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2024 PROGRAM
Schedule

Sat, Jan 6 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

Monthly meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:30 pm Feature Presentation: Kevin Wilson"Chesapeake Bay Oyster Reef Biotope Aquarium: Dream tank realized"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Schedule

Sat, Feb 3 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

Monthly meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:45 pm Feature Presentation: Chris Teem "Discus"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, Mar 2 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

Monthly meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:45 pm Feature Presentation: Christopher Scharpf "Adventures in Etymology"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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*** Sunday ***, Apr 7 | Green Acres Center | 10 am - 5 pm

Spring All-Day Auction

8:30 am Set-up

10:00 am Registration opens

10:30 am Tag sale opens

10:45 am Auction opens

4:00 pm Bidding winds down

5:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, May 4 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

Monthly meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:45 pm Feature Presentation: Richard Koogle"All About Water Gardening"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, Jun 1 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

Monthly Meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:45 pm Feature Presentation: Rebecca Goldring"Dabbling in Dicrossus"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Bowl Show & Indoor Picnic

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Register fish and set out hospitality buffet

1:30 pm Eat

2:00 pm Judging and admiring fish, voting for People's Choice

3:00 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Awards

4:30 pm More mini-auction and take-down

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Sat, Jul 13 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 5 pm

Monthly meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:45 pm Feature Presentation: Placeholder"Placeholder"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, Aug 3 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

Monthly meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:30 pm Presentation: Shelby Stensrud "Placeholder"

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, Sep 7 | Green Acres Center | 1 - 4 pm

*** SATURDAY ***, Sep 21 | Green Acres Center | 10 am - 6 pm

Fall All-Day Auction

8:30 am Set-up

10:00 am Registration opens

10:30 am Tag Sale begins

11:00 am Auction opens

1:00 pm First raffle

3:00 pm Second raffle

5:00 pm Take-down

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Annual Meeting

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Socializing

1:15 pm Announcements

1:25 Elections

1:45 pm Presentation: Placeholder "Placeholder"

3:00 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, Nov 2 | Green Acres Center | 12 - 5 pm

Holiday Party & Potluck Dinner

12:30 pm Set-up

1:00 pm Lay out buffet

1:15 pm Announcements

1:30 pm Potluck dinner

2:45 pm Mini-auction

4:00 pm Take-down

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Sat, Dec 7 | Green Acres Center | 1 pm - 4 pm

Speakers
Speakers
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Kevin Wilson

Kevin began fishkeeping at the age of 13. After Graduating High School, he worked his first job at the Barrier Reef Aquarium in Rockville, where he was introduced to the saltwater side of the hobby. It was then after purchasing his first blenny that he fell in love with the blennies, a genus of coastal fishes with interesting behaviors.  While in college, he caught his first local blenny and became fascinated with a grad student’s experiment on striped blennies. This fascination led to his current dream, to keep local blennies in a setting close to their natural environment and resulted in his efforts to build a simulated oyster reef in a home aquarium. He’s also kept local native freshwater fish species in home aquariums for 43 years and is a member of the North American Native Fishes Association (NANFA).

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Chris Teem

Chris Teem joined Capital Exotic Fish as its general manager. Over the past 20-plus years, Chris cultivated an intense passion for fish and aquarium development, service, and maintenance. His mentor, Dr. Robert J. Goldstein, taught Chris everything he knows about how to breed fish. Through Chris’ travels overseas, studying fish in their natural environments, and working for zoological societies, Chris has developed extensive aquarist knowledge and insights. Discus are his favorite fish and loves sharing his experience on what he has learned.

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Christopher Scharpf

Since 2009, Christopher Scharpf has been working on The ETYFish Project (etyfish.org), the first and only reference to explain the derivations and meanings of the generic and specific names of all the fishes of the world. He also serves on the Committee on Names of Fishes, a joint committee of the American Fisheries Society and American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; the Committee’s goals are to achieve uniform use of common names and avoid confusion in scientific names for all fishes from the United States, Canada and Mexico. Formerly, Chris was editor of American Currents, the quarterly publication of the North American Native Fishes Association (NANFA), from 1996 through 2008. He has also served on NANFA’s Board of Directors and as Membership Coordinator. Chris was named a NANFA Fellow in 2004. His articles, papers and book reviews have appeared in Tropical Fish Hobbyist, Aquarium Fish, Fishes of Sahul, Zootaxa, Fisheries, and Ichthyology & Herpetology.

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Richard Koogle

Richard has more than 40 years experience water gardening as Director of Operations, and Water Gardening Designer, Installer, and Consultant for Lilypons Water Gardens near Frederick, Maryland.  Since 1917 Lilypons has offered provided water gardeners a wide selection of water lillies, lotuses, and all manner of aquatic plants, as well as fish and other animals, and equipment and supplies.  It's also a beautiful place to visit, especially in the blooming season, with acres  of flowering plants for inspiration!

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Rebecca Goldring

Rebecca Goldring is social scientist and lifelong aquarium hobbyist. Fascinated with fish at an early age, but often discouraged and misunderstood, she eventually settled into being the weird kid. This aquatic obsession led to early employment opportunities at The Aquarium Center and Roraima Tropicals, outside of Baltimore, Maryland, as well as some freelance work writing for Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine. Early years spent watching fish and animal behavior fed into a career in behavioral and social sciences, where she applies her observational and investigational skills to larger societal issues. To this day, her favorite pastimes include keeping fish, looking at fish, fishing for fish, reading about fish, and writing about fish. She also thoroughly enjoys telling people where they can take their opinions about how much more time she'd have to clean if she didn't have so many fish.
 

Rebecca currently maintains about 30 aquariums ranging in size from 5 to 300 gallons and keeps a variety of freshwater fish, aquatic plants, and invertebrates, as well as a few outdoor ponds. She’s bred a wide variety of fish, including South American Bumblebee Cats, Checkerboard Cichlids, Freshwater Pipefish, and many species of tetra. Current “fish goals” (STILL) include spawning some very uncooperative Gnathochromis permaxillaris, Corydoras pantanalensis, and Tetraodon schoutedeni. You can find her on Instagram at girlsgotfisshues.


Her talk is titled Dabbling in Dicrossus and covers topics on general care, sexing, spawning, and rearing both Dicrossus maculatus and Dicrossus filamentosus. It includes detailed experiential information with both species and will have some new material on best practices for artificial rearing.

Potomac Valley Aquarium Society

PO Box 664

Merrifield, VA 22116

©2024 by Potomac Valley Aquarium Society, Inc.

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