Each regular SAS meeting begins with a guest speaker presentation, followed by our monthly auction. We also hold a raffle for gift cards from local stores and have a sales table with club merchandise and fish bagging supplies available for members and guests.
The SAS is proud to present our very own Dr. Thomas C. Barr III, aka Tom Barr as the speaker for this meeting. He will share his knowledge keeping marine macrophytes and answer the questions "Which plants will survive in saltwater?".
Tom started keeping minnows caught at a local creek in the Midwest when he was 4 years old. They slowly died due to heat and a lack of oxygen. Fortunately for the minnows, he started catch and release thereafter. He started his multiple tank syndrome at the age of 10, quickly stuffing 7 tanks in his bedroom. Spotting a rainbow darter in a local creek, he attempted to keep them alive but again, too hot, but this time aeration and filtration were good. Tropical fish, mostly Rift cichlids and odd ball species were his main interest. Local creeks also provided the 1st plants he kept. Amazingly, the plants did not suffered the same fate at the local native fish. Creeping Charlie from a local creek and water sprite fern were very easy to grow. Moving to California in late 1980’s, he got larger and multiple tanks once again. This time he wanted a nice planted tank with nice fish, every phyla included, plants, fish, invertebrates all well scaped at a high level. Unfortunately there was not a lot of information and most of it was speculation and myth. Woefully ignorant, Tom set out little by little, seeing if he could figure out if aquatic plants grew well. It was not one test, but many, using the old principle of falsification. This proves what something is not, it does not prove what something is.” We can never be 100% certain we are correct, but we can be fairly certain of what something is not”. This same approach was applied for over 35 years to many aspects of aquarium keeping and aquatic plant horticulture. Today, Tom is a professor at American River College teaching Horticulture (1/2 Time) and at Solano College teaching Biology and Environmental Science (1/2 time). He has a PhD from UC Davis in Horticulture and Agronomy from the Department of Plant Science. He has owned an aquarium maintenance business for 15 years. He also over saw the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta submersed aquatic weed program as a Senior Environmental Science and worked for the state’s Food and Agriculture Department to control Hydrilla. Tom wholesales and collects driftwood and stone for aquarium stores across the USA and Canada as one of the businesses he started in 2006. It can be bitter physical work, but he loves it.