New To The North Dallas Texas Area

[Carg]

I moved from Utah to

Dallas/Plano Texas, and am in need of some help. Are there active freshwater groups in this area?

Any local forums for cichlid or other freshwater fish? Is there a club up a running? Any

direction would be great...Utah is surprisingly full of cichlidiots, and several active web based

communities, who also belong to the GSLAS. I was hoping Dallas had a similar type setup.

Thanks for your help...we're not yet moved into a house but I already miss the 650+gallons of

freshwater stuff I sold before the move. style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif
I'm having

withdrawls

[Pam Chin]

Hi Carg,

Check

out the Texas Cichlid Association, they do meet around the Dallas area.

http://home.flash.net/~tcichlid/

Cichlid Power!
Pam

[Carg]

Wow Pam, TCA is all over the

place (meeting wise)!

[fishmaven]

There are some fine

specialty stores in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metro area. If you want to visit a showcase for almost

everything try The Fish Gallery (http://www.thefishgallery.com). You'll want to click the Dallas store to

see their photos. Lurkers should click both just to see photos of the stores. I haven't been to

the Dallas store but the Houston store is one of the finest combo fresh/salt stores I've ever

seen. BTW, I'm really picky!

While you're there ask about the fish clubs in

the area, they'll know.
Welcome to Texas and the ACA Forum.
Dan

[Carg]

Thanks for the welcome &

info fishmaven.

[Dean Hougen]

Welcome to the ACA

forum!

Hey, I was just in the DFW area a couple of days ago for the joint Texas

Cichlid Association/Oklahoma Aquarium Association visit to Deep Sea Aquatics, which hand makes the

finest aquariums I have ever seen anywhere, any time in my life! http://www.deepseaaquatics.net/ I was

really impressed. I also swung by The Fish Gallery and Dan is right, it is worth the visit!

Yes, you should definitely check out TCA and also the Federation of Texas Aquarium

Societies (FOTAS) to see the other clubs around there. One thing I would say about both TCA and

FOTAS is that they do not have a very large web presence (e.g., no active forum). But they have

great in-person activities.

I do know that there have been some active forums in the

Dallas area, though, but I don't frequent them so I can't give you direct comments on them.

You might want to ask people in the OKAA http://www.okcaa.org or Hill Country Cichlid Club http://www.hillcountrycichlidclub.com/, which both have very active forums,

about DFW area forums.


Dean

[fishmaven]

<!--quoteo

(post=18457:date=Jun 23 2009, 10:39 PM:name=Dean Hougen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Dean

Hougen @ Jun 23 2009, 10:39 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=18457"><

{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>… Hey, I was just in the DFW area a

couple of days ago for the joint Texas Cichlid Association/Oklahoma Aquarium Association visit to

Deep Sea Aquatics, which hand makes the finest aquariums I have ever seen anywhere, any time in my

life! http://www.deepseaaquatics.net/ I was really impressed.<!--QuoteEnd--

></div>
I don't know much about Deep Sea Aquatics but Dallas was the home

of Oceanic. When they merged with All-glass and eventually sold to Central Pet a lot of talented

employees were left with no jobs. Sounds like a good base to draw from.
Dan

[Dean Hougen]

Everyone who works at

Deep Sea Aquatics is a former Oceanic employee. What they basically did was take that talent pool

and figure out how to take it up a notch (or several).


Dean

[snakeskinner]

the Deep Sea

Aquatics tour was awesome. I was amazed how many simple concepts are overlooked or left out of

large aquarium manufacturers. I'm drooling to get myself a nice, big, aquarium from Deep Sea

but I gotta get a house built to put it in first http://acaforum.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif



TCA is a great group but as Dean pointed out, they don't do much

on the web. the HCCC (www.hillcountrycichlidforum.com) is a fairly active forum club and there

are some DFW members on there too. I think most of the web-based DFW activity is on the fishbox

sites. I think there's a dallas fishbox and a DFW fishbox but I don't know which ones are

the most active. I think I'm a member of both forums but rarely visit. the Dallas Killifish

Association is another group that is on the web and has had a fairly active forum now and then.

You're also welcome to hit our forum at www.okcaa.org as we are not all that far from you

either and we'll be having a couple events a year if we can keep up with them http://acaforum.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif FOTAS is a great event and will be in Houston in September this year. It moves

around every year. last year was in Irving, TX.. . kyle

[fishmaven]

If you or Dean are

coming into Houston for FOTAS give me a call. We can meet and I'll take you to Fish Gallery and

Aquarium World. If you like live music I can take to the best blues club in Texas, at least this

side of Austin. Don't drink, don't like smoke? no problem. Sometimes the entertainment

moves into the street, ask Rusty at the convention.

Dan

[Dean Hougen]

Dan,



Thanks for the invite! Kyle and I are both planning to attend FOTAS this year and several

other OKAA members will be there too! We're still working out details on when we'll

head down and who will ride together, etc., but we'll let you know as we get closer to the

date.





Dean