Central Regional TAFE BCMI

🌲🌳 𝗠𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗲𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗺𝗽𝘀 🌳🌲

Big shout out to the Central Regional TAFE and Central Regional TAFE BCMI Horticulture and Conservation & Ecosystem Management students, their lecturers and our Environment and Sustainability Team who planted 800 native seedlings in the the Chapman River Regional Park this week.

Thank you Community Nursery volunteers for growing the fabulous seedlings!

Have you planted any seedlings, ground cover plants, shrubs or trees in the last 10 years? 🌲🌳🌿🎋🌾
Make them count towards the Million Trees Project by registering them 👉 https://bit.ly/2M5QGav

Petits fours night course! Enquire now at [email protected]

VETDSS students studying Certificate II in Fishing Operations, Aquaculture and Tourism are getting lots of hands on experience catching Western Rock Lobster off the Geraldton coast!

❗️ As part of the Master 24m course, BCMI Lecturers and students will be letting off flares this morning (Tuesday 22 March), at Separation Point, between 9am and 9:30am. ❗️

Mid West Ports Authority Geraldton Volunteer Fire and Rescue Geraldton Volunteer Sea Rescue Group City of Greater Geraldton

📸Anchor Marine

❗️ As part of the Master 24m course, BCMI Lecturers and students will be letting off flares tomorrow morning (Monday 14 February), at Separation Point, between 9am and 9:30am. ❗️

Mid West Ports Authority Geraldton Volunteer Fire and Rescue Geraldton Volunteer Sea Rescue Group
City of Greater Geraldton

📸Anchor Marine

The nine week Hospitality Service Skill Set started on Tuesday for those students looking to get into an amazing industry. ☕️

In this 'two days a week' course Customer Service, Table Service , Hygiene, Barista Skills and RSA are all covered!

We are still taking enrolments for this course, but get in quick. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Good morning! Just a reminder the BCMI is closed today for the Australia Day public holiday and will reopen from 8am tomorrow, 27 January.

Please note that masks must be worn in internal settings on the BCMI campus and other Central Regional TAFE campuses, if you have been in Peel or Perth since 6 January.

Did you attend Saturday's BCMI Discovery tour? 🐟

Tickets flew out the door and were sold within a week of going on sale, but our crew are busy planning dates for the next event.

Thanks to those that gave feedback on the day. The winner of the Zeewijk restaurant voucher has been notified. 🥳

A couple of weeks ago, two technicians from the BCMI hatchery delivered over a hundred Barramundi fingerlings to Buttah Windee, a small aboriginal community north of Meekatharra.

Ando Binsiar leads a group of young locals to on-grow the fish in tanks.

Central Regional TAFE have been working with Ando for a few years now to assist local people learn about Aquaculture. This great project helps create jobs and opportunities for the Buttah Windee community as well as the wider region of Meekatharra.

The crew at BCMI are extremely proud to be a 'Quality Tourism Business'.

As part of Tourism Council Western Australia's accreditation process, BCMI has committed to the delivery of a great tourism experience whilst at the same time offering a learning and conservation experience at the same time.

Our Abrolhos Island Clarkii (Amphiprion clarkii) are our most local clownfish.
As their name suggest they are native from the Abrolhos Islands situated 60Km of the coast of Geraldton. 🌊
These fish are popular in the aquarium trade for their striking colours and wonderful nature.

If you put them anywhere near a 'bubble tip anemone' they will nestle in straight away. This blows us away because our fish are aquacultured, meaning they would have never seen one before in their lives but they still know that an anemone is home! 🏠

If you didn't make it to BCMI for Shore Leave, we have one last opportunity this year. 🥳

Our technicians have been getting Nemo and Dory ready to welcome you to BCMI on Saturday, 11th December 2021.

Tickets are available via Eventbrite, or you can call our awesome team on 08 9956 6175.

https://www.trybooking.com/BVJKG

Blennies are a popular fish amongst aquarists with a lot of different blennies around the world.
We have a few here at the BCMI and have managed to grow some of them successfully.

In the first photo you can see a stripped blenny locally found on the Abrolhos Island and Western Australian coast. 🐟
The bright yellow ones are called Canary blenny and are from Fiji.

In the second picture you can see a Fang blenny. These fish can be found on the Great Barrier Reef. (Photo credit: Erik Schlogl)

We also recently acquired a pair of bicolour blennies broodstock (found on the Great Barrier Reef) but they are yet to spawn. We also have a couple of Midas blennies which you can see in the third picture. The Midas blennies are from the African Coast. 🌍

The Orange Ocellaris, also called “Nemo”, is by far our most popular fish.
It takes about 4 months to raise a larvae to a 2.5cm fish.
The female lay the eggs on the pot while the male pass over it to fertilise them. The male will then look after the eggs until they hatch by moving them with his fins to aerate them.
It takes around 8 days for the eggs to develop and hatch. 🥚
Can you see the thousand eggs on the pot? 🧐The shiny part is the tiny larvae eyes.

She's done it again! Congratulations to our amazing lecturer Maryke Gray for being announced a finalist at this year's Australian Training Awards 🌟

Last month Maryke won the Trainer of the Year Award at the WA Training Awards.

Maryke works hard to ensure students receive quality training no matter where they live. Her passion for conservation and dedication shines through in all she undertakes.

The results of numerous live work projects, some of which involve working at remote Aboriginal Communities, can be seen throughout the Mid-West and Gascoyne regions.

Congratulations Maryke! 👏 so well deserved.

Winners will be announced on Thursday 18 November.

Read more about Maryke 👉 https://bit.ly/3aQvxPP

Read the full announcement 👉 https://bit.ly/3DTZJWN

𝗪𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 $𝟮,𝟳𝟱𝟬 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝗵!

Have you studied with us in 2021? Complete the 2021 WA Student Survey and go into the cash prize pool.

The survey is about your course and experience in training with us.

Your feedback will help us improve the quality of our training programs and the way we we offer them.

⏱ It should only take 10 minutes to complete.

Find out more 👉🏽 https://www.centralregionaltafe.wa.edu.au/2021-student-survey

Wow! 😎

Has it already been three weeks since we welcomed visitors to BCMI for Marine Discovery Tours as part of Shore Leave Festival?

Tours were extremely popular and Nemo and his mates were definitely found! 🤣 🐠🐠

The Australian Honey Bee Industry Biosecurity Code of Practice (‘the Code’) has a number of requirements related to American foulbrood (AFB) is the most devastating bee disease in Australia and costs the industry millions of dollars each year. To help beekeepers understand the Code and how to avoid an AFB outbreak, Jessica Moran will give a seminar on the biology of AFB, how to detect the disease, and what to do if an outbreak occurs. The purpose of this seminar is to increase awareness and start an honest and open conversation about AFB.

Jessica Moran is one of our industry partners and a Project Officer in the bee biosecurity team at the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development. For the past three years she has been researching American foulbrood for her doctorate degree, aiming to create a beehive breathalyser for the disease.

Please RSVP by emailing: [email protected] to join this free seminar.

Happy Monday Central WA-ers! ☀️

Please note our BCMI campus is closed today for the public holiday and will re-open 8am tomorrow.

Our Marine Discovery tours, part of Shore Leave Festival, have proven to be a hit with all tickets sold out! 🙌👏

Thanks to the BCMI staff for volunteering to be in the photo. 😃

Just announced!

Congratulations Maryke! You do some amazing work with our students and for conservation and land management in our regional community. Well deserved and we couldn’t be prouder! 👏🏽👏🏽

Here it is – our first individual category announcement! Congratulations to Maryke Gray, the WA Training Awards 2021 WA Trainer of the Year!

Best of luck to our WA Training Awards finalists at tonight's presentation evening.

Taj Morris - School based Apprentice of the Year finalist

Maryke Gray - Trainer of the Year finalist

You are both so deserving and we are proud of all you have achieved. Congratulations on making it this far and all the best to you and the other finalists. 👏🏽

If you have been enjoying our stories every Friday and would love to see our beautiful fish in person, then don`t miss out on the Marine Discovery Tour organised for the Shore Leave Festival. 🐠🐟👏

On Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th of September, we will be conducted guided tour of the hatchery at 10am, 11am, 12pm and 1pm.

Booking is essential. 💻

For more information and to book your tour pop onto the Shore Leave Festival website and look for the Marine discovery tours in the program section.

www.shoreleavefestival.com.au

We look forward to seeing you then.

Shore Leave Festival – Geraldton, Western Australia Shore Leave, traditionally the name given to time off for naval workers. This vibrant new festival is coming to Geraldton from 24 – 27 September 2021.

Black or Orange Nemo?

It is by luck that we have a special pair of clowns at the BCMI. 🤹‍♀️

Black Ocellaris and Orange Ocellaris don`t usually pair together. By 'pairing' we mean forming a mated “couple”. The species usually tolerate each other in a large tank but having a match is quite rare.

This lucky team came about whilst we tried to pair two Orange Ocellaris and two Black Ocellaris. The orange clowns kept fighting together and so did the blacks. We noticed that one orange was hanging around one of the black clowns. We removed the remaining Ocellaris and left the one orange with the black… and to our surprise these two “paired up”.

😍 Not long after we had our first batch of eggs. 🥳

We were quite excited and intrigued to see what the juveniles would look like. It was a long 3 weeks wait until they reached their full colouration. Any guesses on what colour would be dominant? 🧐

Well, it turned out that neither black nor orange was a dominant colour gene… the babies were a chocolate brown colour. We decided to name them “Chocolaris”. 🍫

They are quite popular with our buyers and everyone loves to see the parents in our display tank.

Here are a few pictures; one of the parents, the juveniles at 8-weeks and a 4-month-old saleable Nemo.

🥳

Aquacultured Fish at your Pet Shop!

Do you know that BCMI is the biggest producer/farmer of Marine Ornamental fish in Australia?

If you go to your local pet shop you can see Freshwater and Saltwater fish.

If you turn and look at the freshwater section, 90 - 95% of the fish were probably aquacultured/farmed.
If you look at the Saltwater fish section only 10% are probably aquacultured, which means that majority of the fish have been caught by a diver with a net. 😱

At BCMI, we are slowly making change, not only to teach people how to farm pretty fish like Nemo and his mates, but also helping to protect marine resources by supplying aquacultured fish to pet shops all over Australia.

Marine fish are notoriously difficult to culture because you need to grow plankton to feed the baby fish. And not all fish like easy to grow plankton, that’s why ocean caught fish are the main supply for the pet shop industry. BCMI are always keen to improve and teach our breeding technics to the next generation of students whilst offering a wider range of aquacultured marine fish.

So next time you pick a fish from your pet shop, ask where it comes from and if available, try to choose the sustainable option. 🐟

Banggai Cardinals is another species cultured right here at BCMI. 🐡

Bangaii Cardinals are found (coincidentally) at the
Bangaii Archipelago at the far eastern end of Sulawesi in Indonesia. 🇮🇩

A fully grown adult reaches about the same size as the bottom of a soft drink can (including fins). 🥤
The special and peculiar trait of these fish is that they are mouth brooders. The male keeps the eggs in his mouth for between 21 to 30 days depending on water temperature. He does not eat at all during that time. When the eggs are fully developed and ready to hatch the male will spit out the babies, which all look exactly like the parents, just super miniature . They typically are just smaller than a 5 cent coin. 🐠
The number of babies produced varies depending on the size and age of the parents.

Our record batch here at BCMI was 56 fish, released all at once, by one male. 👏
Now that is a lot of baby fish for one small mouth! 😱

It’s another fantastic day at the Mingenew Midwest Expo.

Our students are offering free hairbraiding, neck and shoulder massages and virtual reality roller coaster rides.

Remember to sign up to our E-news to go in the draw to win 2 tickets to the Valley Groove Festival.

Congratulations to our two finalists in this years WA Training Awards.

Taj Morris - School Based Apprentice of the Year

Maryke Grey - Trainer of the Year

We’re so proud of all you have achieved and wish you the best of luck for the Awards evening in September.

Also a big well done to all this year’s finalists 👏🏽

Read more about about Taj and the wonderful Maryke in Minister Ellery’s statement below 👇

Drumroll …

The Hon. Sue Ellery Minister for Education and Training has announced the finalists of the WA Training Awards 2021

https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2021/08/Training-sectors-brightest-stars-announced.aspx

Congratulations to all our WA Training Awards finalists – we look forward to seeing you in September!

We have had a win this month in the BCMI Hatchery. 🥳🥳

We managed to finally spawn and raise the elusive Neon Dottyback - (Pseudochromis aldabraensis)! 🙌

🐠Each time we have a new species, we get super excited and this one has been a long time coming!

We have had different Neon parents here at BCMI for about 10 years, but have never managed to “pair” them because they are extremely fussy. We acquired a couple more broodstock two years ago but no spawn and have to keep them in big tanks as they kill each other if they are not paired right.
These guys are super picky with their partner, so we had one last pairing to try and.... HOORAY!!! We finally have a match and they are happy and laying. 🐟🐠
The larvae are in the photo are 45 days old, coloured and look super cool with 2 bright fluorescent stripes on top of their body.

We are excited to be opening the doors of BCMI on 24th & 25th September as part of the rescheduled Shore Leave Festival.

If you have ever wondered what happens in the building at Separation Point - this is a great time to have a look.

Booking is essential as tour numbers are limited.

Regional TAFE

https://shoreleavefestival.com.au/program/marine-discovery-tour/