by Erik Olson
Greater Seattle Aquarium Society Newsletter, May 1996

Well, first off I have to say thanks to everyone who attended the auction, and a special welcome to our new members. GSAS is now fully stocked for another year of operation. Treasurer Linda Morin reported at the end of the evening that we made roughly $1100. This was an especially hard year for us, as many of the local stores we’ve grown to rely on for help were not able to contribute (some had just plain gone out of business or changed hands). Thanks very much to those who have stuck with us (and a special thanks to The Fish Store for not suing us after reprinting that old ad of theirs in last month’s April Fool’s newsletter). Finally, I’d like to thank the members of the academy...er, I mean society, who pulled the evening together: Bernie Philips, auction chairman; Diane Eliott, who got all the donations from the manufacturers; and the auctioneers, runners and tallyers: Maxine, Marv, Kathy, Linda, Steve, Steve, Bob, Anne, Larry, Kevin and Dave.

Field Trip!

Last month I had the pleasure of seeing a local public fish show for the first time. GSAS hasn’t been able to muster up the volunteer power to do one for the last few years, and I hadn’t mustered up the driving power to make it over to our neighbors to the east for the big Whaling Days show yet. But at the last minute, my girlfriend and I decided to go for it and see the big Greater Portland Aquarium Society show. We crammed a few odds and ends for the weekend into my little Honda (though remembering my experience at the American Cichlid Association last summer, I hastily added a few Styrofoam fish boxes), and trucked on south. The show turned out to be part of a larger all-pet fair sponsored by a large store chain, so we had to wade through many booths of dueling hamsters and cat hair removal devices before finding the fish show... but it was worth it! There were about 60-80 tanks of individual fish on display (something else I still am not used to seeing: single fish in a bare tank with nothing but a sponge filter), five planted aquariums beautiful and a few specialty tanks (such as an aquarium of bleeding heart tetras decorated with pearls on the inside and made to look like a picture hung on the wall). There was also an art and photo category, plus children’s tanks. A TV monitor continuously showed videos of club members fish at home, and a table of volunteers eagerly recruited new members.

One of the Aquaria Beautiful at the Portland Show.

Part of the fascination with traveling to another club’s show is to learn how they run things different than we do around here. I was curious to know what they do with 80 10-gallon fish tanks between shows (you either store them or sell them), or how they keep their meetings interesting for members (good BAP program, auctions at every meeting, and plenty of beginner topics). The most important aspect of the club seems to be the comradarie of its members.

What made the trip especially fun was getting to hear the two speakers (whose audience was woefully small for the caliber of their talks): Kurt Zadnik (from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association) presented a slide show on identifying, keeping and breeding dwarf cichlids that made me wish I’d brought my video camera, and Chuck Rambo (also from southern California) talked on Lake Victoria conservation. The reason I felt like I needed the talk on video was that the talk itself got us jazzed up on some of the fish species, but it wasn’t until days afterwards that we’d be trying to identify species in nondescript Seattle fish store tanks, or determine what sort of cave arrangements to concoct in order to breed the suckers. [Take note, dear reader; it is not a coincidence that the first speaker’s name looks remarkably like that of this month’s GSAS presenter. Kurt will give his illuminating talk for us on May 14, and this time I will remember my video camera!]

At any rate, thanks to that little trip I’ve gotten bitten by the dwarf cichlid bug; my kitchen is now chock full of tanks (six, as of this morning) and I have a beautiful 20-long in the living room with bogwood and oak leaves that I’ll tell you about next month. Come to the meeting and see for yourself what the big deal is all about!