OK, this is just a little about myself, for those that may be interested. I've got the feeling that may be no one, but just in case you have an occurrence of insanity, or have heaps of time to kill .... here it is.

Where I Came From

I originally come from a small country town called Kyabram, located in the Goulburn Valley region in Northern Victoria. It is around 200km north of Melbourne and 40km from the border of New South Wales. The entire region is all based on the dairy and fruit primary industries on irrigated farmland. I grew up on a small dairy farm of around 100 acres and 80 odd cows. After the conclusion of my secondary education at Kyabram Secondary College, came the move to the BIG city, Melbourne, to undertake my undergraduate studies at the University of Melbourne. Being a country student, I moved into one of the residential colleges of Melbourne University called International House. Spending 5 years there was great, meeting wonderful people, amazing atmosphere, great activities, pity about the food ;-) The best part about the time spent there is that I meet my wife, Chelle. If I had to go back and spend that time again, and the only good thing that happened was meeting her, then I would not hesitate.

University Education

I finished my combined undergraduate degree of Science and Engineering in 1995. My science major was organic chemistry, with my engineering field being chemical engineering. That was a rewarding 5 years, with the last two years of engineering being the best or the lot. I must say that science was a push over, especially organic chemistry compared to engineering. Must be that I can easily think in terms of the way organic chemistry is geared to.

I then moved onto a PhD in Chemical Engineering, with the field of research being "Interfacial Phenomena in Solvent Extraction". My supervisors were Assoc. Prof. Geoff Stevens (Dept. Chem. Eng.), Dr. Franz Grieser (School of Chem.) and Dr. Jilska Perera (Dept. Chem. Eng.), all great supervisors too. Finally got that completed with the final title being "Effect of Interfacial Physicochemical Properties of an Interfacial Metal Extraction Reaction in Oil/Water Systems". It passed with only minor corrects and with very positive comments from both of the examiners.

After PhD

After that I then moved over to the Victorian College of Pharmacy, Monash University, in Parkville. Just down the road from Melbourne University. The position was as a research fellow performing some research for a company called Cardinal Health. It dealt with fundamental research into how drugs are absorbedin the small intestine, from the physical chemistry angle. That since expired and I then moved to work for a different company, but in the same place. The company is called Eiffel Technologies, who are looking at various supercritical fluid processing techniques to generate better drug deliveries and formulations. Both positions dealt with physical chemistry. Now I have moved onto being the mathematics lecturer here at the Victorian College of pharmacy. That included teaching two subjects, calculus and statistics. In addition to that I am pursuing my own research in the area of

• Interaction of drug molecules with bile salt / phospholipid mixed micelles
• Molecule dynamics simulation of micelles
• Thermodynamics and phase behaviour of model intestinal contents

Starting with Aquaria Hobby

My interest in aquaria began in earnest around May in 1996, having always like aquariums throughout my childhood but never actually having one myself. I decided to purchased a 125 litre tank and started what I suppose you could call 'OZ RIVER', the freshwater precursor to OZ REEF. It is still going well and is stock with 2 Angels, 8 Cardinal Tetras, 8 Rummy Nosed Tetras, 3 Bristle Nosed Catfish, and quite a few plants (Crypts) that are growing very well. Have had very little problems with this tank, only a couple of deaths which I think is pretty good for someone that knew almost nothing about fish keeping in the outset. I also found out the there are lots of different ways to do things, and if you go into two different stores then they will tell you something different. The guy that I purchased the tank of advocated using a hang on the back filter with a bio-wheel, no need for a UFG. So that is what I went for, set the tank up and got it running. Next week I went to another store to check things out, look for some fish etc to put in and start the cycle. "You cannot run a tank with out a UFG", "Oh, OK, then I better get a UGF and get this right then." Now wasn't that a waste of time and money! Since then I have disconnected the UGF, and nothing has looked back.

One thing that I am really proud of its that the tank has had almost zero algae, a little bit of hair every now and then, and that is it, even with the higher than normal light intensity that is being used. The bristle nose catfish do a wonderful job, so good that a siamese algae eater that I had appeared to starve to death, just got thinner and thinner. I only thought of this after he died. The tank has a CO₂ injection system that is making the plants, various crypts, grow like crazy.

Reef Keeping Community Involvement

Currently and over the years have been involved in various parts of the reef keeping community. Was one of the founding members of reefs.org and the #reefs IRC channel, but due to time constaints and moving to more of an Australian focus, dropped out of that totally around 2004 (but didn't help out much after around 2000). Started the Australian discussion board, Reefing the Australian Way and you can find me posting them regularly. Shortly after that helped to start up the Marine Aquarium Societies of Australia and have held various positions (currently the Vice President). Have also been involved to varying degrees with the Marine Aquarium Society of Victoria, which is probably the oldest marine aquaria society in Australia, being in existance since somewhere around the 1960s (not 100% sure on the year it started). Currently in the position of Vice President, have have been President and various other positions on the committee over the years.

Also run a marine aquaria filtration equipment manufacturing business, DB ReefTech, which came out of the fact that I like to build things.