Is MACO dead?

[Ad van Tage]

..............

And yes we delved fairly extensively into fish collection methods in the reef fish class I took with Mr. Michael and he gaev us some background as well as a lot of food for thought about it's use and perception of Cyanide collection.

For a good idea this particular forum is most enlightening if you do a few searches - topics have been beat to death with input from both people in the industry as well as those residing in some of the countries where cyanide collection is still an issue.

Good luck.

Thanx Tech-NO-shaman. That helps!

As to searches on this forum, been there, done [ some of ] that...
And indeed it is QUITE enlightening, especially to this newcomer!

That said, I am very interested in learning what is being covered by MACO.
There has been no thread, or discussion in a thread
( that I have been able to find )
that addressed this matter here.
I have read the places where MACO gets mentioned
e.g. "Cyanide testing challenge to all!"

So were/are their others who have taken these online classes?
And if so, what is your take on the discussion of
"fish collection methods"?

What perspective is one left with?

Thanx in advance.

 

[Anonymous]

..............

And yes we delved fairly extensively into fish collection methods in the reef fish class I took with Mr. Michael and he gaev us some background as well as a lot of food for thought about it's use and perception of Cyanide collection.

For a good idea this particular forum is most enlightening if you do a few searches - topics have been beat to death with input from both people in the industry as well as those residing in some of the countries where cyanide collection is still an issue.

Good luck.

Thanx Tech-NO-shaman. That helps!

As to searches on this forum, been there, done [ some of ] that...
And indeed it is QUITE enlightening, especially to this newcomer!

That said, I am very interested in learning what is being covered by MACO.
There has been no thread, or discussion in a thread
( that I have been able to find )
that addressed this matter here.
I have read the places where MACO gets mentioned
e.g. "Cyanide testing challenge to all!"

So were/are their others who have taken these online classes?
And if so, what is your take on the discussion of
"fish collection methods"?

What perspective is one left with?

Thanx in advance.

You are still getting the two organizations confused, it seems. MACO= The online training course and MAC = Marine Aquarium Council.

 

[Ad van Tage]

You are still getting the two organizations confused, it seems. MACO= The online training course and MAC = Marine Aquarium Council.

I don't think so! I have NOT mentioned MAC!
So who is :? confused :? here???
So far I haven't felt a MAC-ATTACK coming on.

My interest is in what is discussed in the ONLINE COURSES of MACO [ read MAC & O ] ...
Please see the Subject header... as well as previous posts in this thread.

Also note that MACO is a fourletter-word; in the mathematical sense. MAC is not.

I h :idea: pe it all adds up n :idea: w ...

 

[Anonymous]

I have taken 3 MACO courses and thought all three were very well done. I took the skimmer class, the reactor class, and the lighting class. I have successfully built several skimmers and reactors even though I had no previous experience working with acrylic.

I highly recommend that you take any MACO course that sounds interesting to you.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

You are still getting the two organizations confused, it seems. MACO= The online training course and MAC = Marine Aquarium Council.

I don't think so! I have NOT mentioned MAC!
So who is :? confused :? here???
So far I haven't felt a MAC-ATTACK coming on.

My interest is in what is discussed in the ONLINE COURSES of MACO [ read MAC & O ] ...
Please see the Subject header... as well as previous posts in this thread.

Also note that MACO is a fourletter-word; in the mathematical sense. MAC is not.

I h :idea: pe it all adds up n :idea: w ...

Only four letter word around here is TROLL!!

 

[Anonymous]

:| I will be the first to admit that I'm mathematically declined, but I would swear I count five letters in that word..

For the record I took a class earlier this year and was very happy with it (other than Scott Michael falling asleep watching TV and forgetting about us one class ). I know several people who took the DIY classes from Brian Ferguson and were thrilled with the end result and the instruction.

No sheet! :lol: I bet his face was burning bright.. How long did it take everyone to figure out he was a no show? (Musta been a pretty good show to fall asleep through it.)

Ad van tage, I'd like to introduce you to James Wiseman, an avid reef aquarist and all around nice guy (who's pretty slick with a camera).

 

[Ad van Tage]

I have taken 3 MACO courses and thought all three were very well done. I took the skimmer class, the reactor class, and the lighting class. I have successfully built several skimmers and reactors even though I had no previous experience working with acrylic.

I highly recommend that you take any MACO course that sounds interesting to you.

Louey

Hi Louey, thanx for the feed back. Having read & searched what I can on the MACO pages , I appreciate that the courses you took are "KEEPER" and "doer" classes.

What prompted my original posts was and is the following.

There has been a lot of discuss on this forum about "cyanide" [ The dreaded "C" word, I suppose ]. Given that quite a few sentiments have been expressed about improving "the situation", I wonder(ed) IF and to what degree MACO has incorporated discussion of "How to spot healthy fish" in these online courses for aquarist.

PLEASE note that no criticism is implied at all about any of the available courses. Given that I have not been able to directly find course-outlines via the MACO homepages [ again, just an observation ] I would like to share what comes up on a search there when the keyword "cyanide" is used. So far, here is what is returned when such a search is done:

Downloads: No downloads matched your search.

FAQs: No FAQs matched your search.

Web Links: No links matched your search.

Reviews: No reviews matched your search.

Sections: No articles matched your search.

Stories & topics: No stories or topics matched your search.

Pages in Subjects: No pages matched your search criteria.

Members: No members matched your search.

There seems to be no cyanide present...
Hence my quest for feedback from people who have taken or KNOW about the MACO courses.

BTW. I would not expect a SKIMMER course to cover cyanide... ;
unless of course there is a new non-lethal use for it... 8O

 

[mkirda]

There has been a lot of discuss on this forum about "cyanide" [ The dreaded "C" word, I suppose ]. Given that quite a few sentiments have been expressed about improving "the situation", I wonder(ed) IF and to what degree MACO has incorporated discussion of "How to spot healthy fish" in these online courses for aquarist.

Ad,

There has been only a single course dealing with fish AFAIR, and I doubt that cyanide collection would be given in-depth coverage. There is little to cover, really. Cyanide kills many fish even in fairly low concentrations. Some fish seem to just die outright when hit with cyanide, while on others it seems to have little effect. It causes organ damage in some fish more than others. Most of what is known is anecdotal or subjective: IOW, not the subject of intensive scientific study.
This is not to say that there aren't papers on cyanide exposure: There are quite a few, but not to the same extent as something like coral bleaching.

I'm not sure what else you are looking for.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[Anonymous]

There has been a lot of discuss on this forum about "cyanide" [ The dreaded "C" word, I suppose ]. Given that quite a few sentiments have been expressed about improving "the situation", I wonder(ed) IF and to what degree MACO has incorporated discussion of "How to spot healthy fish" in these online courses for aquarist.

.....Information that *should* have been in the original post and here is shows up on page two. The saga continues.

MACO is an online course for hobbyist, most of them thus far have been DIY projects (Do It Yourself), for reef releated equipment like lighting and skimmers. There has been one course on fish biology and one course on coral biology (unless I am mistaken). The discussion re: cyanide in both courses can be summed up as follows.

"Cyanide is bad and kills fish and corals, try not buy any animals that have been exposed to it."

"The only way to know for sure whether or not your intended purchase has been exposed to cyanide is to avoid purchasing animals that come from countries where cyanide use is rampant (ie Indo and the Phillipines). However there is no real way to simply look at a fish in a store and determine whether or not it was collected with cyanide. Reputable fish stores should be able to disclose the locations their fish were collected at as long as they are also buying from reputable wholesalers. Bottom line currently it's a trust thing."

Most of this discourse took place in the online chats (where most of the actual class takes place). The logs of these chats are only avaliable to people who have enrolled in the class.

Hope this helps.

 

[Ad van Tage]

Does the link to MACO not show up on http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=35 , the "home" of this forum...

As far as I can see, it doesn't.

I ment to comment ages ago... But the link is right there in the line
Reefs.org | Advanced Aquarist | MACO | Frag Trading | #reefs Chat | About Us | News | Library

Meanwhile we are in 2004, so I have checked, but have not seen an update.

As an aside, an e-mail message that was sent to [email protected]

via "CONTACT US" on http://www.marinecourses.com/index.php

has thusfar gone un-answered. Been abt a month now.


Are messages perhaps not getting through :?: :?: :?:

 

[Bill2]

Hello Ad van Tage,
I'm the head admin from MACO and have been monitoring this thread since it's inception but have remained silent because many of the replies have been dead on. Our courses are selected using 2 criteria. The first criteria being what do people want to learn. The second criteria is can that topic fill up 5 weeks or 11 weeks. Beyond that we just contract with the teachers for a certain topic and they teach what they and/or the class feels relevent. I know Scott Michaels on the first day of class said "what do you guys want to learn"

Regarding the lack of an update on the site. For some reason it has been hard to get instructors for our 11 week courses. These courses are our focus since students go into depth of the topic taught. I have been trying desperatly to get a teacher for the winter session to no avail. Our last year's 11 week teachers, Scott Michael and Eric Borneman, are really busy at the moment. I predict I will give up and just go with only the 5 week courses for the Winter session.

Regarding your email that was not replied to over a month ago. I went back and looked at my emails and I keep every one for MACO. I recieved one on December 20th. I don't know if I replied to it but since it was the holidays I might have forgotten. I did reply to your email I got today though so something should be in your mailbox now.

Regarding the cyanide issue. If you would like to see a 1 day symbosium on cyanide collection and how it affects us I think that is a great idea. The biggest problem I have in running any class is getting a teacher to teach it. If you have any recommendations or know anyone that is an authorative figure in cyanide collection and is harms let me know.

I apoligize for missing your first email and if you have any recommendations for classes or any specific questions email me.

 

[Ad van Tage]

Hello Ad van Tage,
I'm the head admin from MACO and have been monitoring this thread since it's inception but have remained silent because many of the replies have been dead on.
......................

I apoligize for missing your first email and if you have any recommendations for classes or any specific questions email me.

Thanx Bill, truly appreciate your answer,
as well as your instant reply to my last off-forum e-message.

No need to apologize for the e-mail msg being missed.
Likely it is wandering in the cyber-void. It wouldn't be the first one.

I'm glad we have this under control. And I greatly appreciate the update.


Best of luck with the 2004 classes.

Take care,