MAST – Nov. 12 A Really High-Powered Meeting !

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MAST Membership Meeting – November 12

A Really High-Powered Meeting !

What is living in your reef tank? All manner of microscopic organisms too small to be seen by the naked eye.

At our November meeting, MAST is incredibly lucky to have secured the use of some extremely high-powered and high-resolution microscopes. These will be hooked up through a computer to a digital projector, so we can all examine in wondrous detail some of the microscopic life living in the water and on our sand and rocks.

We will probably have two dissecting microscopes, capable of magnification up to 160 x. These have a terrific resolution of 600 lines/mm. We also hope to have one compound microscope, with a huge magnification range from 40 x, all the way up to 1,000 x. This is very sophisticated equipment that many labs would be proud to own. We are deeply indebted to Martin Howells for arranging for MAST to have the use of this equipment.

The dissecting microscopes will be used to view the sand-bed inhabitants. The compound microscope will be more useful for looking at microscopic life in the water.

If you wish to bring a sample from your tank, seal a little water with a small amount of sand, gravel or rock fragments in a clean container. Keep the container at roughly the same temperature as your tank. We want the inhabitants to be alive. We will study as many samples as time permits.

Our resident marine biologist, Bryan Reid, is brushing up on his identification technique, and he will lead a discussion on the life we find.

None of us are likely to get another chance to see marine life through this kind of equipment. This is definitely a meeting you will want to attend.