With summer being upon us and life being a little less stressful and gas being cheap, I decided to go on a reef keeper’s road trip. My friend Jim Gintner of醒目的珊瑚我拜访了布雷特和托德Cherry Coralsto catch up and see what was new in the hobby. In the early days of the hobby, Barney Rubble and I, I know many of you think I’m that old, used to frequently go on these types of trips with many of our nearby reef fanatics.
但是,随着互联网和昂贵的气体的出现,这些旅行变得不那么频繁。实际上,在这次旅行中,我意识到自上次旅行以来已经至少十年了。在十个小时的过程中,我意识到我想念这类旅行,因此,由于我也意识到你们中的许多人从未参加过这样的旅行,所以我会解释进行珊瑚礁公路旅行的优点和细节。
I generally do not look for things that require more driving since for most of the past 30 years lots of driving has been an integral part of my life due to my job. However, after reflecting on the many reef road trips that I took, I now recall fondly how many of these trips were some of the most fun and informative times I have had in the hobby.Before the advent of the internet and online shopping and expensive gas, a reef road trip was an integral part of the hobby.
During the early years of the hobby much of the equipment that we now take for granted was not readily available. As a result, we often had to travel a fair amount in order to find a store that catered to the saltwater side of the hobby.同样,珊瑚礁安全的鱼类和珊瑚和无脊椎动物也没有被许多商店库存,因此有必要开车去全国各地的库存少数商店。最后,许多当地的水族馆社会经常会从外地带来演讲者,因此,如果有人想听听,它也经常需要公路旅行才能听到有关业余爱好新事物的最新信息。As the name implies, a reef road trip could be any trip that was taken by more than one person that had something to do with reef keeping.However, I must admit that some of these trips were simply an excuse to just get out and do something fun in the hobby.
I also was very lucky in that I was able to take many of these types of road trips with some of the smartest and most knowledgeable people in the hobby.The beauty of these trips, many of which were as much as 6, 8, or 10 hours long was that for the most part the only thing really discussed during them were different aspects of the hobby.Much of the time was spent comparing notes on what each of us were doing, or if we found a new source for something, or more importantly what we found that didn’t work.
Much of the early work in the hobby was total trial and error, so these discussions were often us humorously recalling what our many errors were.Thesetrips were also when I found out that many of the really good hobbyists besides being smart also had a good sense of humor, as when you lost a then-expensive $100 coral for no reason that you could determine, having a sense of humor was crucial otherwise many of us would have spent a lot of nights crying. So sharing these experiences with others in the same boat was a key part of the early learning in the hobby.
这些旅行中的一些旅行只在我们的车里只有两人进行,但是我记得最好的旅行中有三,四甚至五个塞在车上的旅行。他们都没有饮酒,但我仍然记得在驱动器过程中进行了一些激烈的辩论。我了解了水化学的所有信息以及我与汤姆·弗雷克斯(Tom Frakes),当时是水族馆系统的年度旅行中保持碱度的重要性,以看到迪克·佩林(Dick Perrin)在海滨.
我第一次看到那里正在繁殖的所有珊瑚时,感觉就像是我很长时间以来经历过圣诞节早晨的最接近的东西。我还记得与查尔斯(Charles)和朱利安(Julian)一起开车前往巴尔的摩,并讨论了使用trick流滤镜的优点,而不是将其脱掉的优势,并使用当时使用“超大尺寸”蛋白质脱毛剂的疯狂概念。与查尔斯(Charles)和斯科特·迈克尔(Scott Michael)一起前往克利夫兰的旅行也令人难忘,因为在我们的坦克中,为什么很少有鱼“礁石安全”。经过许多争论,我们得出结论,可能很少有安全的原因是,我们通常不给它们喂养,以免我们在储罐中倾倒太多营养,并引起藻类的绽放,没有磷酸盐的去除剂,and as a result the starving fish had nothing else to pick on but our corals.
这也很难想象,但我曾经和我在匹兹堡地区找到的任何爱好者一起开车去埃德斯特堡的埃德(Ed)Acroporaavailable anywhere as far as I knew at that time. Why it is hard to imagine is that it was a 4 ½ hour trip, one way, and at that time all of theAcropora仅是米色或棕色。然而,我仍然至少与另一个礁石帕尔(Reef Pal)拖了至少十二次。以疯狂的方式,我记得多次飞往加利福尼亚,然后与其他三个或四个业余爱好者一起探访了每个商店和批发商,这将使我们进入。
We would all come home with numerous bags of corals and fish, most of which we had never seen before, and we would then do our best to keep them alive.On our next road trip we would share with one another how we did and share the “secrets” of our success.最后我remember driving to see Sanjay and the tank at Penn State with my friend Dr. Michael Fontana every year for over 15 years. I had helped Dr. Fontana set up the first truly large, 1400-gallon, reef tank I had ever seen.The three hour drive up consisted mainly of discussing the merits and pitfalls of a large versus small tank, while on the drive back the discussion focused on how psyched we were about the hobby after seeing Sanjay’s amazing tank yet again.
Those were the kind of trips that help to make lifelong friendships in the hobby and allowed for a level of debate about everything in the hobby that I feel is being missed today. While the internet is a great way of communicating information, a reef road trip allows for a level of discussion that rarely occurs online. Part of this is that in a car giving someone a hard time about a decision they made does not produce the level of scorn that sadly occurs too often online when someone has a difference of opinion. Also sharing ideas in a car together with one’s fellow hobbyists and doing something in common like seeing an amazing tank or even a unique coral produces a level of camaraderie that sadly is often lacking in the hobby.
This hobby is great in that a lot of it including much of the enjoyment of one’s tank tends to be done alone. Sadly this is often now more the case than it used to be, even though the internet allows one to post pictures almost constantly of how one’s tank looks and is evolving. I say this as one of the most fun reef road trips that used to occur all the time was a “tour of the tanks” in a specific locale. This tour consisted of people with tanks they wanted to show letting others in their area know, either through their local club or pet store.
People from all stages of the hobby would all get together and drive from house to view each other’s tanks.During these tours you could see what equipment people were using and how well it was working, what fish and corals were getting along as well as aquascaping ideas.互联网现在允许所有这一切,但是仍然没有什么比亲自见到坦克并当场询问坦克所有者的问题了。我敢肯定,在某些地方,这些仍在发生,但是我认为它们不像以前那样成为业余爱好的一部分吗?
我知道很多人不认为开车很长distance in a car to be fun, and for the most part they are right. But if there was one thing that I would bring back from the past it would be the reef road trip. It really can be a great time to have a small group of people in the intimate space of a car discussing something we are all passionate about without having to worry about getting flamed to our peers. In fact my trip with Jim was so much fun and so informative, we are planning another trip, to be determined, this summer.因此,如果匹兹堡/克利夫兰地区的任何人都在珊瑚礁之旅,请告诉我,也许我们可以将礁石公路旅行大篷车放在一起。但是,如果您不在我们的地区,我建议您与附近的珊瑚礁交谈并进行旅行。即使这只是对几家当地商店的访问,也有机会在轻松的环境中与相似的人一起闲逛是业余爱好的最佳部分之一。