Ever thought of a fish club

[aquamanis]

Hi People, when I was a teenage boy I used to be interested in model railroads. Theres only so much room and money a teenage boy has so my setup was rather modest and small. Oneday I learned of a model railway club down the road so I decided I,de go take a look. The first time I walked in there I couldn,t believe my eyes. There was this layout over 200 feet long with beautiful scenery and buildings, hundreds of rolling stock etc. This setup must have cost tens of thousands. It would have been impossible for any one person to setup something like this up let alone maintain it. Thinking about that club got me to thinking if there were any clubs set up in England or America for fish enthusiasts. Could you imagine if 100+ people pooled thier money and resources together what could be achieved. You could rent a big warehouse with aircon and heating of course. Inside you could have any number of tanks or even an oceanarium type setup. Breeding programs, single species only tanks, biotypes, plants, ponds, the possibilities are endless. Stock and plants could be sold to fund futher projects and even a small entrance fee (to non members) to help pay for the power. What a place to be able to come and watch and talk fish with other fish fanatics. And it wouldn,t matter if you had to go on holidays because there would be a hundred or so people rotating the cleaning duties etc. What do you think?

 

[mrV]

Im quite surprised if you don't find any aquarium-society from your country. We have some aquarium/fish-societies here in Fin (and Fin it's a small country, somewhere in cold area ) 12 of those societies has own homepages. 16 of them are member-clubs of Finnish Aquarium Association (FAF). And FAF is member of nordic centre union. (NAF - Norway, DAU - Denmark, SARF - Sweden, (SAL) FAF )

 

[aquamanis]

Gooday Mr V, no doubt there is, I just havent looked well enough. I know theres a perth cichlid society but most of the other societies are in Melbourne and Sydney and Adelaide. Poor ol Perth only got 1.8 million people so sometimes we miss out. But I was thinking something more intimate like 100 friends all putting in together to build thier dream tank. BTW those societies in finland, do they have places like this?

 

[Lateral Line]

Whilst in England, for far to many years, I was a member of Tongham Aquarist Society. Membership wasn't expensive but the money raised barely covered the costs of hiring our meeting hall once a month, a guest lecturer for the night and the clubs competitive activities.

Was great fun though.

 

[mrV]

No, nothing that large But yes, they have some tanks - it's quite different between those societies. Some of them has own places and they can keep tanks: Pic from TAS And they keep their own "parties" about twice a month..

 

[joshua]

but honestly i guess it's always nicer to have something which we can really call our own. (that's why communism was banished) hehe.