Hi folks!
Add another member to the roster! I'm Ernest and I've been lurking on AA for about a year now. I'm in the Clarksburg/Damascus area and I've actually met/"conversed" with some of you folks previously.
I've been keeping Endlers, Cories, Otos, Yoyos, and a couple of other species for about a year now and am still learning something new/interesting about this hobby everyday. Of course my favorite resource of information has always been AA! I would have joined this forum sooner had I known about its existence, but I must have somehow missed it when I first joined AA.
Now that Spring is here again and my wife is on my case to use or lose the many tanks I've been buying off Craig's List, I'm seriously looking into doing a high-tech planted tank and a no-tech planted tank, and I'm hoping to exchange tips/ideas/plant clippings with some of the local/regional folks who have gone through the same experiences starting out.
Just as an idea to get this forum going, how about a sticky on local/regional LFSs/events/deals/pricing information? Eg, I've been looking in Rockville, Gaithersburg and Germantown for a CO2 tank and have been making a number of calls to enquire about pricing. I'd be glad to post info I've found to save folks a round of calls, unless you guys already know where the best deals are to be had and I'm the only one out of the loop! I'm also headed to ThatFishPlace tomorrow for their annual sale (
http://www.thatpetplace.com/MainPro/anniversarysale06.aspx ), a local discus farm (
http://www.discushatchery.com/index.html ) and might be attending the upcoming PVAS auction in April. (
http://pvas.com/auctions/auctions.htm ) It'll be nice to know if some of you folks are going to be there too!
I also frequent the local PetCo/PetSmarts plus Congressional Aquarium in Rockville, Tropical Fish World in Gaithersburg and Fish Factory in Gaithersburg and think it might be a useful resource to post all known local LFSs with addresses and maybe even reviews for other locals new to the hobby trying to find a good place.
I hope to hear from and maybe even meet some of you folks in the days ahead!