A New Home

Well my website at: www.ronshimek.com is up and running. I will be revising it, but it is open for business.

I am moving my blog to: http://blog.ronshimek.com/

See you there!

I will delete this blog in one week.

ARRGH!!

Well, my website is more-or-less set up at my new homepage. I still have to go through and correct some of the problems that happened during the save and replace process, though. The only major snafu turns out to be the complete loss of a large, very complicated, diagram I made from some of my research about scaphopods. And, as luck would have it, I can't find any copies of it on my computer or my backups, either. Sigh.

Anyway, once I get the site up more-or-less as it was, so that it is functional for those who want to use it, I will start to revise it. I have a number of ideas that should make it easier to navigate. Also, I have a lot more information to put on it. My site size is unlimited, so I hope to be adding a lot more to the site than I had before.

My thanks to those of you who have noticed the odd links to the old Ask Dr. Ron forum and RC; I have tried to delete all of those.

I will be starting a new blog at that site probably tomorrow, but it may be a bit later. When that occurs, I will close down this one.

Getting Near The End

Of our remodel, that is. This started, officially, on the 22 of September, and it was projected to last about 3 months. Sigh.... Maybe it will be done in a couple more weeks. As luck would have it, I guess, my office/lab will be the last part of the remodel to be completed. I will be really glad to have the reconstruction complete, though. Our old house (built about 100 years ago) was apparently constructed by folks who thought, "Hell, I can build a house, what's so hard about that?" So... no two walls are either parallel or meet at right angles. In effect, the whole place is an optical illusion, it appears to be a house, whilst in fact it is a series of bad ideas held together by plaster and lathe. Sigh. Well, at least the view out the front window is nice. Over the years we have spent more than the original purchase cost of the house remodeling it, and so now it is really pretty nice, if small.

But, some of the problems... For example, we had to have all the plumbing ripped out and replaced. The cowboys who built the place weren't really sure about the concept that water flows down hill. And, unfortunately, plumbing carries more than water away from the house... I think you might be able to put those sentences together to see some of the problems we faced. Suffice it to say, the plumbing was only one issue... Interestingly, enough, none of these problems had been fully corrected in the 85 years of the house's existence prior to our occupancy. In fact, the place was a perfect example of series of sequential jury rigs that were done "on the cheap" and "good enough for government use."

So - - Anyway, by now we have pretty much rebuilt a lot of the old house from the bottom up and inside out. Had we known what we were going to have to do when we started, it would have been cheaper and probably a lot more soothing on the psyche to simply move and buy a new house. Well, hindsight is always perfect.

Well, rather start a discussion here that would need to move to my new site in a day or so, I will close today's missive, and get back to fixing my new home page.

Cheers!!

Some Changes Ahead

Well, my website is back up at www.RonShimek.com. I am presently revising it, so it will be in varying degrees of disarray for a few days at least. If you want to link to it, it is probably best to link only to the index page and then navigate through it as the internal design of the site will change a lot.

I will also be moving my blog to that site, and will post here when that will occur. All of this will probably happen by next Monday.

Laminar Flow

In reply to the comment about laminar flow. I have no doubt that perfect laminar flow doesn't occur near most, perhaps all ocean bottoms, but it does get close, particularly when the flow is over a smooth sand bed. Given the immense depth of water over the over the bottom in some cases, the flow really is well modelled by bulk flow that closely approximates laminar flow. Turbulent flow or chaotic flow is certainly the flow regime over bottoms with signficiant relief, such as reef crests, but this dampens out at surprising short distances from the reef proper. In these areas the animals seem to respond as if the flow is truly laminar, hence my new tank and what will be my research.

The animals I specifically will be examining will be:
1) Some of the soft corals such as Dendronephthya that appear to need non-turbulent flow for inflation and feeding,
2) Some of the tree or tube sponges, and
3) The gorgonians.

It think this system has the potential to provide some very interesting data about some "reef" animals.

I am busy today with the revisions to my site, so not much time for writing here.

'Till tomorrow!

Cheers!!

Back In Action

Well, it is Tuesday morning and I apologize for missing yesterday's update. I had to go in for an outpatient medical procedure early Monday, and the after effects left me druggy all the rest of the day. Didn't have time to post before I went in, and was sleeping off the IV anesthetic for the rest of the day. So... no blog update.

Cold Water Reefs Rule!

Virtually unknown a decade ago, these reefs are becoming progressively more well known. Unfortunately, they are in a precarious state. In a lot of areas, including the Alaskan ones, bottom fishing has trashed many parts of them. I think we are left with the awful situation of watching their destruction and demise without ever having had a chance to appreciate them. Aesthetically, this is one thing, I suppose; but scientifically it is a disaster.

I guess this sad state of affairs comes from the fact that these communities and organisms are "Out of sight, out of mind." Given that the cumulative "mind" of the general human populace is somewhat smaller than a gnat's ass, this out of sight rule works in most cases.

The general responses seems to be one of "Who cares about what is under the oceans?" This is probably because, "The oceans all look the same from the top, don't they?"

And to compound this attitude, these reefs are in cold waters in areas that are very difficult to study. One of the reasons I quit doing research in Alaska 25 years ago was that it simply was too expensive. Having had grant applications turned down simply becasue logistical costs were so high, was disconcerting. And a fact of life.

It takes a LOT of money to learn about deep water animals. A single standard, "simple" dive in a research sub can cost on the order of $50,000, and specialized dives are even more expensive. Coupled with the fact that these Alaskan reefs are in some of the most treacherous waters known, the research on them and the knowledge is going to be slow in coming.

As an example of the treacherous waters, I might discuss my personal version of the waves in the move "The Perfect Storm." Suffice it to say, been there, done that. Experiencing 70 foot high waves from a 100 foot long vessel is truly an experience that makes one a believer in the forces of nature. The aforementioned movie had absolutely no allure for me.

Even Worse Than The Environmental Problems Are The Human Ones...

As one more example, the large Primnoa pacificum, the gorgonian that may be the largest of Alaskan corals has been harvested by fishermen, primarily as "by catch," since before I was in Alaska in the late 1970s. At that time, it was worth about $150 per pound as a type of precious coral. One of my students when I was teaching at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, brought in a photo of one of the fishing boats owned by his family. The boat had lifted a large Primnoa up above the deck with its boom and winch. The gorgonian "tree" was easily 25 feet high.

At the time, scientists couldn't get any information from the fisherman. Greed rules the seas, and they were not about to tell anybody where they trawled the corals or allow us to even see the specimens close enough try to identify them. So... it was obvious that large gorgonians were being harvested, but we didn't know what they were or where they were from.

The situation is a bit better now; but only marginally. Nevertheless, with over 100 species of animals that can be called corals, and probably thousands of other species that are associated with them, the prognosis of learning much about these reefs before their destruction is pretty slim; even for those that are in so-called "refuges" or "reserves."

My Tanks.

I don't generally post images of my own systems for a couple of reasons:
first - such images are easily "faked," and
second - people put too much credence in what they think they are seeing.

Presently, I haven't got any tanks in operation. I broke down my system last summer prior to the start of our remodelling project as the room it was in was going to get severely rearranged. I had planned to set a system up when the remodel was completed. This was supposed to be in late November. The remodel STILL is not done, although we may be able, on a clear night, to see the flicker of the light at the end of the tunnel. My best guess is that I will start setting up my system somewhere about the Ides of March.

I will document that set up with periodic photos here, so those of you who are curious can see what I am doing.

In the interim, the image below is from my lagoon reef tank of a couple of years ago.



Laminar Flow Refernces:

Somebody asked me for some references on laminar flow in reefs. A few are listed below, happy reading. These will get you started, but the list is just a smattering of what is available.

Basics and Neat Information:

Vogel, S. 1994. Life in Moving Fluids. 2nd Ed. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ. xii+467pp

A Mix Of Old And New Refs:

Eckman, J. E. and A. R. M. Nowell. 1984. Boundary skin friction and sediment transport about an animal tube mimic. Sedimentology. 31:851-862.

Eckman, J. E., A. R. M. Nowell and P. A. Jumars. 1981. Sediment destabilization by animal tubes. Journal of Marine Research. 39:361-374.

Ertman, S. C. and P. A. Jumars. 1988. Effects of bivalve siphonal currents on the settlement of inert particles and larvae. Journal of Marine Research. 46:797-813.

Heidelberg, K. B., K. P. Sebens and J. E. Purcell. 1997. Effects of prey escape behavior and water flow on prey capture by the scleractinian coral, Meandrina meandrites. In: Lessions, H. A. and I. G. Macintyre. Eds. Proceedings of the eighth international coral reef symposium, Panama, June 24-29, 1996. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Balboa, Panama. pp. 1081-1086.

Heidelberg, K. B., K. P. Sebens and J. E. Purcell. 2004. Composition and sources of near reef zooplankton on a Jamaican forereef along with implications for coral feeding. Coral Reefs. 23:263-276.

Helmuth, B. and K. Sebens. 1993. The influence of colony morphology and orientation to flow on particle capture by the scleractinian coral Agaricia agaricites (Linnaeus). Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 165:251-278.

Helmuth, B. S. T., K. P. Sebens and T. L. Daniel. 1997. Morphological variation in coral aggregations: Branch spacing and mass flux to coral tissues. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 209:233-259.

Johnson, A. S. and K. P. Sebens. 1993. Consequences of a flattened morphology: Effects of flow on feeding rates of the scleractinian coral Meandrina meandrites. Marine Ecology Progress Series. 99:99-114.

Jumars, P. A. and A. R. M. Nowell. 1984. Fluid and sediment dynamic effects on marine benthic community structure. American Zoologist. 24:45-55.

Mills, M. M. and K. P. Sebens. 1997. Particle ingestion efficiency of the coral Siderastrea siderea and Agaricia agaricites: effects of flow speed and sediment loads. In: Lessions, H. A. and I. G. Macintyre. Eds. Proceedings of the eighth international coral reef symposium, Panama, June 24-29, 1996. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Balboa, Panama. pp. 1059-1063.

Mills, M. M., F. Lipschultz and K. P. Sebens. 2004. Particulate matter ingestion and associated nitrogen uptake by four species of scleractinian corals. Coral Reefs. 23:311-323.

Nowell, A. R. M. and P. A. Jumars. 1984. Flow environments of aquatic benthos. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 15:303-328.

Nowell, A. R. M., P. A. Jumars and J. E. Eckman. 1981. Effects of biological activity on the entrainment of marine sediments. Marine Geology. 42:133-153.

Nowell, A. R. M., P. A. Jumars, R. F. L. Self and J. B. Southard. 1989. The effects of sediment transport and deposition on infauna: results obtained in a specially designed flume. In: Lopez, G., G. Taghon and J. S. Levinton. Eds. Lecture notes on coastal and estuarine studies. Springer Verlag. New York. pp. 247-268.

Patterson, M. R., K. P. Sebens and R. R. Olson. 1991. In situ measurements of flow effects on primary production and dark respiration in reef corals. Limnology and Oceanography. 36:936-948.

Sebens, K. P. 1997. Adaptive responses to water flow: morphology, energetics, and distributions of reef corals. Proceedings of the Eighth International Coral Reef Symposium. 2:1053-1058.

Sebens, K. P. and A. S. Johnson. 1991. Effects of water movement on prey capture and distribution of reef corals. Hydrobiologia. 226:91-102.

Sebens, K. P., J. Witting and B. Helmuth. 1997. Effects of water flow and branch spacing on particle capture by the reef coral Madracis mirabilis (Duchassaing and Michelotti). Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 211:1-28.

Sebens, K. P., K. S. Vandersall, L. A. Savina and K. R. Graham. 1996. Zooplankton capture by two scleractinian corals, Madracis mirabilis and Montastrea cavernosa, in a field enclosure. Marine Biology (Berlin). 127:303-317.

Sebens, K. P., S. P. Grace, B. Helmuth, E. J. Maney Jr and J. S. Miles. 1998. Water flow and prey capture by three scleractinian corals, Madracis mirabilis, Montastrea cavernosa, and Porites porites, in a field enclosure. Marine Biology (Berlin). 131:347-360.

Shimeta, J. and P. A. Jumars. 1991. Physical mechanisms and rates of particle capture by suspension-feeders. Oceanography and Marine Biology: an Annual Review. 29:191-257.

Shyka, T. A. and K. P. Sebens. 2000. Community structure, water column nutrients and water flow in two Pelican Cays ponds, Belize. Atoll Research Bulletin. 466-480:107-121.

Taghon, G. L., R. F. L. Self and P. A. Jumars. 1978. Predicting particle selection by deposit feeders: A model and its implications. Limnology and Oceanography. 23:752-759.

Yager, P. L., A. R. M. Nowell and and P. A. Jumars. 1993. Enhanced deposition to pits: A local food source for benthos. Journal of Marine Research. 51:209-236.

'Nuff for now...

Cheers!!!

Dreary Sunday

Today has dawned grey and overcast... Can't even see across the valey to the mountains about 8 miles away. At least it is relatively warm, about 31 F, which is a lot warmer that it can be here at this time of year.

Coral Reefs

It is just beginning to dawn on researchers that the majority of corals aren't found in the shallow water tropical reefs, but in deep cold waters. In the U. S. of A., the largest reef is found along the southern edge of the Aleutian arc (So Chris' answer is right on the money!!!). It stretches for at least 1,400 miles and is found at depths of 300 to 3000 feet. Over 100 species of corals have been found there and more will be found - the habitat is so poorly known it could be described as being almost completely unknown.

Here are some links to get you started:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002177305_coral11m.html

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/abl/MarFish/coral.htm
The above link has some good maps of the extent of these reefs

http://www.nprb.org/education/inv-r0304.htm

http://www.alaskaoceans.net/facts/efh.htm

The Ocean Explorer Site has a lot of good materials including movies and lotsa images.

If you are interested in this material, here are some links to downloadable documents.

http://www.mcbi.org/Current_Magazine/What_are_DSC.pdf

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/Publications/AFSC-TM/NOAA-TM-AFSC-146.pdf

The above document is a 67 page technical memorandum from NOAA: Wing, B. L. and D. R. Barnard, 2004. A Field Guide To Alaskan Corals . 67 pp. It lists pretty much those corals that are now known from Alaska and gives images of most.

The following are various downloadable documents that give some reasonably good data about these communities:

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/abl/MarFish/pdfs/Heifetz_coral_Symposium_paper_wp9_col.pdf

http://www.akcf.org/_attachments/pdf/events_amp_publications/acf_dispatch/acf_dispatch_sum03.pdf

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2419.2005.00371.x

Here are a smattering of scientific articles to get you started on learning about those corals:

Andrews, A. A., E. E. Cordes, M. M. Mahoney, K. Munk, K. H. Coale, G. M. Cailliet and J. Heifetz. 2002. Age,growth and radiometric age validation of a deep-sea, habitat-forming gorgonian (Primnoa resedaeformis)from the Gulf of Alaska. Hydrobiologia. 471:101-110.

Bonilla, H. R. and G. C. Pinon. 2002. Influence of temperature and nutrients on species richness of deep water corals from the western coast of the Americas. Hydrobiologia. 471:35-41.

Heifetz, J. 2002. Coral in Alaska: distribution, abundance and species associations. Hydrobiologia. 471:19-28.

Krieger, K. J. and B. J. Wing. 2002. Megafauna associates with deepwater corals (Primnoa spp.) in the Gulf of Alaska. Hydrobiologia. 471:83-90.

Mortensen, P. B. and L. Buhl-Mortensoen. 2005. Morphology and growth of the deep-water gorgonians Primnoa resedaeformis and Paragorgia arborea. Marine Biology (Berlin). 147:775-778.

Risk, M. J., J. M. Heikoop, M. G. Snow and R. Beukans. 2002. Lifespans and growth patterns of two deep-sea corals: Primnoa resedaeformis and Desmophyllum cristagalli. Hydrobiologia. 471:125-131.

Finally, here are some publications (note some of these are books) detailing deep water coral reefs throughout the world.

Freiwald, A., J.H. Fosså, A. Grehan, T. Koslow, and J.M. Roberts (2004). Cold-Water Coral Reefs. UNEP-WCMC, Cambridge, UK.

Freiwald, A. and J.M. Roberts, eds. (2005). Cold-Water Corals and Ecosystems, Springer Publishing House, Heidelberg, Germany.

Roberts, S. and M. Hirschfield (2004). “Deep-Sea Corals: Out of Sight but no Longer Out of Mind.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 2(3): 123–130.

A Quote For You...

“What we have found is striking. We now know the majority of coral species (And they mean the majority of ALL CORALS) live in the colder, darker depths, some of these deepsea corals are similar to shallow water corals in appearance, and they are important to marine biological diversity and fisheries. Throughout the world’s oceans, a wave of ocean exploration is bringing back photographs and video of amazing coral gardens, extensive reefs, and Christmas tree corals. Although not strictly comparable, the deep-sea coral (Lophelia pertusa) reefs of the European continental margin, stretching from Norway around the British Isles and south to Spain and Portugal at roughly
4,500 km in length, extends over a much larger linear distance than the Great Barrier Reef of Australia (2,000 km long). Based on the work of our European colleagues, we also know that the Lophelia reefs in the dark, cold waters of the northeast Atlantic are home to over 1,300 species of fish and invertebrates, a number that will undoubtedly continue to grow with ongoing research (Freiwald and Roberts, 2005).

The largest coral in the waters of the U. S. A. Is....

Primnoa pacificum from the Aleutians. It is a gorgonian reaching heights well in excess of 7 m (23 feet).

More tomorrow....

I'm On...

Well, the forums are up and running on the Marine Depot site. We all hope that this will provide us a home that is more condusive to learning from one another than the the site we just left. I think that given the refreshing, and altogether pleasant, attitude of the MD folks, coupled with the realization that we all have to look out for ourselves, and for one another, this will indeed occur. I think that having our forums on a forthrightly commercial site such as Marine Depot will prevent the kind of moderator abuse that developed and really pervaded all of RC over the last couple of years.

Some Changes Here...

As some of you know, this blog is moderated. I see, and have to approve, all the comments before they are posted. And, with the two exceptions I mentioned in an earlier note, I have approved them all.

Well, I have decided to change that policy. Henceforth, I will not allow the publication by the trolls and scum that made gained rabble power on RC behind the shield of anonymity. Frankly, I have grown tired of the bull dribble espoused by some of the former and present posters on RC. These "people" - and I use that word with some uncertainty - feel free to malign and criticize while hiding behind a "nickname." Or, in the worst cases on RC, while exercising power over other posters in the private "moderators" forum. Things really got out of hand in the so-called moderator's forum there and, with idea that no one would know what was going on there, all sorts of BS ensued.

A couple of Latin phrases come to mind, first "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" - Who will guard the guardians?; or as it is more commonly translated, "Who watches the watchers?" It has been recognized since ancient times that decision making behind closed doors tends to become corrupt, and that those in positions of power need to have public and responsible oversight. For a couple of years there was reasonable oversight exercised in that forum, but that oversight gradually drifted away to nothingness and vanished altogether at the end of last summer. The problems occurred in direct proportion to the lack of control. The second phrase is, "Qui tacet consentit - Who keeps silent consents." I guess we all have our thresholds. I should have bailed out of RC when I first percieved that things were becoming unreasonable; about 18 months ago. I didn't and for that I must share some complicity in the subseqent events.

Now, given no BBS, such as RC, is a public entity, what goes on behind "closed doors" is to some extent allowable. Management decisions have to be made in private. However, using those private discussions and decisions as a rationale to publically malign and demean people is both disgusting and reprehensible. I can't speak for the other people who pulled out, but this kind of behavior is why I left RC. Anyway, the folks who have chosen the low road have plenty of other places to publish their trash, they will not be allowed in here.

Sorry For No Post Yesterday

I have been trying to post something everyday. Howsoever, things just got too hectic around here. My wife and I had to run some errands and do a lot of chores and I just didn't have time to add to the blog. My apologies.

More Changes, I Guess...

We learn as we I go, I guess. I started this blog with the intent of providing a place where I could discuss things with folks online. Sort of, a place to have some interesting, if slow, conversations. Primarily, I wanted it as a place to discuss stuff that wasn't applicable to my forum. The trials and tribulations of the last couple of weeks are over now, I hope and I would like to resurrect that as the primary reason for the blog. That having been said, and with the "unwashed and uncouth" banned, I will try to respond to any and all comments that are posted. Now, if there get to be a lot of them, some things may get inadvertently missed. If so, don't hesitate mention them again. If things get lively, I suppose it might come to the point that run out of time, but somehow, I don't think that will be a problem. Actually, without the drama of a "forum shift," I suspect that few people will bother to read what I write, or care to get comments. I may be wrong, but I guess we'll see.

I got something of kick out of a couple of the comments regarding who was publishing this blog, and the fact that you can never know who is doing this. Damn straight! You don't know, you just have to take my bloggish word for it. Kind of brings to mind the old story about the researcher who proved conclusively that William Shakespeare didn't write all of his plays. This researcher found that some of them were written by another author of the same name...

Large Reefs

I meant to say the United States Of America for the locality of the reef I asked about. I will let you cogitate over the question more fully for another day or so, and then I will post my answers with some references. Nobody has hit the answer yet.

Well, sleep calls.

More Later.

Cheers!!

We're Not There Yet

Wherever "there" is. I expected the MD forums to become active yesterday, but it didn't happen and I don't know why. And once they start I will, indeed, be an employee of MD. Whoopee! Jump up and down, clap hands with glee....

But, in response to one of the pismires, "Health benefits?" You gotta be kidding. I tell you at my age, I would sell my soul for a job with decent health benefits. I'd probably do it for a job with any health benefits. Bye the bye, I was just as much an employee of RC whilst I was there; didn't have any perks from that job either.

The Coral Question...

was answered as closely as you can get by Bob, aka "Snail Guy." Congrats!!! It is a NE Pacific hydrocoral, in a genus called either Stylaster or Allopora (the jury is out on what is the correct name). The species may or may not be californica, though. Until about 30 years ago, the animal in the image would have been called Allopora californica by most folks. However, in the early 1980s a few of us were trying to do some research on this animal and its symbiotes. We started to delve back into the literature, and lo and behold, we found there was a lot done on the group by some Russian taxonomists in the early to mid 20th century. None of that information had (or has for that matter) made it into the English language literature, and without access to the specimens that they examined it was impossible to determine to which species the coral in the photo is/was.

Now... Bob "cheated" a bit. And more power to him for it, it was "legitimate cheating;" the kind I encourage in my students - basically the message is to observe and use all the available clues!! He recognized the snail (I knew I should have cropped the photo!), and I am sure that steered him in the right direction. Howsoever, it wasn't impossible to get to the right answer by other means. The star-like shape of pits (not really corallites in this case) that the polyps extend from is really unlike the corallites of any true stony anthozoan (= scelractinian) coral. Additionally, in the image that was posted second, tentacles can be seen coming from the pits in the upper left part of the image. They look like thin hairs, and such tentacle structure is characteristic of hydrozoans, not anthozoans. Actually, in these animals, what appears to be a single polyp extending from each pit is something else altogether. The mouth and stalk (really not visible in the images) is one individual polyp. Each tentacle is a separate polyp that lacks a mouth and is specialized for food capture.

In any case, it is quite pretty, and relatively fast growing. There appears to be a multispecies array of such animals found along the Northern edge of the Pacific, ranging from about Korea in the west to California, in the east. They are common from the lower intertidal zone down to depths exceeding 150 feet. Literally, there are dozens of morphologies and colors, ranging from pale pinks to deep violets to hot pinks to whites. Some of them are encrusting forms, while others send up hand-like or finger like branches. Unlike the firecorals that they are related to, they don't have a sting that packs a punch to people. They are gorgeous in tanks and do pretty well in captivity. I have kept specimens in research tanks for several months without any apparent ill effects before I returned them to nature. Unfortunately, the ones I looked at thrived at tempertures below 48 degrees F, and when the water got warm, say about 55 or so, they died. They do need to be fed as they lack zooxanthellae, and they do best in dim light.

So... This leads me to ask the following two parter for a question for you.

Where is the longest reef in American waters found, and what is the largest coral, in terms of height, found in American waters?

We'll see if anybody has either the right data, or a very good guess.

'Til later...

Cheers!!!

Real Soon Now...

Well, as far as I know, which really isn't a lot, the Marine Depot Experts Forum will go live reasonably soon, possibly later today, maybe tomorrow. It appears that the tech folks at site are trying to "do it right." If that is true, and I think it is, then I am truly heartened by the thought that we might get going on this soon, and with a minimum of post-partum blues.

Commercialism, phht...

Regarding the comments about commercialism... People get real! Most small and every moderately large or large site on the web is sponsored. That means they are all commercial. If you think the site we all just departed from was some sort of paragon of non-commercial goodness and light, you had better consider pulling your head out of wherever it is stuck. At that site, questions were raised, numerous times, about whether so and so's post would offend or upset various sponsors. You might be able to guess the outcomes of these, ah, "discussions."

Regarding other commercial issues, in my own particular case, I am getting less pay from MD than I got from RC, and less than I could have gotten at several other sites that proposed offers to us. Money was just not the driving force here, much to my financial manager's dismay. Finally, if you are concerned that any advice I might give you will be tainted by commercialism, I have a simple succint suggestion: "Don't bother to come to my forum and post, it will save us both time and effort, and I am sure I won't miss you."

The print medium is just the same, by the way. It is effectively impossible to publish anything in the print aquarium magazines that might be construed as being hostile to either a particular sponsor or group of sponsors, in general. There is, to put it bluntly, no Consumer Reports for aquarists - and we are much the poorer for it, both figuratively and literally. Many of the products that aquarist purchase either are useless for the tasks that they are purchased for, or may be downright harmful to the organisms that they are targeted for.

Many of the data that are necessary to show what effects some of these materials might have are available in the scientific literature and several of us have tried to make those data easily accessible to the average hobbyist. In general, I think our success rate has been dismal. As an example, people still dose their tanks with things like the so-called "trace elements" regardless of the fact that no animal ever needs to be dosed with these things. The best that can be said for most of them is that they DO make the algae in a tank grow better, though.

This is only one example of many.

This is why in an earlier post I suggested purchasing or reading references on reef animals and reefs written by, and for, people outside the hobby. For example, again with trace elements, there is very great amount of information about the effects of many of these materials in specific reef animals and other, closely-related organisms. Those data may be applied across the board to the practice of aquarium husbandry. Nonetheless, such data are largely dismissed by hobbyists because, .... well, I don't know why...

References

Scientific articles may be obtained cheaply, or for free, by journeying to a library and looking them up using one of the data bases available at virtually all libraries. If the journal is in the library, you can take it to the nearest photocopy machine and make a copy of the article. Many journals are also available online, at no charge, in most libraries, and you can simply download the article onto a CD, jump drive, or floppy and read it at home at your convenience. Virtually all of the articles I write have pertinent references listed as part of the article. Further information on the same topics may be carried out by checking the references cited in those articles or searching through electronic and print data bases. If you are serious about this, reference librarians will knock themselves out trying to help you. Both Eric and I have written a couple of articles describing what you need to do to find the information. We have done our part (and given the scheme of things, we will undoubtedly do it again) - all it takes is some interest on your part.

Incidentally, the scientific press doesn't function like the "commercial press." No author gets paid for the articles they publish. In fact, one is generally charged a page fee to publish the articles. In some cases, funds from a supporting grant may be used to cover publication costs, but in many cases, it simply comes out of the author's pocket. The author's cost for a ten page article may easily exceed $500.

The Coral....

No correct guesses so far. Here is another image of the same coral. See if that helps. Pay careful attention to detail.


On Credentials...

People that fake credentials are liars, pure and simple. If they have to fake credentials to try to discredit other people, or to advance their own ideas, they are pathetic impersonations of a human beings as well as being liars - and anything they say has no credence.

Ta ta for now...

Cheers!

The Cat's Peeking Out Of The Bag...

Well,

You might see here.

Not open for business, yet, though.

Cheers!!

Dreary Tuesday

Tuesday morn - dawning cloudy and rather dreary, but rather warm for a January morning here, about freezing outside, and windy. A good day to be indoors; interesting to watch out the window, though, what snow we have doesn't even melt, it simply sublimates away and disappears. Doesn't break my heart to see it go. It will mean that I will be hoping for a rainy spring to make up the moisture deficit, but that's then and this is now, and rain is a lot more tolerable that snow.

Going live...

Well, we got the word from the management of our new site that we can expect to go live on our new forums on Wednesday or Thursday. They want to test their servers and ensure that they are "up to the task." Hmmm... I hope so. I quess they expect us to be somewhat of a draw. Personally, I have my doubts.

I will post here when we get "official" word, but knowing how the internet grapevine goes, most of you folks will probably know when we go live before I do.

Once the forum starts, I will likely be keeping to my old schedule of 5 days on, 2 off, with Thursday and Friday being the "off days," although I may work the first week or so without a break.

Still no real word from the management about whether they will go with the class proposals, but if they do and the courses get scheduled, to answer a couple of questions, the invert book reference will the 2003 incarnation of the Ruppert, Fox, and Barnes "Invertebrate Zoology" text. Other texts and earlier editions won't work. No guess as to when such a class would start, but I hope to be going by the first of March if they give the go ahead. I hope to do a major rewrite of all my "lectures" and change the orientation significantly. In other words, these won't be just a rehash of previous courses.

No Guts, No Glory...

No guesses on the coral, huh! Well, the answer awaits. It actually isn't too hard, if you "know" your corals. I will wait a couple of days ere I post some hints, though.

Getting Old Is SO Much Fun!

Well, in addition to skin cancers, which are conceptually scary even if a basal cell carcinoma isn't too bad, there are other things one has to consider when one becomes a certified "olde pharte," and, of course, it is something all you young sprouts have to look forward to. One long word especially comes to mind... Colonoscopy. Ah, sigh... For those of you who don't know what this word implies, as the immortal once said, "You could look it up." Anyway, I get to look forword to said procedure next Monday morning. Actually, it isn't the procedure that is "So Much Fun," it is the preparation for it that occurs the previous day. Flush! Flush! and more Flush!

Sigh...

At least come next Monday afternoon, I presume I will be done with things medical for the foreseeable future, unless, of course, the physician finds something to worry about during the exam. I don't anticipate that, but it is a possibility, otherwise they wouldn't be doing the procedure.

References and "Philosophies" of Reef Keeping.

Some of you have asked whether or not I have read some of the aquarium reference books and what I think of them. Generally, the answer is that I do scan them, but I generally neither purchase nor follow them. I base my aquaria and the advice I give on the primary scientific literature. I use as a basis information about physiology, morphology and natural history ("what most people call "the biology) of any given animal, as well as literature from the coral reef ecology research. There is far too much mythology in the aquarium literature for it to be generally useful to me, and I don't recommend much in it, as the amount of bull dribble that one has to filter out is generally too extreme.

Unfortunately, when most people see something in a book, any book, they assume it is "true" (whatever truth is) and go from there. In point of fact, most of the books are written as advocacy positions and should be addressed in that manner. Some of the books that have been published purportedly as hobbyist references really are pretty good fiction, as well. Finally, most of the authors writing the books seem to lack the ability to make any objective evaluation of other references or the "so-called" scientific literature. This is a learned skill, and apparently not one practiced much by many authors. Eric and I have written about this "information garblage" several times, and I presume we will harp on it again. Additionally, I have even spent some time in spoken presentations on it.

Frankly, the lack of reasonable interpretation of data is one of the biggest problems facing the hobby, and the B-S filter that is necessary is exceptionally large. Because of this, if I were to suggest a general book for the hobby, I really couldn't do it. Instead, I would suggest a general (and recent - nothing before about 1995) technical reference on "Coral Reef Ecology" (for the physical conditions and general biological conditions of a reef) and a good reference on invertebrates (for specific conditions necessary for animals in majority of the animal groups found on a reef). If the conditions for the inverts are good, the conditions for most fish will be great. After these references are in hand, I would suggest specific group-oriented references from bona fide experts in the various animal groups, such as Eric's book on corals.

As for things like sand beds... Well, I have done enough research in such systems as to be very familiar with their ins and outs. Most the articles that form the basis for my responses on those topics have been posted on my website - and will be posted again - as soon as I can gain control of the site - or set up a new one.

'Til tomorrow!

Cheers!

Prove it...

Ah the glories of a Monday morning.

In January.

In Wilsall, Montana.

The temperature right now, at 0700, is 10.0º F. That is also the low, so far, for the day. The horizon is just starting to show color for sunrise in about an hour so it may well get colder yet. Still and all, it is 12 degrees Fahrenheit above our average low for this date. Looks to be a clear day, so it is a crispy critter day out there. Smart money is on those critters that stay in doors. On the other hand, one can dress warmly and enjoy this climate in the winter and we don't have tornados, hurricanes, fire ants, termites, or cockroaches to contend with.

And the fish was... Scorpaenichthys marmoratus, the Cabezon. It is, as some of you guessed, a scuplin. That particular individual was about a meter long, and weighed, maybe, 15 kg. This species is found in the N. E. Pacific and normally is a mottled greenish or brown but, occasionally, one finds more attractively colored ones. The image was taken at Seapool Rocks near the mouth of Barkley Sound, on Southwest Vancouver Island. Here is an image of another one.

The above individual was a juvenile, about 12 to 14 cm long, and was found on a shallow-water sand bed in Cowlitz Bay of Waldron Island, in Northern Puget Sound.

Today's question... What coral is this?


Forums...

Well, it now looks like there will be six people in our new expert's forum when it gets going. I would guess it will be operational within a couple of days. Although the forum itself will be operational from the get-go, it will take a while to put all the reference materials in their appropriate places. I suspect this will be a growing proposition and if all goes well, will be essentially unfinishable as material will be continuously added. We have hopes of turning this in to quite a center of "reef aquarium" knowledge. I guess we'll see how it turns out.

I don't know about the classes I proposed yet. It will take some time for that idea to be digestedby the management, I think. Howsowever, I am optimistic that they will be offered, and I hope reasonably soon. I will post information about them as it becomes available.

Once we get going on the forums, one thing is for sure, is sooner or later somebody will ask a question along the line of, "What is the proof for this?" Or, "Prove that!" And, of course, we will all be at a loss.

And the reason for the loss will be simply that using the "scientific method," one can never really prove any concept or idea in the sense of providing absolute incontrovertable evidence. That is the essence of science; the method works to disprove alternatives or, if you will, to falsify hypothesis. It doesn't ever "prove" anything directly. What it does, through repeated testings of hypotheses, is to pare down the alternatives until all that is left is a premise that is presumed to be factual. Such a premise or idea cannot be proven in the sense of a mathematical proof, but it still can be supported with, sometimes, a vast body of knowledge based on being able to falsify alternatives.

Proving things using the Aristotelian method is great for math, but it can get you into trouble if you carry it to some illogical outcomes. For a great, short, satire on proving things, take a look at "On the nature of mathematical proofs," a classic exposition that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Alexander the Great, among other things, had an infinite number of limbs...

Anyway, this leads to one of the major problems with Q & A forums such as mine. There often is a difference in meaning for the same term. Probably the most "hyped" example of that type of ambiguity to hit the news recently is the difference in the use of "theory" in the scientific sense and the "vernacular" sense. In the latter meaning, a "theory" is a tentative idea proposed for testing. In former meaning, a "theory" is an accepted and well-supported idea or series of ideas. Because the scientific method can't be used to directly "prove" a idea, such a construction remains "a theory." Examples of such theories are Newton's Theory of Gravitational Interactions, Einstein's Theory of Relativity and, of course, the present lighting rod for discourse, Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection.

Of course, both meanings of "theory" are correct, the meaning, however, is changed by the context of the use.

Of such delightful ambiguities are some of the most useless arguments made. Sigh...

On that happy note, I will close for this morning and get on to other things.

Cheers!

Early Morning 'Gurt...

Well, it is another night where I've had a bit of insomnia compounded by severe discomfort from arthritis. So I am up and just had a bit of yogurt as a post midnight snack. Yogurt... not too bad, if you don't think about just exactly what it is you are eating. Lotsa foods are that way, I suppose, and the threshold for discomfort or disgust varies with the individual. I can't really relate to vegans, but I understand them. But - damn - I cannot eat sushi. I sorta draw the line when my food acts like Klingon "ghak," and where I can recognize various structures. The first, last, and only complete sushi meal I had was at an excellent restaurant in Koror, Belau about 13 years ago. I could easily have constructed an invertebrate zoology lab quiz from my dinner - you know the kind, "For 2 points, name the structure on the tip of the chopstick." Not quite the way I like to see a beautiful Tridacna maxima, either, particularly as the parts still twitched when they were dipped in the sauce. Oh the memories... was my stomach rumbling or was the dinner trying to crawl out?

A Fish For You.


Any guesses as to what it is?

Uncoarse Courses

I hope, and think I will be able, to convince my new employers to allow me to offer a couple of long-term courses within the next couple of months. As with previous on-line courses I have given, I anticipate these will at about the 2nd or 3rd year college level, and be about a semester (15 weeks) in length. It appears that our new site will be able to house powerpoint presentations, so that could make these pretty neat, maybe even with narration. Gad - Honest to Gawd lectures. Ha! If not, also lots of notes. Actually, probably a lot of notes in any case. I seem to recall in my last invert course I uploaded about 300 pages of lectures/notes for the students. Those who find the time to persist through these courses, seem to think they are worth it, though.

Right now, I am thinking of putting together a basic invertebrate biology course centered around functional morphology and ecology. Possibly also a course on sand beds and/or another on coral reef ecology. All of these courses generally have weekly uploaded lectures of up to 20 or more pages (single spaced) with images and illustrations, as well as optional labs that can be done with standard reef tanks (and which, of course, don't damage or hurt either the system or its inhabitants). Oh yeah, and plenty of assigned readings. At RC, I had dedicated private forums for the use of class members and I checked these several times each day to answer questions. We often had quite lively question and answer sessions. In the invert courses there is a text to purchase (costs about $120 new, but used ones are available), but in the ecology courses I generally send out a CD with some articles to read. Generally, it is about 100 pages of reading per week. This doesn't sound like much, but this kind of reading, for those who haven't done it, is pretty "labor intensive;" particularly as many of the terms encountered will be new to the readers. I think many reef aquarists would be able to take these courses and understand them without problems - of course, as has been pointed out in the comments, there are individuals who do have troubles with big words. Those people should probably wait for the comic book. As long as it doesn't have big words.

Progress

It looks like we will probably get some contracts to sign within a couple of days and then we will be online again with forums. So far, there will be five of us in the group, with one more likely to join in the not-too-distant future. We hope to be able to build a real one-stop locus of reef aquarium knowledge. I know Eric is planning on uploading a lot of his information into accessible files, and I will probably do much the same. I do know that the sites will grow over time.

More later....

Cheers!

A Saturn's Day Posting

Hmmm,

Odd thoughts for a Saturday morning. Why, if we are a Christian society are all of the names of the weeks non-Christian? Monday = Moon's Day, Tuesday = Twiga's Day, Wednesday = Wodin's Day, Thursday =Thor's Day, Friday = Freya's Day, Saturday = Saturn's Day, and Sunday, = Sun's Day. I find this trivia rather neat - sort of a perpetual comment on the incongruity of our society as whole.

Whatever that whole may be.

My illness

A number of you have sent me good wishes for a speedy recovery from my recent skin cancer surgery. I really appreciate those sentiments, and I thank you for them!!!

For those of you who are curious. My skin cancer was a "Basal Cell Carcinoma." This type of cancer is about the safest type of cancer to have; slow-growing, easily cured by surgery, and generally non-life threatening. Mine was "concealed" under the top of my right sideburn and it got "BIG" for one of these things, about the diameter of a half dollar and the thickness of an Oreo cookie. This made the surgery was a bit more involved than normal and required some remodeling of the skin above my ear and beside my forehead.

All has gone well, and the removal of the cancer was a complete success. The reconstructive work looks "sorta" good, but we are not "out of the woods" yet; it still has to heal completely. Right now the side of the head is rather lumpy and feels very odd, due to the stretching of nerves, and repositioning of skin and underlying tissues. However, I anticipate all should be fine in a few months.

Apparently these types of cancer are caused by a lot of sun exposure, which is rather odd in my case as I have generally worn hats and such whilst out in the sun working, but who knows. In this case, I guess I won the lottery.

A word of the wise for those of you in your mid-50's, don't neglect any small sores, bumps, or zits... They may be something much less harmless. DO mention these things when you visit your physician, and visit your physician regularly.

'Nuf of the lecture.

Spurting Forums

Well, it appears that things are into the last phases of negotiation and set up. I think we are all pretty much in agreement. To sweeten the kitty, it won't be just Anthony, Eric and I, but a group of other good folks to round out the menu of offerings. There will be a lot of familiar names in the mix. And, it appears to be a pretty good group.

So... I will keep you posted as things progress.

Commerciality And Forums

Well, there are are few forums out there that are not "in it for the money." I think this is because they haven't figured out how to be "in it for the money." RC was/is definitely a money making proposition and there was some significant pressure at times to avoid upsetting sponsors. Our new forum is also commercial; probably more overtly so. On the other hand, the sponsoring is up front and obvious.

I asked our contact about conflicts of interest - i. e. suggesting products available somewhere else, or more appropriate, in my case, the "dissing" of products (such as trace metal solutions) that they sell. He assured me that this would not be a problem. We shall see, of course, but I see no a priori reason to doubt his sincerity, and will definitely be giving him and the sponsor the benefit of the doubt.

Being In "It" For The Money...

Well, Duuuh......



All of the published reef experts are in it for the $$$. And why not?

It takes time and it takes expertise that requires training and experience to be an "expert." My RC forum took between 3 and 5 hours a day, often the questions required digging through data bases (print ones, not electronic ones - and that takes a lot of time). I suspect all readers of this blog get paid for some job that they do, and being on an expert forum is a job, nothing more, nothing less. So... We are all paid. And, very truthfully, we get paid less than the folks at Mickey D's... The days of the true volunteer expert are in the past. I think anybody that can affort to be a true volunteer for this sort of thing has too much money, and not enough of a life. On the other hand, we are not getting any sort of "rich" either.

Anyway, Anthony, Eric, and I all get paid for our ruminations. Without the pay, you would be faced with a thundering silence from us. Now, did we get paid from RC? Most assuredly. We will be getting a bit more at the new site, but not a lot more, from the folks we are negotiating with. Money, in and of itself, was obviously not the reason for the move.

More later....

This Saturn's Morning In Montana Mountain Valley

It is a dreary day here. Cool, not real cold, the temperature is in the 40's, but it is an overcast day with no blue sky anywhere, rather a rarity here. Lots of wind, it is blowing about 20-25 mph as the average. (In case, some of you are wondering, I have a small weather station on the roof; and it sends all of these data directly to my computer). We have very little snow, skiffs mostly, with a lot of dried grass poking through; about an inch of snow cover max in our yard.

The climate here has surely changed since I was a kid in Great Falls (about 150 miles to the NNW). January then was cold enough to freeze the proverbial balls off the proverbial brass monkey. The coldest ever officially recorded in the lower 48 states was on a February morning in, I believe, 1954, at an automated weather station at Roger's Pass, Montana - about 65 miles west of my home in Great Falls, and about 140 miles WNW of here. That temperature was -70 F. Sure is a lot warmer now. Since we have returned to Montana, in 1994, we have only seen a few days where the temperature has been -30F or lower. During my misbegotten youth here, the temperature would be routinely much colder; and my own personal best was being out in -57F. So... as far as I am concerned there are some defined benefits to Global Warming.

The hot dry summers... and the forest and prarie fires that result from that --- Well, that's the flip side of the coin.

Time to go... I will post again, tomorrow.

Cheers!

While I pondered weak and weary....

Well, midnight posting is the pits, but it gives me something to do when I can't sleep. Got all the stitches out today and the by the time I got home, I crashed for a several hour nap in the afternoon. Felt good at the time, but now I am awake. Sigh...

The RC affair...

My last post marks pretty much my last thoughts on this matter, although it is interesting to see what has happened to what had been my website. This was housed on the same server that housed RC. Unfortunately, I don't own the domain name, so I have little recourse. You get two guesses as to who did this...

Anyway, I feel no real need to continue that discussion. I have presented my viewpoint as to what has happened. I am sure the rest of the drama will play itself out over the next few weeks and months. Just as sure as I am of that, I am equally sure that the coprophagous followers of bomber will continue to post here. While I read their posts, I can and do exercise the pleasure of ignoring them. Pismires abound, and this is a batch of them that has attached themselves to the reef hobby.

Posts

I moderate all the posts to this blog, and decide whether or not they get published. Generally, I feel that most of them are worthy of being published, if only to show the true measure of the author. However, I have not published a couple of them, one I deleted was a bizarre set of religious rantings directed this way, I am sure, by some search bot, and the other was inadvertently deleted; no big deal, it was by the infamous "Anonymous," and while I meant to publish it, but my finger simply twitched at the wrong time. C'est le vie...

In any case, I don't feel like this is a like a Q & A forum where I need to respond specifically to each poster. I will, probably, respond selectively to some of them. Rather I will respond generally. This is, after all, a web log, or as I think of it a journal of my thoughts, musings or rantings, depending, I suppose upon your point of view.

In that vein, I really thank the majority of you folks for the messages. I appreciate the sentiments.


My Laminar Flow Tank

Having said I won't geneally answer posts directly, I will now violate that rule. Jon Bertoni asked about my laminar flow tank. Although the flow through some parts of reef is composed of turbulent or chaotic water flow, much of the flow just off the reef face or between patch reefs or over sand beds is laminar or bulk flow. Here the water flows without turbulance. Sucn flow cannot be generated by powerheads and most pumps without a lot of modification.

Some of the animals that we simply can't successfully keep in the hobby, such as the dendronephtyid soft corals are adapted to live in that sort of flow regime. And, probably because of our inability to generate such flow regimes we can't successfully keep them. So... to investigate some way to try to allow us to keep these animals. I am setting up a tank to generate such flow, and I hope to run some experiments in this system. If all goes according to plan, I will publish the results somewhere - although at this time, I can't guarantee where. I had hoped to present some of the initial data from this research at the upcoming IMAC, but the remodel of my office/lab (a converted bedroom in my house) is proceeding very slowly and far behind schedule. Consequently, I haven't been able to get started on the research and given the time that the work takes, I have cancelled my speaking appearance at the conference, as I won't have enough data to discuss.

In any case, the system is composed of two 12 gallon tanks connected by 4 inch PVC pipes. It basically is a "square" donut with a one tank in the rear (for the pump and heater, etc) and one tank in the front as the experimental chamber. The flow is produced by a Tunze stream in the back chamber. The water flows around two 90 degree bends to enter the front chamber. Then it passes through a "flow straightener" (= a one inch thick rack filled with cut sections of soda straws). Water flowing through the straws passes through the experimental chamber with very little turbulance and depending on how I adjust some side baffles and such, it provides a rather neat small scale mimic of laminar flow. The water exits the tank at the other side and passes through two more 90 degree bends to enter the equipment chamber in the back.

This tank is patterned after the flow tanks common in some marine research labs and really functions in much the same way. I hope to use small specimens of some of the various animals to see how changes in the flow regime (current velocity, etc) affect them (such effects as feeding, inflation, polyp extension, etc).

I think the results should be pretty interesting. :-)

Enough for now, more later...

Cheers!

Once Upon A Midnight Dreary

Lotsa pain tonight, so I couldn't sleep. Thought I would post some information that some of you might find illuminating. Personally, all of these events are now behind us, so this will probably be the last I have to say on them

It is looking more and more that Eric, Anthony, myself and possibly as many as four or five other people will be having an expert's forum. Initially this will be just a series of forums, but we also will soon have articles, links, and pictures there for people to use. We are quite excited about this and think it will be an excellent resource for reef aquarists. We hope as well, to be able to keep the tone of the site more condusive to information transfer and less confrontational than RC or other online forums.

A partial chronology of now, not so recent events –

I got a phone call on Christmas eve morning from Eric telling me he had just read a thread on RC containing pictures of illegally collected corals and that he thought the thread posed a potential liability to RC and he had deleted the thread.

The thread in question apparently showed some corals in a reef tank reputed to belong to “bomber” (whoever the hell he/she/it/they is/are). According to Eric, these corals were easily identifiable and obviously ones that were illegal to collect. Eric tried posting to the person claiming ownership of the corals asking him where he had gotten the corals. He got no response. So – He deleted the thread. I never actually saw the thread, it was gone by the time I logged on.

After getting the call, I was curious about was going on, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and logged into the staff forum at RC. There was a thread started by gregt stating that Eric had deleted a thread and that in outraged response he (gregt) had banned Eric. All sorts of hell was breaking loose because the thread had been deleted. Various of the staff moderators were venting vociferously at Eric for daring to delete a thread without consulting with their august personages. The reason “why” the thread had been deleted and the fact that a staff member had been arbitrarily banned without explanation were not under question.

Now, it should be pointed out, that Eric probably shouldn’t have deleted the thread. He should have moved it to the staff forum for discussion. This was “standard operating procedure” which had developed over the last couple of years. Such an SOP was not, however, ever communicated to Eric, nor was it written down in any staff manual. So, Eric did what he thought was the correct action to protect the forum. Ah… no good deed goes unpunished.

Why Eric was banned was never questioned.

During further ongoing thread and counter thread flinging, I questioned the validity of banning a staff member without any discussion. And I started questioning why gregt was second-guessing Eric in the first place. During the past several years whenever some question about bomber came up, gregt had always responded in a hypersensitive manner. This fact was brought up by myself and supported by one or two other mods. As a result gregt uploaded a post resigning as a moderator and wishing us all a “Merry F****** Christmas.” (Direct quote on the latter).

Some time after this, one of the other mods with the appropriate clearance (which I didn’t have) reinstated Eric – but not with moderator status. Several hours after that, Eric’s moderator status was reinstated, but not completely. Claims that Eric was never banned are lies.

Questions about the deleted post rebounded for a while and then someone managed to “recover” the post. Eric’s deletion of the post raised several questions. These were:

1) Who was “bomber?”
2) Did he actually have the credentials he claimed; specifically NOAA employment and a relevant Ph. D. (important in the context, as really only someone with reasonable credentials could get a permit for those corals)?

And finally, the big one…

3) Did he have a permit for the corals?

Various people tried to track down who bomber was/is; by backtracking through the RC archives and posts in other forums a likely identity was determined. Various people at NOAA were contacted. These individuals searched through NOAA records and indicated that no such person worked for NOAA or apparently ever had worked for NOAA. Furthermore, they indicated that apparently no permit was ever given to such a person for such corals. Additionally as well, even if such a permit had been issued, there was no way that permitted corals would be allowed in someone’s private recreational aquarium. Finally, permit information for such corals must be surrendered upon demand, to anyone who asks. In other words, Eric was perfectly justified in his actions.

Regarding the other credential issues…

The academic degrees awarded by accredited universities are a matter of public record, and may be easily searched. This is no violation of privacy or any such right, as people often claim degrees as part of employment qualifications. Anybody can search or ask any accredited school if any given person ever received a degree from that school. Further more all doctoral degrees awarded in the biological sciences in the US are listed, and their contents abstracted in a journal called “Dissertation Abstracts.” Finally, all publications about scientific subjects are listed in a data base called “Science Citation Index.”

1) A search of the schools claimed by "bomber" (in various posts) to have awarded the degrees listed no degrees to the purported individual.

2) There was no doctoral dissertation listed in dissertation abstracts and the no articles by that individual have ever been published in a scientific journal.

So, it appears that if “bomber” has been correctly identified, then that person has no right to the corals in question and is holding them illegally.

Now, I have had no part in these searches. While I knew that some people were looking into the background of “bomber,” I personally did nothing to assist them or help them in any way. As a matter of fact, given my antipathy to the person (?) involved, I told a couple of people that while I was curious about what they would find, I didn’t want to be involved. Those folks proceeded anyway; his/her claims/ideas have simply been so outrageous that they demanded verification. Frankly, the reason I didn’t bother tracking down this dolt was that I figured if people were gullible enough to believe in the bull dribblings he/she was espousing, they were too stupid to respond to reason.

It is, I suppose, possible that the individual that has been calling itself “bomber” has been misidentified. That would be easy enough to clear up. A simple statement of, “This is my name, and here is where I got the degrees, and here is the permit number for the corals” is all that would be required. For reasons such as have developed here, I have always been leery of so-called “experts” (in anything, not just reef aquaria) that will not publicly state their names.

As a result of all of this...

Further developments, also mostly behind the scenes at RC, indicated several moderators indicated that they thought Eric was “out of line” for questioning bomber, and that I was “out of line” for supporting Eric. There were also false allegations raised that Eric had been dealing in illegal corals and was “having trouble with NOAA,” all done as an attempt to discredit Eric. These developments and some other actions by several of the moderators prompted our decision to leave the forum.

Now on to nicer things.

I will be going back to bed soon as the pain meds have kicked in. If I get a chance I will probably touch down here again in the morning. I have to go back to my surgeon's office - a long drive from here (150 miles one way) - the costs of living in the boonies - tomorrow to have the 40+ stitches removed from my face and temple. Somehow the thought of this just fills me with such glee. At least, though all of the cancer was removed and I should be well on my way to recovery afterward.

My Thanks!

Thanks to all of you who have sent me good wishes! I truly do appreciate it. These have been trying times for all of us. I had been at RC since the inception of the forum, and had a lot of emotional baggage tied up with it; this month would have been the start of the 6th year of the "Ask Dr. Ron" forum. C'est la vie...

Additionally, I proposed that the forum start its own magazine, and that proposal eventually led to Reefkeeping Magazine. Consequently, it was not an easy decision to leave, but the degradation of the forum over the last year or so had been noticeable to us all, and it was obvious that changes had to occur. I guess in this case, they occurred sooner than later.

In case you are wondering, this blog is not intended to be temporary, I plan on keeping it going after the new online home is found and I hope you will feel free to drop by here.

Cheers!!

More musings

Hi Folks,

First, thanks for for your comments and good wishes. I truly appeciate the comments; we all do, I am sure! It looks like Eric, Anthony, and I shall soon have a new online home. Anthony is taking the lead in the negotiations, but we should all be getting into the loop pretty soon. If this works out, we may be setting up there very soon. As it stands, it will be a set of self-contained "expert" forums on a commecial site, but as I understand it, it will be designed somewhat differently than we have been active in before hand. I will post here if and when those new forums open up. It will be pretty nice to put RC totally behind us. I still may be involved with Reefkeeping.com, but that remains to be seen. Skipper and JohnL have made noises about wanting me there, but I need to see some specific contract offers before that occurs.

My most recent article, just got published in "Reef Hobbyist Online."

Interestingly enough through all of this, I got also got a few "don't let the door hit you in the butt on your way out" comments. They are to be expected, I suppose. I find it interesting to see what crawls out from under their nice warm and slimy rocks these days. I have gotten specific "kicks" out of the dopes that condemn us (in this case Eric, Anthony, and I) for writing books and articles. Given the comments, I am sure that these people can't either read or understand what has been written.

What I find really incredulous is the amount of support that some of the frauds have recieved in all of this. If someone is so pathetic as to feel the need to state that they have two (not one, but TWO) non-existant doctorates, they really are a few cans short of the proverbial six pack... Of course, the rationale for this is they feel that their claim would give some sort of "validation" for the bullspit that they utter. The consistency of some of these folks is truly bizarre - they have condemned Eric and me for our educational degrees, but they feel the need to claim their own. Ya gotta luv it!!! In any case, this particular social basket case has been left behind at RC, as far as I am concerned, although I have heard that he does babble on elsewhere.

Other life continues apace. Our morning is dawning rather warm for early January, in the high 20s, and cloudy. I hope the clouds will burn off after the sun is fully up.

I have to steel myself to go to Billings tomorrow for the removal of the 5o or so stitches on the side of my head. I will be glad to have the stitches out, but I am not thrilled with the thought of the process of their removal.

The remodel of my office/lab is occurring in full force at the present time, and may actually get done some day. However, it is so far behind schedule that I have had to cancel my speaking engagement at the IMAC in April. I was planning on doing some research with current velocities and flow regimes and their effects on animals. I have constructed a special tank to create actual laminar flow, and as this type of current is needed for the health of some animals, I hoped to detail some of the conditions necessary for successful maintenance of some hard to keep animals such as Dendronephthya. Unfortunately, to do the experiments, and then subsequently analyze and write up the results would take longer than the time I have remaining before the IMAC, so I opted out of that conference.

I am scheduled to speak at the Boston Reefer's Society on February 25, though. Presently, that is the only speaking engagement I have scheduled.

On that happy note, I will close for the day. I probably will add to this blog tomorrow, depending on what I have to prior to travelling to Billings (about 150 miles one way) for the stitch removal. If not, I will be back Friday.

Thanks again for your comments and replies!

Cheers!

As The Frog Said, "Time's Fun When You're Having Flies."

Well, it is now 0430 and it looks like it snowed during the night. Normally, that would not be surprising, given that it is mid winter and we are in Montana - but, with how the climate has changed in recent years, it is a bit unusual to be "winterish." It has been quite warm as of late, and prior to this morning most of our snow had melted away. The image to the right above is a winter sunrise out of our living room winter.

It has been a couple of days now since I bailed off of Reef Central, and it has been a decidedly relaxing time. Been trying to do a little "behind the scenes" searching for a new online home, but that may not develop for a while. Meanwhile, here I am.

The announcements for the Adult Community Education classes came out yesterday evening in the Livingston Enterprise, our local afternoon newspaper. I have three potential courses listed, but since they are pretty non-traditional, it will be interesting to see if I get any takers at all for them. I hope to be doing a couple of courses based on Jared Diamond's books, but massaged a bit for the local environment, and then a course discussing Evolution/Ecology as a science. Given that this area is really redneck heaven, it will be interesting to see if I get enough enrollment to for them to fly. I hope they do, they could be quite a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, as well, our remodelling continues. It is taking far longer than it should, and it is particularly irritating as nothing ever gets "done." Our remodel can be broken down into 3 components - a remodel of what had been our living room to give a room for Roxie, and a home theater, a remodel of what had been "euphemistically" called our bathroom, and a remodel of my office. The first needs probably about 3 days work to be complete; the trim needs to be put on and painted, and the electrical fixtures need to be put in. Its been that way for 10 days and there is no end in site. There has been no progress in the bathroom for a month. But now all the effort is concentrated on my office/lab. Now I am not complaining that work is being done on my office --- but it sure would be nice to have "part 1" done. Sigh... Not within the span of mortal man, methinks.

Well, I guess this being a journal for me. It doesn't look like anyone else cares. Not that I blame them, but it is serving a purpose, I guess. It gives me harmless place to vent. Until tomorrow...

Musings for the New Year - Good Bye To Reef Central.

Today marks both the new year, and the beginning of my life post - ReefCentral, an electronic bulletin board devoted to the coral reef aquarium hobby where I have been a regular "Expert" forum moderator for the last five years.

Unfortunately, over the couple of years, the "flavor" and atmosphere of the BBS changed as it was taken over by some aggressive individuals who flaunted fraudulent credentials to discredit people who had different ideas. Largely, this was ignorable until a flap that occurred on Christmas Eve when one of the more unstable and immature moderators encountered a problem because one of them more aggressive of the frauds posted images of illegally obtained corals on the BBS. This post was deleted by one of the other experts. When the moderator saw this, he went ballistic and banned the expert, as the fraud who posted the article was one of his good friends. In the ensuing commotion, most of the BBS' expert moderators decided that the "used male bovine extract" had gotten too deep, and as of yesterday, we all left the BBS.

I suspect we will be back someplace else, relatively soon. And, I will keep you posted here.

Starting Up and a Bio

Well, where to begin... Here's some background - a lot of information you may not care about, but it's here to put it all in perspective.

I am one of a rare breed, a native Montanan. I was born on 28 March 1948, in Great Falls, Montana. After many years living elsewhere, my wife and I presently reside in Wilsall, Montana. Being a Montanan is somewhat of an embarrassment these days, considering that for the last 20 years or so, the state's politics were somewhat on the dark side of the middle ages. As a whole, the people of this state, as indicated by their elected officials were/are anti-education, anti-progress, and anti-environment.

The 2004 election resulted in a change in the party holding the governor's office and the state senate; for the first time in about 20 years Democrats will be able to call some of the shots. It remains to be seen, however, if anything meaningful can be done to reverse some of the damage done by the last 20 years of the rule of the minions of the dark side aka "Republicans." The fact that there actually were state legislators that wanted to increase the acceptable amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water above the federal limits may give the reader a feeling for the competency of these people. Given that heavy metal poisoning often results in mental disorders, perhaps these legislators had been brewing some arsenic tea for quite sometime. In any case, I have some hope that such idiocy is in the past. Montana is a pretty nice place to live if you can ignore the nation's largest pollution Superfund site (the Butte area).

I grew up in Great Falls in the EE (Eisenhower Era = "Paranoia R Us"...) Malmstrom Air Force Base, a major Strategic Air Command base, is located at the east end of the city. Now devoted to maintaining Minuteman missiles, during my youth its primary mission was air defense and as a base for refueling tankers. I learned to "duck and cover" early. In between learning the various warbles of air raid sirens, I became interested in aquatic and marine animals. I started keeping fresh-water aquaria when I was about 12. Was fairly successful, and was soon selling Angelfish and Bettas to the local pet stores. Additionally, I did a lot of reading as a kid, and was fascinated by marine biology. Was hooked early, I guess. Had my first "marine" experiences with actual living animals in a salt-water fish tank when I was 14. I wanted an sea anemone in with my neon gobies and a small queen angelfish, so the dealer sent me one. As I look back on it now, they sent me a large Aiptasia... one of, what has got to be, the all time "pest" animals for marine aquarium keepers. Well, in their defence there was no real aquarium hobby at the time and nobody knew this. And gee, I was happy to have it! As might be expected, given the technology of that time - and my rather tender years and zippo experience - that tank didn't last too long, and I went back to keeping exclusively freshwater aquaria.

During my high school years, I was blessed by several excellent teachers, Dr. Jerry Lightner and Mr. Paul Hudson among them. These gentlemen "set the hook." I was destined to become a biologist.

Started college in 1966 at Montana State University in Bozeman where I majored in Zoology. I kept no aquaria during this phase of life. Had some excellent instructors during this period, too. Drs. Robert Moore and Harold Picton, especially, contributed to keeping my interesting in things zoological at a high pitch. Spent the summer of my sophomore year on a summer research fellowship at the Georgetown Medical/Dental School in Washington, DC, and learned that I REALLY didn't want to become a member of the medical profession. The next summer was spent the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts learning about marine ecology and invertebrate biology. Decided at this time that Invertebrates were THE animals - everything else was insignificant.

I started graduate school at the University of Washington in the autumn of 1970. Got married in June of 1971 to a beautiful young woman, Roxie Fredrickson, who after all these years is still a beautiful young woman and the joy of my life.

Began my research as well as class work at the UW Friday Harbor Laboratories in 1971, and started keeping marine aquaria for research animals and various pets at that time. Graduate school came to an end in 1977, when I was awarded a Ph. D. for my efforts. Most of my work involved direct effort on the natural history, morphology, and population ecology of some small venomous snails know by the jargon term of "turrid gastropods." Did a lot of secondary work with sea anemones, sea stars, sea urchins, tunicates and some fish. Subsequently, I learned what a bad career choice my research specialty was as nobody, except me, cared about turrid gastropods. Sigh...

Took a position as Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in 1977. Was selected as Department Chair in 1979. Both Roxie and I really wanted to live in Alaska - before we moved there. We got cured of that in a hurry, and we left Anchorage in 1980. It was not a good place to live for us, but while there I was able to get some more research done, mostly on sea anemones and snails. We moved back to Friday Harbor, Washington where I entered the ghetto of unemployed marine biologists (called "Independent Investigators") who were working at the UW Friday Harbor Laboratories while submitting job applications. Found that I could wallpaper my office with the rejection letters I received (In 1977 there were 60+ invertebrate biology jobs advertised, in 1981 there were 3... lotsa competitors so jobs became tough to get; and to be frank, I probably was not the hotshot I thought I was). See note of bad career choice above. Sigh. Among everything else, simply put nobody cared about what interested. They probably still don't, but that is another story.

In 1981 I got away and did some recreational diving and a bit of informal research at Cozumel in the Caribbean. This was an interesting trip as I got to see some Caribbean coral reefs prior to the change caused by the great Diadema panzooic of the mid-1980s. Of course, I didn't know of the upcoming crash and change. Nonetheless, my observations gave me some great background for later musings on the condition of the planet and our species delightful contribution to the well being of its biosphere.

While at Friday Harbor, I really started intensively doing environmental consulting - it was a way to bring in a few $$, but I was also working on other projects. During this period, as a way to keep the meager cash flow flowing I also took up part-time teaching whereever I could and worked up and down the coast. Through some good luck and happenstance in 1983, I lucked out and got a two-year contract as Assistant Director of the Bamfield Marine Station (now Bamfield Marine Science Centre) on Vancouver Island, BC, where I had taught Marine Invertebrate Zoology for the preceding two years. Whilst there I did a lot of work on scaphopod mollusks and sea anemone interactions during this period and also got away to go on a vacation to Palau for the first-time. As part of my duties at during my stay at BMSC I was also "chief scientist" for a PISCES IV research submersible program and got about 25 reseach sub dives done in various localities surrounding the marine station.

At the end of my contract, my wife and I left Bamfield in September 1985 and moved to Tucson. Bamfield gets a LOT of rain... A drying out phase was needed. In Tucson, I became a research associate at the University of Arizona. We really liked the Tucson area; in retrospect we probably should not have left there.

Nonetheless, I returned to the Pacific NW in the summer of 1986 with a temporary summer teaching position at the Friday Harbor Labs and my wife followed in the autumn. Subsequently, I taught as a temporary instructor at a few of the colleges in the Seattle area for a year or so after that. Probably the high point of this period of my life is that I got to go on a research cruise and several submersible dives as a senior postdoctoral fellow at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Florida in 1988.

In the summer of 1988 I hired on as the head of the marine biology section at an environmental consulting firm in the Seattle area. Soon was into consulting "big time" - had lots of high profile and high stress jobs while I worked at this firm during most of the next five years. After a couple of years of this, I decided I didn't like being a professional biological consultant for a large company, but I couldn't afford to leave. Set up my first coral reef tank in 1991. As a high-priced consultant, I had relatively few opportunities to actually do field work; I was too expensive, clients didn't like to pay for high priced divers, and the company kept me busy sitting at a desk writing. Getting the reef aquarium was my way to remain familiar the animals. Shortly after setting up my tank I became active in the (now defunct) Pacific NW Reef Club and soon became editor of the club newsletter. In 1992, I went on my second diving trip to Palau and took all sorts of cheapo environment measuring equipment along, trying to measure some parameters that would have relevence to the aquarium hobby I was becoming interested in. Generally, I had almost no success at measuring the parameters I wanted to measure. Such is the life of research in the slow lane.

Left the consulting firm in 1993 and set up my own company. Figured if I was going to be a consultant - well, I wanted all the profits. Yeah...sure...

During the years from 1986 through 1992, Roxie and I got progressively more and more disenchanted with the Seattle area; the miserable commutes and the gray drizzle eight months of the year finally wore us down and we decided to chuck it all and move back to Montana. The memory of the wide open spaces and sheer beauty of the state brought us back. The actual fact of the wide open spaces and the sheer beauty of the our view remain the major factors keeping us here.

Moved back to Montana in February of 1994, and was for a while an Affiliate Associate Professor of Ecology at Montana State University, and taught a few courses there, but what had been a good zoology department has turned into a landscape ecology department. As a result, invertebrates, except for insects and a few other fresh water species, have vanished from the scope of all at that school. However, subsequent to returning to Montana, I was able to teach Marine Invertebrate Zoology at the Bamfield Marine Science Centre, as a visiting instructor in the summers of 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2003 whereupon I decided to terminate that relationship.

Some specifics, for those specifically inclined:

Published more than 20 peer reviewed professional marine biological papers most on mollusks, a couple more are in the works. I have been invited to present data at scientific symposia 9 times since 1981, additionally I have been invited to speak at numerous aquarium societies and many national meetings. I have written about 50 consulting documents (all in the "gray literature") and most of these have been uncredited. In the realm of getting paid for other things I have written, I have been published in Natural History, Aquarium Frontiers, Aquarium Fish Magazine, Marine Fish and Reef Annual, Aquarium USA, Freshwater and Marine Aquariums, and Shells and Sea Life. Additionaly, I have published in ezines such as and Aquarium Frontiers, Reefkeeping.com. Many of my underwater photos of marine life have published in magazines and text books.. I have done about 1500 scuba dives. Presently I am fat, arthritic, balding and like cats. All else subject to change without notice.