Interested in marines? Interested in the incredibly challenging but, exceptionally rewarding, part of the hobby that is breeding marines? Excellent! Read on...
The Marine Fish Breeders Club - UK (MFBC-UK) is to hold its first event this February. The event has been scheduled to take place on Saturday, February 15, 2014 and will be held at retailer Charterhouse Aquatic’s shiny new showroom in East London.
A programme of speakers has been put together for the event and it is hoped that the presentations will help current and potential hobbyist breeders to get the most from their hobby. The event has a meet and greet starting at 11 am, with presentations scheduled to start at 11:15 am, and will include the following speakers:
Gareth Bull of Reefshotz will give a brief introduction to the importance of phytoplankton; offer culturing techniques for the hobbyist breeder and also provide an overview of available copepod species.
Sean Phillips is maintenance engineer on one of the only fully recirculated Trout and Char hatcheries in the UK, and also produces upwards of 200 Clownfish per month for a local wholesale market. This experience makes him ideal to offer advice on how to setup a basic breeding system for the first time, including what to avoid and other tricks of the trade.
Daniel Yates will be speaking on his experience and pending thesis on the production and breeding of clownfish.
Jamie Craggs, aquarium curator for the Horniman Museum will be speaking about his successes with breeding corals in an aquarium.
Adrian and Shelley of Seahorse Breeder will be sharing their knowledge of breeding and maintaining seahorses as both a hobby and as a commercial enterprise.
Tal Sweet — in a bit of a coup for the MFBC-UK — Tal Sweet will be attending, as part of his tour of the UK, to offer his experiences with breeding marine fish and his role as one of the leading founders of the Marine Breeding Initiative (MBI) in the US. The MBI is a huge deal in the US, and is committed to promoting successful captive breeding programmes and offers many resources to ornamental marine breeders.
As well as presentations, several sponsors have offered prizes for a raffle to be drawn during one of the breaks.
So, if you’ve nothing better to do or, your Valentine lets you down the day before, head down to the event and get inspired!
The Marine Fish Breeders Club - UK was originally founded as a Facebook group by keen hobbyist Alex Arlett-Johnson, and was set up to create a sharing network of marine breeders around the UK. The group has grown quickly in a short period of time and now has in excess of 1000 members. It strives to maintain a specific focus on marine breeding only.
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