium. We can have a marine aquarium hobby that we can all be proud of if we share all of the methods that we learn while we research small scale coral farming. The other concern is to practice taking as little from the wild as possible for soon laws may restrict collecting from the reef environment.

This week all of here at GARF are a little bit sad because our intern from England Stuart Gould had to leave us and return to his studies of aquaculture at his college. They had better hide the glue and scissors or the university will have loads of baby corals.

Stuart taught several coral propagation classes on Sunday. There was always a croud of people watching and asking questions.

In this picture Stuart is teaching the proper way to cut a Gorgonian using wire stripping pliers. You can see the bowl of Reef PlugsTM that were drilled with the drill press. The 56 gram bottles of Reef Glue are setting on the counter.

WE MISS STUARTS SMILING FACE AND GOOD HUMOR

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

Thank you all for the FANTASTIC NEW SARCOPHYTONS! We are very interested in trading for more types. If you have some of the leather corals growing in your reef please call 800-600-6163 so we can trade! We have already been able to send the first donation of free soft corals to help with cancer research. GARF is proud that we have been allowed to propagate many new species that are being tested for medical uses. We now had about a dozen different Neon Green Tree corals. We are receiving more types each week. We hope to collect as many types as we can so if they are needed to replant wild reefs we will be able to donate through a public aquarium.

XENIA BED FILTER REPORT.

We have been testing a new filter that uses many species of Xenia to filter the water in our 150 gallon SPS coral brood stock tank. This filter is now four months old and it is doing a very good job. GARF now has over a dozen different types of Xenia in our genetic bank. We have recently imported several new types of Pom Pom Xenia from Tonga. We are reminded just how difficult it is to domesticate a new wild collected pulse coral. The Xenia that we have imported do not grow or pulse as well as the strains that we receive each week in our trade program.

We have had one problem with the Xenia Bed Filter that we did not anticipate. Several months ago we purchased one hundred propagated corals from the Solomon Islands. We used the racks that are in the Xenia Bed Filter for quarantining these corals. Many of the cement disks that the corals were mounted on had a small brown hydroid that is now growing on the top rack in the Xenia filter. During the Coral Farming Seminar we asked Mike Paletta if he thought the hydra would be a pest. Mike said that he was sure that we should eliminate them as soon as possible.

These pests look like a red string with a brown head consisting of many feather shaped polyps. The entire colony was about one half inch tall. It had spread onto several of the Xenia that are growing on Reef PlugsTM on the top rack. We have seen this pest on about ten percent of the corals from the Solomon Islands. We had tested a method for treating SPS coral plugs that had hydra, but we were concerned that the treatment might harm the Xenia.

We collected all of the Xenia that were infected and placed them in a bowl of fresh water for thirty seconds. We then soaked the Reef PlugsTM in reef water from the tank they were growing in. After one minute in salt water we soaked them again in new fresh water. The fresh water was the same temperature as the system water. One of the most interesting things that we observed when we returned the Xenia to the filter was that the Purple Tang started eating the Hydra. The Tang had never shown any interest in the Hydra before we dipped them. After two days, none of the Hydra were alive and none of the Xenia looked any worse for the wear. We will continue to watch the filter to see if any corals show any stress. When we dipped SPS corals we did not see any negative results.

Many of the Xenia in the filter have more than one type of Xenia growing on the same Reef PlugTM. These plugs have been very popular with the customers who have received them. We will start a group of these Combo PlugsTM so we can surprise the customer with an extra coral. The best combination seems to be a short creeping type Xenia and a tall tree shaped Xenia. The best looking Combo PlugsTM have a light pink Xenia under a dark brown one. We will have fun teaching Marizio to make these Combo PlugsTM. Marisio in the only person who has not left for home after the Coral Farming Seminar. He flew here from Rome Italy so he decided to stay for a week. Marizio has been very easy to teach because he has a vast knowledge of the reef aquarium trade. He speaks pretty good English and we speak no Italian, but we all speak reef Latin.

MARIZIO, DANIEL, AND STUART HELPED MAKE THIS AQUARIUM

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

Our research has allowed us to make so many new friends who have invited us to visit their countries. Daniel Zeldis, the managing Director of FISH-VETTM (Israel) traveled the furthest to attend the Coral Farming Seminar. Daniel lives in Eilat, Israel on the Red Sea. We hope to be able to get some corals from the Red Sea for our Cancer Research Project 2000.

Daniel produced the famous computer program Fish-Vet that is used worldwide to save countless fish from disease. You can call Daniel at (972) 7 6379756 in Eilat, Israel.

During November we will have the pleasure of giving a talk at the meeting in Kona, Hawaii. This meeting will be one of the first conferences attended by both scientists and business people who are pioneering the Marine hobby into the next century. We have just received an E-mail from Stanley Brown. We are very happy that things have worked out so he can speak in Kona. GARF is planning to report as much as possible about what we learn at the Marine Ornamental Conference.

We hope to be able to talk to some people who are working on captive spawning of Xenia and Acropora. Here at GARF we are planning to spend much of our time and energy during the next four years developing a closed system so we can cross breed many ornamental corals.

We have many strains of Xenia that are very fast growing and hardy. We will try to cross these corals with strains that pulse very well and that have great colors. We are working on a diet for corals that can be frozen and used anytime.

DANIAL ZELDIS ANSWERED OUR QUESTIONS ABOUT THE RED SEA

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

We have been using a red powdered algae mixed with SeaChem's Reef PlusTM and it makes Gorgonians and Mushrooms thrive. We are using one half teaspoon of dry powder mixed in ten teaspoons of Reef PlusTM. We mix the two together and put the solution in the refrigerator for twelve hours. We then use a tube to feed the mix to the reefs. When we are feeding the Gorgonians it is very obvious that they are feeding. After several minutes many of the polyps are bending in to catch the food. When we are feeding the tanks of Mushrooms we do not see any feeding. The Mushrooms do grow very well and the colors are very bright.

When Stuart Gould first arrived from England we cut the heads off of many of the Mushrooms. After we had sliced the heads into pie shaped pieces we dropped them into the shallow tanks we use to grow cuttings. We looked into the tank three days later and there were many small round Mushrooms attaching to the gravel. I was certain that we must have left some Mushrooms in the tank from the last experiment because it seemed that they were too developed. Stuart and I cleaned out every Mushroom. After we had glued them to Reef PlugsTM we cut some more. In three days the same thing happened. The stalks that we cut when he first arrived have now grown new heads that are almost as large as they were when we cut seven weeks ago.

We have not tested the new food in the Xenia filter. The purpose of the filter experiment is to learn how much biomass the Xenia can produce with the nutrients they remove from the SPS reef. We made a new Plexiglass aquarium during the work shops we held at the Foundation during the Coral Farming Seminar.

This tank is four feet long and it is six inches tall. The tank is eleven inches wide. We will make three more of these tanks so we can construct a Xenia grow out system. We taught many of the people who attended the seminar how to plan and build these aquariums and how to make the rack we use to hold the Reef PlugsTM that the Xenia will grow on.

STUART AND DANIEL HELPED US GET READY FOR VISITORS

GARF 1999 CORAL FARMING SEMINAR

When we set this system up we will be able to remove cleaned water as we add nutrient rich water from the 500 gallon SPS system. We will not set this system up as a Xenia Bed Filter because we want to learn how fast we can grow adult Xenia colonies with the new food we are testing. We are certain that the Xenia will absorb the nutrient that are produced by bacteria as they consume the food. Each tank will have a piece of plastic in the end that we add water to. We will cut slots in the plastic so we can direct a steady laminar flow through the water column. We will use a Sea SwirlTM device on the other end to make a sweeping surge that will flow counter current. This system will allow us to grow the strains of Xenia using different lights and water flow in each tank. All of the tanks will have the same SeaSwirlTM so all of the Reef PlugsTM will be in different flow patterns. We number the holes in the racks so we can compare Xenia in different tanks with the same number. As we learn how to grow the best Xenia for the market we will report it here and on our web site. There are several hundred pages of coral farming data on this site that you are free to print and save. We hope that you will make a copy for friends who do not have web access.

Well I've got to run please take some time each day to enjoy your reef and most of all remember to have some FUN! and SAVE A REEF - GROW YOUR OWN

Please contact GARF:
Free Reef Help Line 208-344-6163
toll free order line 800-600-6163 all orders help our research


FOR THE LAST 5 YEARS WE HAVE WORKED VERY HARD TO PURCHASE, TRADE,
AND SAVE AS MANY TYPES OF CORALS AS WE CAN.
soft coral


IF YOU WANT TO PURCHASE SOME OF SALLY JO'S GREAT NEW CUTTINGS PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO ENTER YOUR NAME AND PHONE NUMBER

We are having a special on all of the coral cuttings. WHEN YOU PURCHASE 5 AT THE REGULAR PRICE OF $100 WE WILL GIVE YOU TWO FREE CORALS!. If you have any questions please use this form to ask them. WE WILL PHONE YOU AND HELP YOU PICK THE BEST CORALS FOR YOUR REEF AQUARIUM.

We will continue to provide the most current data on reef farming for both education and profit.

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Please let us know if you have any questions about our research.
WE WILL CALL YOU AND TELL YOU ABOUT THE MANY RARE CORALS THAT ARE READY THIS WEEK - YOU WILL RECEIVE 7 CAPTIVE GROWN CORALS FOR THE PRICE OF 5!
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