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August Meeting -Gosport Aquarium


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Our August meeting will be held at the Gosport Aquarium in Gosport Indiana on Saturday August 10th. As an added bonus this is the same day as the Gosport town festival.

The Festival starts at 9am and runs throughout the day. Our meeting will run from 4-6. Lets make a day trip out of this anyone interested in car pooling try to coordinate it through the thread.

The address for the meeting is

27 East Main Street
Gosport, Indiana 47433

Club this meeting will be worth the trip just to check out what  Niki and Brian have accomplished.

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Hello everyone!

I’m glad to host August’s meeting and show you all what we’ve been up to down in good ol’ Gosport. 

First, let me explain the location 🙃 I’m having trouble uploading photos; hopefully I’ll figure that out later. 

Our house is the old Gosport Bank that was built in 1867. After 15 years or so of renovation, we’re still working on it. 😪 In the basement is my art gallery/studio called Grey Dog Gallery, after our trusty guard dog Avalanche. The main floor is the least renovated so far (it needed the most demo work) and the top floor is where we live. The meeting will be on the main floor, so come on in through the main door. 

Now a little about the aquarium! Shortly after I opened the gallery and was spending many hours a day down there, I decided it was time to get back into the reef hobby after a 5 year hiatus. I set up a 22 gallon open-top peninsula with a 10 gallon refugium. It was a great way to take breaks from painting and re-focus my eyes. Soon, regulars starting coming in to check on the progress of the aquarium and we started jokingly calling it the Gosport Aquarium: the world’s smallest public aquarium. I loved telling people about the science behind it and basically just liked talking reef again! (I worked at Petco for 5 years during college, which is where the reef bug bit me. I know, Petco 😆)

Well, one day my husband, Brian, made the mistake of telling me I could use the coal room for more aquariums. Since the coal room is right behind the gallery, it was perfect! Perfect except it was storage for his tools, (you could barely walk through) had bare brick walls that flaked, had no ceiling, and was missing a window. Not to mention it had a single electrical outlet. But it had concrete floors that Brian had poured years earlier and the sump pit for the building. 

After a year or so of cleaning the room up enough to set some refugiums in to marinate, here we are! 

The Gosport Aquarium Expansion, as I’m calling it, will have 2 zoomed low boys (50gal) with 40 gallon display refugiums and a 160 gallon with a 75 gallon display refugium. I’m still missing one 40 gallon breeder, so if anyone has a lead on one... 😉

Of course, I imagine the Aquarium will expand back out into the gallery, which has become more of a working studio anyway. 

In the interest of keeping this short, I’ll cut myself off now and add more later. I really can talk about this project forever. 

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This is the tank that started it all- my 22 gallon rimless peninsula display with a 10 gallon refugium. ❤️

It’s about 2 years old with LEDs, MP10, and an algae scrubber as the main hardware. Currently, I have one naked clownfish (David Pumpkins) and one Pajama Cardinalfish (Gary). There’s an unnamed clown in the refugium temporarily, but she’ll be moved soon. I especially love my leather corals lately, but they may be tied with the zoanthids as my fave coral in the tank. Of course, my bubble tip anemone gets a lot of my attention because it’s my first anemone and I’m still worried it’s going to go nuclear any day. 

But it’s been in there for a few months and has just been happy as a clam 🤷🏽‍♀️

If anyone needs chaeto at the meeting, I’ll be more than happy to share. 

B740BC06-A5F3-4CF8-AA67-91601963EE5F.jpeg

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On another note, the festival (called Lazy Days) has a parade at 1:00. I’m working on the Gosport Aquarium float and I’d be glad to give out some Gosport Aquarium T-Shirts in exchange for able-bodies to walk alongside the float! The parade route runs down Main Street from 9th Street to 3rd Street. Meet at the aquarium at noon for t-shirts! 

For the float, I got these screens from my friend who got them at an auction. They’re gold leaf and the person who painted them initially used the wrong kind of paint (came off with water in spots) and sketched everything out with sharpie (can be hard to cover). I’m working on covering the old stuff and painting a more ‘Gosport Aquarium’ scene on them- keeping as much gold visible as possible. They’ll be back-to back on our trusty little trailer. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since there will be plenty of delicious festival food options, and I don’t want to hinder your chance of partaking in the fried glory, I’ll prepare a simple charcuterie board and some drink options. 

Also, our very friendly dog will be at the meeting as well. Please don’t feed him! 😂  He doesn’t beg and we want to keep that habit strong 💪🏽 

 

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Great looking nano Niki!  Love the exposed mangrove too.  Was trying to load more pictures but those of you who didnt make it missed out!  Art by Niki, street wrestlers, smoked bbq pulled pork nachos, the future of Gosports very own public aquarium, and a bedroom in a bank vault!

Thanks for hosting Brian and Niki...very excited to see what is next.  Make sure to make it to the Pay it Forward!  Very very cool house and little town.

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