State of the Forum
Fri, 04/23/2010 - 10:40
The forum has been running for a bit over 6 months now and we just reached 1000 posts. Not a bad milestone. I obviously haven't had as much time to spend developing the site as I'd originally planned, but it has been very useful for connecting aquarists in our state. New Mexico just doesn't have the size to compete with the large clubs in Denver, Phoenix, or Texas, but it is nice to know there are others out there and have a way to contact them for advice or help.
I stopped running Google ads several months ago because we are going through a tight spot financially (nothing too major, just enough that I had to cut back a bit), so the number of people signing up has slowed down. I will probably try to run ads again at some point to drum interest back up.
Still, a few new users have managed to find us somehow and we've continued to grow slowly.
I plan to continue adding to the site periodically and responding to posts consistently, however I'm looking for ideas about where to go from here. Obviously we have spurts of activity on the forum and lulls, based on people running into issues and asking for advice, or new people coming in and introducing themselves. What else could we be doing on the site? What would you like to see?
Please provide your thoughts and input on the site, either things you like, things that could be improved, or entirely new directions we could take our little community.
Thanks for participating!
Samuel
Sat, 04/24/2010 - 08:59
#2
I'm one of those new members up in Mora County. I think something I would like to see is a resource list of places that buy or trade for tank raised fish. My friends and I will all end up with excess fish eventually with only Walmart anywhere close to us. I've got longfin white clouds (aka meteor minnows) spawning like crazy right now! And, crazy person that I am, I just bought gold longfin white cloud breeding stock. I don't really *want* to breed them but some living fry is inevitable.
Also, maybe a place to list what each member has that is more of a 'see it at a glance' spot than the trading/for sale forum is.
Thanks!
Sat, 04/24/2010 - 12:55
#3
Thanks for the input Carmon. Unfortunately, it would be a really short list. The only one I know of that buys or trades for fish is Clark's, and they have been slow to take more fish since the economic crash. Hopefully they'll pick back up at some point. They used to pay reasonably well if you took credit. I'm not familiar with any other places, but if anyone has other they've used list em here. If there are more than a couple, I'll start a list.
Also, if you click on a user's name, you should go to a page where they have their tanks listed. If they've typed them in when filling out their profile anyway.
Let me know if you had something else in mind 
Sun, 04/25/2010 - 06:55
#4
Well that's too bad! I've been away from the hobby for many years and don't go to ABQ often, certainly not to shop!, so I didn't realize the economy had hit this little industry so hard. Hopefully things will pick up for all of us soon!
Sun, 04/25/2010 - 07:53
#5
That was actually one of the driving factors that led me to create this website... getting rid of fish that have overpopulated my tanks. It has worked out fairly well... Just gave away around 15 yesterday and have someone coming over this afternoon to pick up another load. If you have excess, I suggest posting them for free or cheap in the trading forum before your next trip to ABQ or Santa Fe and see if someone is interested.
Samuel, I do not really have any new ideas but I wanted to take a second and say thank you again for all that you have done for the forum and to bring us all together. Thank you.