SFBAAPS -San Francisco Bay Area Aquatic Plant Society

San Francisco's Aquatic Plant Club -- Organization

The new SFBAAPS website is at: http://www.sfbaaps.com.

SFBAAPS educates and facilitates plant related activities of Bay Area aquarium enthusiasts.

We wish to share the knowledge and success we have each achieved. As members we enjoy our electronic mailing list, regular meetings/auctions and open house visits.

A little historical information is at the foot of this page.

Goals

Present meetings with appropriate presentations. (Educate)
Provide auctions with varied plant offerings. (Facilitate)
Publish meeting presentation content. (Educate)
Provide forum for exchange of plant/SF specific info. (both)

Thanks to Claus Christensen and Tropica for this beautiful picture (used by permission): Picture of M. pteropus Windelov

Strategies

Establish appropriate jobs for meetings.
Set medium-term (6 month) objectives.

Tactics

Conduct steering committee meeting to set short-term objectives.
Monitor progress on strategic objectives.
Define and implement corrective actions for shortfalls.

Tasks

Possible future presentation topics:

Watch this space for next meeting topic and time/date.

Membership

Membership is $20 per year, $10 for under 18 and over 65 years of age. To attend join in advance. Send a check for $20 for each attendee (membership) to:

Dave Gomberg
7 Gateview Court
San Francisco CA 94116-1941

Include your email address or phone for meeting updates. Come and have a great time and meet your fellow planties.

Questions? Email Dave Gomberg

Web resource links

Not every question belongs on our mailing list. Much information on planted tanks can be found in these pages:
The Krib, a huge website full of everything you wanted to know about submerse plants.
And when you have searched the Krib, ask the Aquatic Plant Digest list.
And to get really intense, join the Aquatic Gardener's Association.
To see how nicely plants can be commercially raised, the famous Tropica of Denmark site.
From Colorado, George Booth shares his extensive experience.
If Cryptocorynes are your thing, see the crypts pages.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us.

History

Inaugral meeting

At our inaugural meeting on 10/10/98 Karen Randall spoke on the importance of "balance" in a planted tank and presented slides showing how different people have achieved this. Steve Dixon was our host for the evening giving members inspiration at seeing his successful display. Many members left that evening with the desire and hope to do much better themselves. Cliff Lundberg took great pictures of the meeting.

After Karen's presentation we appointed officers. The following individuals intrepidly stepped forward into these positions:

Pilot/chairman -- Dave Gomberg
Program -- Steve Dixon
Auction -- Jay Lenahan
Community Outreach -- Jeff Kropp
Vendor relations -- open (Dave Gomberg acting)
Finance/membership -- open (Jeff Kropp accepted Community Outreach)
Communications -- open (Jay Lenahan acting)
Location/Hospitality -- open (Steve Dixon acting)
Legal -- Jay Lenahan

First plant exchange

Trimings from Dave Gomberg, 10/22/98 A stack of Java ferns and C. siliquosa, mostly.

Second plant exchange

Trimings from Steve Dixon, 10/27/98 Exceptional collection of high light plants such as Hemianthus, Rotala, Glossostigma, and other beauties.

SAE group buy

Thanks to Natural Aquarium and Wright Huntley. 10/28/98 Special buy of 6 SAEs for $21.

SAE group buy #2,3

Thanks to Natural Aquarium. 11/11 and 11/18/98 Special buy of 6 SAEs for $22.50

Our first open fish room at Jeff Kropp's house, Dec. 13, 1998.

Thanks to Jeff for a view into his basement, You wanna see how tiny you can get your Glossostigma? Note the quarter at the end of Steve Dixon's index figure for scale. Jeff's smallest tank has been the home of spawning Otocinculus and a medium-sized tank serves to grow out potted plants. Here's the piece de resistance, Jeff's BIG tank. Thanks again Jeff, for letting us come see your tanks.

An emergency meeting was held on 2/5/99

at the Tropical panel in Steinhart Aquarium. Scheduled to last from 7PM to 8PM it was terminated after 5 minutes at the request of the guards. The original intent was to look at the tanks and see what we thought we could do in the way of planting them for a new display in June. There were lots of positive feelings, but because of the brevity of the meeting, not much was accomplished. Hopefully someone from Steinhart will take us hehind the panel next time.

4/25/99 Open fish room at Dave Gomberg's.

Steve Dixon and Dave did an iron shootout. After calibrating with 50, 100 and 200 ppb standards, an unknown was analysed. Dave got 75ppb unchelated and 200ppb total with the $12 Sera kit. Steve got 175ppb total with the Hach kit and ??? with the LaMotte. The correct answer was 50ppm unchelated and 150ppm total.

Then there was an exhibit of substrate materials. Profile, Turface, Flourish and greensand were shown. In addition, almost a dozen kinds of decorative stones from Humus were presented. Quite a nice variety of accents.

Dave then showed about 100 slides of his Amazon trip. There were lots of animals, flowers, birds and people. No fish (booo). Cute shots of the Bar da Boi party tho.

A discussion of making your own hood followed. This was mostly a one-on-one with Cliff Lundberg. Traps and pitfalls to avoid were discussed and illustrated.

Finally, there were nice door prizes from Seachem and the club. All had a good time and look forward to the next meeting.

6/5/99 Karen Randall at Dave Gomberg's.

We were privleged this month to have Karen Randall, President of the Aquatic Gardeners' Association, join us for our meeting. The format was a grilled steak dinner ably prepared by our chef Jay Lenahan. Jay also made bow-tie pesto and a great salad. Diana Lum pitched in some french bread and a chocolate cake/ice cream dessert. Then the fun began. For about three hours we had a roundtable discussion about aquatic plants and related topics over the remains of the dessert. A great time was had by all. See you next meeting, and Karen, hope we see you next year.

9/1/99 Neil Frank at Steve Dixon's.

Neil, the ten year tenured editor of The Aquatic Gardener for the Aquatic Gardeners' Association regaled us with the history of his involvement in the hobby, complemented by views of his increasingly sophisticated tanks. Neil is clearly a master of the American school of aquascaping and has set a standard for success in raising plants. In addition he detailed information on nutrients and insecticides for aquarium plants. We dined on great food from La Mediterranee and enjoyed the fruits of Steve Dixon's great cellar. And Cliff Lundberg got to try out his new Nikon digital camera.

10/9/99 Open fish room at Anthony Bester's.

In the midst of the Livermore heat, Anthony polished up his beautiful tanks and invited us over. His novel lighting fixtures showed off his plants to their best advantage. He uses quartz halogen track lights to illuminate his tanks and the warm color is inviting. The dense growth he achieves is proof of his methods. And his great refreshment spread warded off the valley heat. Many thanks to Anthony for his efforts.

10/29/99 Jan Bastmeijer at Jay Lenahan's.

We were lucky enough to identify a visit by Jan, the reknowned Dutch Cryptocoryne expert, to LA and sidetracked him for an overnight visit to San Francisco. He showed slides of his recent trip to the Phillipines and Singapore where he made extensive collections of Crypts. We saw photos of stream, ditch and pond habitats as well as the plants collected and the surrounding countryside. Jay provided a great meal of steak and shrimp with a spinach salad and garlic bread, topped off with a chocolate cake by his wife, Maureen. Thanks Jan and Jay for the fine evening.

11/3/99 Lee Finley at Dave Gomberg's

Lee talked to us about the Planted Tank literature and showed some examples of his best aquarium plant books. It was fascinating to see what the Victorians did with aquaria. Thanks again Lee for your efforts.

11/21/99 Open Fish Room at Tom Barr's

Thanks to the tireless efforts of Cliff Lundberg, here are some great shots from Tom's great planted tanks. And thanks to Tom for the great pear pie too.

1/22/00 Charlene Nash at Dave Gomberg's

After a dinner of Chinese food from Empress Garden, we settled down to a great slide show of Tennessee Aquarium shots. Charlene has worked there since 1992 and has had a chance to build up substantial experience in the maintenance of large planted tanks. She also showed some wonderful slides of her excursions into the local (and not so local) conutryside gathering material for her exhibits. With eighteen attendees, this was our largest event since the first Karen Randall inaugural talk.

1/30/00 Open fishroom at Alan Kaufmann's

Sparky, the fire eel, greeted a crown who forewent the SuperBowl to gather at Alan's house in Napa. Alan has worked long and hard to integrate his aquariums into the rest of his decor so that the function as accents and points of interest without taking over the appearance of the room. If you are planning a new house and love fish, you should visit Alan's to see how it should be done (including the remote control everything). The sushi was both approriate and delicious (eat fish raw!).

Some things we are working on:

Report on the genus Anubias.
Using a recipe to improve your planted tank.
Possible project with Steinhart to plant some African tanks.

Updated April 26, 2000, email Dave Gomberg with comments, please.

Back to Dave's home page.