Will sell items seperate, but I would like to sell everything at once, and am willing to take offers on everything if it goes together otherwise i'm pretty stuck on the prices listed below. I can't sell stuff that runs the tank before the livestock is gone. Please text me at 319.939.5087. if you want more pictures. Thank you
For sale:
120 Gallon Aquarium w/ overflows, one year old. $350
metal halide lights with 4 coral bulbs (6 bulbs total) $250
Homemade sump $50
2 pumps $50
protein skimmer $50
titanium heater $50

Livestock:
Roughly 150lbs live rock 4$/lb

Purple Tang $125
Mating pair of cinnamon clowns $50
Coral beauty $25
Engineer goby $25 (1 foot long)
Blue spotted goby $25
1/2 black angel $20
Mandarin $20
Red thorn star $20
wood polyps $50 (square foot) or 50 cents per head
rock full of zoas $30 bucks
2-headed duncan $20

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MACNA 2011 is approaching quickly.   Are you ready?   Have you purchased your passes yet?  Hotel rooms booked?   If you are involved in the marine aquarium hobby, this is NOT an event you want to miss.

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With only 2 months until the doors open, we are officially on the home stretch to MACNA 2011!  

We will be holding weekly planning meetings in the GIRS chat room between now and the event.  Please see the sticky post in the MACNA 2011 Club member forum for more details.   We would like to encourage our club members to get involved and help show why GIRS is up there with the best clubs in the country!

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Hey everybody, were coming up on our summer tank tour and I want to invite everybody to join us this weekend. We only have 3 stops, which is good because were also having a BBQ!

We will meet at Pets Playhouse Saturday June 11th @ 1:00pm (1300 if you like)

1pm- Pets Playhouse

1:45pm- Hermans

2:30pm- Chads

3:15pm- Cookout!

Please RSVP so we can get a head count for food, PM me so I can get a general idea of how many people we are going to have.

Also, please contribute to the BBQ by bringing food items. PM Christine (faviafan) for your proposed item and we will coordinate dishes so we don't have too much potato salad! lol

Our BBQ will be held at Chad's home (Reefified) We will guide the caravan throughout the area and try to make sure nobody gets lost!

See you all soon!!!

-ANdy (the reef guy)

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We are happy to announce the addition of a new video section on the GIRS website.   This section includes all of our speaker videos including the latest videos from Spring Fest 2011 as well as the ability for club members to include their favorite reef related videos from YouTube.

You will find the link to the videos under the "Community" menu or just click on the link below.

Please note at GIRS speaker videos are restricted to club members only.

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Saturday February 26th from 3pm - 5pm

@ the North Liberty Community Center

520 W Cherry St
North Liberty, IA 52317

 

This weekend we're meeting for a discussion on disease and diagnosis of the common and not so common piscine disease conditions. We'll talk about reviewing both post mortem and live specimens and techniques to determine the over all health conditions of an animal during routine check up. We'll also talk about the diagnosis, epidemiology, and treatment of other chronic disease conditions.

We'll follow up by making a DIY breakout box for those of us with Neptune AC3 and APEX reef controllers: 

Click here for the thread detailing the components,

This is a great way to install extra switches!

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 Spring Fest 2011 is coming soon!  If you have ever been to a swap you know there will be lots of coral vendors, supplies, speakers and a bunch of other reefers. We have two great speakers lined up in Mark Vera and Sanjay Joshi.  And as always we will finish things off with amazing raffle with tons of great prizes!   

 

Visit the Fest website for more information.

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Just a reminder to GIRS members that we have a Pet Store directory on the site.  It's located in the Resources menu.  This directory lists almost 30 pet stores from all across the state of Iowa that sell supplies or livestock pertaining to marine aquaria.  Included in the listing is a link to their website and a link to a map where they are located if that information was available.  We also have all of the Lincoln/Omaha stores listed in there as well for our members on the west side of the state.  If you know of a pet store that's not listed, has moved, or has closed, please let me know and I can update the directory to be as current as possible.  Click the 'Read More...' link below to visit the Pet Store Directory

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0 Days to Fall Fest!

So is anyone else crazy excited about the show being just days away?  Really looking forward to a great show...see you there!

For more information about Fall Fest, go to http://fallfest.iowareefs.com  See you at Fall Fest!!

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Mark your calendars and plan to attend Fall Fest 2010.  If you're familiar with Fall Fest, you know that there will be lots of vendors, speakers, and an incredible raffle with thousands of dollars of reef stuff.  We'll be giving more updates as the date approaches including a list of vendors, raffle items, etc, but for now, save the date for Fall Fest!  See you there.

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This weekend, Pet's Playhouse is putting on their annual Cedar Rapids Police Department K9 Benefit event from 10 AM to 5 PM.  The event will have demonstrations of the K9 dogs (i.e. attack, drug sniffing, etc), raffle for some great prizes including two excellent reef ranks, a live band, food, photo ops with animals and much more.  Also, Aqueon (All-Glass) and Oceanic will be on site offering significantly discounted tanks, sold right off the truck.  All kinds of pet related merchandise has been donated and will be sold at significantly discounted prices with 100% of the purchase price going back to the CRPD K9 fund.  100% of all event proceeds go to buy new K9 units for the CRPD.  These dogs are at least $10,000 each and last year, this event was able to provide two new K9 units for the CRPD.    This is a great event that Pet's Playhouse puts on to support the community, so let's do our part and support the event.   See you there!

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We have just confirmed our facility for the 2010 Spring Fest.  Following in the footsteps of last years very successful spring fest, this years event promises to be better than ever.  We anticipate more individual sellers, more vendors, and possibly even a few special speakers or demonstrations.  Mark your calendars now and plan to join us for a great event!

Where:
Iowa State Fairgrounds - Walnut Center

When:
Saturday, May 15, 2010

Time:
Noon to 5:00 PM

More information to come....

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Come join us for the Cedar Rapids Holiday party!  This is open to members and non-members alike.  If you have been considering becoming a member, now is a great time.  We will be having an area members only raffle which will include:

• 2 - $50 gift certificates to a hobby related online retailer of your choice.
• 4 - $25 gift certificates to a hobby related online retailer of your choice.
• 2 - embroidered GIRS t-shirts (one gray, one black)
• 2 - embroidered GIRS sweatshirts (one gray, one black)
• 2 - embroidered GIRS hoodies (one gray, one black)

That's over $300 worth of stuff to be given away.  Each member will be given a ticket at the door free of charge.  Additional tickets will *not* be available for purchase....just one ticket per member.

In addition, we will be doing our Secret Santa Frag Swap.  Bring a frag with you (if you can), and we'll make sure that everyone leaves with a frag.  Details of the game will be revealed at the event.  Secret Santa Frag Swap is open to members and non-members alike.

Please bring a side dish or a dessert to share.  Soda, ham and turkey will be provided.  This will be hosted at CyberJester's place and most of you are aware that he has other liquid refreshment on tap in his basement.

It will be a great time to get together with the rest of the club for some great food, conversation, Frag Swap and hopefully even meet a few new faces.  Please go to this thread (click here) to RSVP, indicate what food you will bring and how many people you will be bringing

I can't stress it enough...PLEASE RSVP so that we have a rough count for food planning purposes.

Below are the event details.

Date:
Saturday, December 12th

Time:
5:30 until Jeremy kicks us out

Location:
Jeremy Orchuck's house (CyberJester)
1205 Waldenwood Ln NE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
(click here for map)

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The Waterloo Area will be hosting this years Christmas Party on December 11th at 6pm at David's house

This will be a potluck event

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As we speak, board members and event coordinators are working hard getting things set up for Fall Fest tomorrow.  Guest speakers and vendors are arriving in town, and everyone is looking forward to having a great event.  After all, hundreds of hours of planning, labor and of course, a lot of money, are all coming together into this great event.  Just to remind you, here's a brief summary of the Fall Fest activities:

TONIGHT
Anthony Calfo book signing at Pet's Playhouse - 4:30 PM to 7:30 PM

TOMORROW
Fall Fest at Lowe Park Arts & Environement Center - 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Things to remember:

• The Lowe Park Arts & Environment Center is in the middle of a bunch of corn fields.  If you think you're driving out of town into a place where you wouldn't expect a show like this to be, you're probably driving in the right direction.  :-)  Check out the http://fallfest.iowareefs.com website for more information on how to get there.
• Bring a small cooler to put your corals in, especially if you're coming in from out of town.
• If you participated in the group buy and need to pick your stuff up, see AJ or ask at the GIRS information booth near the front check in table.
• Club members get a $5 discount on admission.  If you plan on becoming a member, please do so online ASAP.  You can also do so at the show, but it will delay your admission onto the show floor and hold up the admission line.
• Bring as much cash to the event as you think you may need.  The nearest ATM is a couple of miles away.
• Name tags will be available at the check in desk.  While not mandatory, they are encouraged.  I know many of us don't live in the same area, but chat frequently on the site.  Wearing a name tag is a great way of putting a face to the name of those people that you chat with on the site all the time.
• If you're planning to stay for the whole show, post show clean-up assistance is always appreciated.

After the show, please let us know what you thought.  What we did right, what we could improve on.  We work really hard on this event and would love to hear your ideas on ways that we can make it better.  Also, thank the sponsors.  Many of these prizes are donated and the revenues generated by ticket sales, help to pay the expenses for the event.  This event would not be nearly as good without the generous contibutions from our sponsors.  Please give these sponsors extra consideration when spending your money on reef gear and livestock and when you do buy from them, tell them that you're a member of the Greater Iowa Reef Society.

See you at the show!

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Don't forget that Anthony Calfo will be holding a book signing event at Pet's Playhouse the night before Fall Fest.   If you've never seen Anthonys books, they are excellent.  He will most likely have some available for purchase at the book signing.

Anthony Calfo Book Signing
4:30pm to 7:30pm
Pet's Playhouse
151 Jacolyn Dr NW
Cedar Rapids, IA 52405-5529
(319) 396-0635

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Fall fest has come and gone.  I hope you were able to attend.

Check out the Fall Fest forum (here) or the Fall Fest event website (http://fallfest.iowareefs.com) for the latest information!

Don't forget about the book signing event at Pet's Playhouse in Cedar Rapids this evening.

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The Key's Critters group order has been placed.  All in all, there was over 1100 livestock items purchased, 16 people participating with a total order of just under $800.  Thanks to everyone that participated in the group buy.  The order arrives on Thursday so anyone is welcome (and encouraged to if you're local) to pick up as soon as possible.  If you're not local, you can pick up at Fall Fest.  See you all there!!

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This is the final call for additions to the Key's Critters group buy.  Participation so far has been great!  The order will be placed on Saturday night and if you want to be included, I need both your order and your money by mid day Saturday.  This a day earlier than I had originally planned.  Please contact AJ with any questions about this.

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We will be having a Frag demo and grill out at Craigs. We will be meeting at crossroad parking lot across from IHOP at 4pm on Sept 19.

Please go to the waterloo forum for more info and to RSVP

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It is event time in CR/IC area,

We will be hosting a DIY food event for your reefs.

The food event will feature JJ's Reef food an extremely expensive affair for you little wet loved one's.
This food has everything a growing reef needs from parasite control to coloration for fish and corals and will entice even the finickiest eater.

The recipe to purchase all ingredients costs about $400.00
This is your chance to get in on the food by the cost per lb (approximately $20/lb). 
Pricing will be posted Friday, as the final fresh ingredients will be purchased on that day.

Please feel free to bring a Beer stein (Taps will be a flow'in) as what goes better with DIY then free Beer!
 

Please see the this discussion thread thread for location details and time
 

If you are not a member and would like to attend.  GIRS will sponsor any non-member for one event to try the club on so-to-speak.  So if you are not a member and would like to use this as an opportunity to see what the club is about and meet some swell reefers, Please contact "CyberJester" you favorite neighborhood area trustee!

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We are having an informal get together in the Cedar Rapids area on Tuesday, May 19th 7:00 pm at Parlor City.   Stop by for a little friendly socializing, some reef chat and some great food & drinks.   For more information please read this forum thread.

Hope to see you there!

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Jason Brunken will be giving a presentation on "The Basics of a Sucessful Reef Tank" at this months meeting of the Eastern Iowa Aquarium Association (EIAA).  Jason lives in Marion and currently has a well established 200+ gallon reef system.

The meeting will be held Tuesday May 12th at 7pm.

Location: Central Park / Echo Hill Presbyterian Church, 1700 B. Ave.,NE, Cedar Rapids, IA (View Map)

For more information about the EIAA, please visit their website: http://www.finflap.com/

 

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Internet company try's to pull a fast one over on a hobbiest that backfired.  Internet company MarineGardens.com boosts a Live arrival guarantee, however, when Matt Wandell bought an expensive goby (price tag at $130) and it arrived DOA, the company replyed that they would not honer the agreement based on the price and stated that it was clearly posted.

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Its that time of year again when we have to think about ice storms & power outages.

Fortunately we can pack up & go to a hotel or relatives house to stay warm.  Unfortunately our tank inhabitants can not do the same.

The sure fire way to keep things rolling along is a gas powered generator.  This will be able to run not only your whole tank, but your frigidator and lights as well. Remember to have spare gas on hand and the thick extension cords. 

If you do not have access to a generator the next best thing is a power inverter.  These can be found at most hardware stores, auto part stores, or even Walmart.  This will convert the power from your car battery into voltage to run life support on your tanks.  As long as your vehicle has gas, you can have power.  Again remember to keep a few of the thick extension cords on hand along with a few power strips.

If you are stuck with no power or inverter there are still a few ways you can save your inhabitants.  A simple bike tire pump can be hooked up to an air stone to keep your water oxygenated.  Pouring buckets of water back in will keep some flow going so your water does not become stagnant.  And if you have a gas stove you can heat small portions of your tank water to keep the temperature up.  This will be a labor intensive life saving technique, but well worth the effort to save our tank inhabitants.

Hopefully we wont have to worry about it this year, but if it does, take a few minutes & be prepared.

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Things seem a bit slow around the club post-Fall Fest, but the planning wheels are still turning.

Joel and Austin, our 2009 Des Moines area trustees, are currently laying the ground work for a spring frag swap event for the Des Moines area.  The initial plan is to have a guest speaker at this event as well.

We'll post more information as soon as the date and location are set it stone.  Stay Tuned!

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It's friday night and several vendors & sellers are already setting up for Fall Fest tomorrow.   More Photos Here

Several of the areas are in the process or organizing tank tours.    Tank tours are events where club members spend an afternoon visiti...

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The Greater Iowa Reef society is very happy to announce "Reef Nutrition" as a major sponor of our Fall Frag Swap & Reef Conference. In addition to...

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For anyone out there looking for the place and location of the kickoff meeting, here you go: IDT2300 Oakdale BlvdCoralville, IA 52241Click Here for...

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Midwest FragFest Doubles Up in 2008!2 DAYS OF FRAG SWAPPING2 DAYS OF SPEAKERS2 DAYS OF RAFFLESMay 3 and 4, 2008Clock Tower Resort (featuring CoCo Key ...

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If you have a problem with those pesky little anenome's in your tank, there is a sure-fire solution:  The Berghia Nudibranch.    T...

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Josh (reeffreak3652) is organizing a tank tour in the Cedar Rapids area for Sunday December 9th.   If you are interested in attending the to...

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For those who are just entering the hobby and those who are experienced.  There is a new resource now available to the home reef aquarist.  A company is now offering online courses to aid the home enthusiast in our efforts to create natural aquatic environments.  “Maco” has designed a series of course ranging from Reef Chemistry to Reef Husbandry.  Here is a complete list of currently planned courses and their associated syllabuses.

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If you are a GIRS member, please remember to vote this weekend for the next years board of directors.  To vote, click here and paste in the code ...

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We've created a new photo gallery for members to upload pictures of their tanks.  To upload a shot of your tank, visit the photo gallery pag...

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We've just added a photo gallery with pictures from last weekends Frag Swap. If you happen to have any photos from the swap that aren't in the photo...

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Covey is organizing a tank tour for the Quad Cities area.   Right now the tenative plan is to have it on the weekend of Nov. 17-18th. For mo...

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