The first issue, sure to become a collector's item ;), especially with Thomas S. Heo's 'You Know You Are A Reefer If ..'.

Editorial

Welcome to the first issue of OZ REEF Press. This is currently an exciting time for me, the Caretaker, with the planning and construction that is currently occurring. OZ REEF is slowly coming together, I know that it is taking quite a long time, but I want to get it as right as possible from the start.

So far I have a large empty tank sitting in the corner of my study, and a lot of bits and pieces spread around the house. I hope that they all come together nicely to make OZ REEF a reality. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those people that have replied to my posting on the newsgroups and the Aqualink Discussion group. Your input has been greatly appreciated and has helped immensely to create OZ REEF Marine Park, thanks. Well that will have to be it for this issue, only part really is the Tom-A-Lotta Column. Nothing really else to currently write about that isn't covered in the DIY Plans, as that is what is occurring currently.

Thanks to Tom for his submission for this, the first issue of OZ REEF PRESS. He has been a great a help so far, with many helpful ideas and interesting angles on reef keeping. Thanks again, for all your help and assistance, we'll have to somehow smuggle you onto that fishing boat and get you out here to see the end result. If anyone has an article or idea that you would like to have in OZ REEF Press, then just drop me, the Caretaker a line, submissions will be gratefully accepted. 'Til next issue, happy reefing, and I hope that you enjoy OZ REEF Marine Park as much as I am.

Welcome OZ REEF's New Residents

No new residents as there is no OZ REEF Marine Park, yet.

Resident of the Month

Little difficult to have a resident of the month when there are currently no residents. Actually I suppose my cat, Mortisha, counts a bit as she enjoys sitting is the empty tank. But this is not about cats, its about reef inhabitants.

Dear Marther ReefKeeper

Once again, no residents, therefore no problems, therefore no Dear Marther.

Tom's Bit

by Thomas S. Heo

Thanks to DBW for allowing me this honour to write for his newsletter/web site. Hope I get to be a regular columnist on this here site.

You know you are a reefer if:

1. you would rather tinker with your tank than tinker with your "significant other".
2. you are watching "Baywatch, on location in Hawaii", and you only notice the corals, and can name all the corals in the shot, and don't even realise that Pam Anderson is wearing nothing but a white bathing suit in very cold water in that same shot.
3. you spend $12.00/lb for imported "purple" rock with living things on it that you can't even see without an electron microscope.
4. you like buying things twice, like a protein skimmer, lighting, live rock, et cetera, with the thought that "for now, this will be good enough 'til I get more money".
5. you have to borrow your friend's pick-up truck to go to the market so that you can fit all those 1 gallon jugs full of distilled water into one car in order to fill up your new 150 gallon tank.
6. you are late to work because you were up all night draining your 150 gallon tank full of that water from 5.) because you didn't bother to check if that bulkhead was fastened correctly, which it wasn't.
7. you get a very sharp pain in your wallet whenever you look at your tank.
8. your ears hurt from your "significant other" yelling at you all the time for buying things that you can't pet, name, train, wear, eat, or even touch, for 50 bucks a pop.
9. you spend 5 hours looking into your tank so that you can get the 5 second glimpse of that copepod scurrying under the rocks.
10. you stay up all night wondering what that thing in 9.) was, thinking it was a flea that will eat everything from 8.).
11. you know what strontium is.
12. you know what the relationship is between alkalinity (what you used to think was just a type of battery), pH, and calcium.
13. you have an unexplainable urge to see as many other reef tanks as you can possibly see, even if it means driving for 8 hours to get to them.
14. you know what the ocean (and fish poop) tastes like from sucking on that hose to get the siphon going so you can do the weekly water change in your tank. *note: this is only with the newer reefers.
15. you put more fluids into your reef tank in a day, than you put into your car in a year.
16. you've got a 3 ft.-high stack of vinyl bags, from bringing all those corals home.
17. you've got an entire drawer-full of tiny rubber bands that came with the bags in 16.), with which you struggled for an hour to get them off after getting your brand new corals home-"these will come in handy some day", you said to yourself at the time.
18. you make up 10 new cuss words after struggling with 17.) to get them off of 16.) so that you can admire 8.).
19. you know the German word for "limewater".
20. you are reading this list. ;)

Special Feature

Sorry, no special features for this issue.

You Wouldn't Believe It!

There as so may bits to put together to build a reef tank, especially when you are doing it all yourself. This doesn't quite fit under the description I've given this column, but you wouldn't believe all the bits that go together. Then again if you are a reefer, then you know.

Bereavement Notices

Hopefully this will be an empty column each time, not just the first. Nothing worse than losing one of your inhabitants, actually yes there is, all of them.

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