Hi Nikolas,
here in italy there are many Aquarium Associations. Italy is composed by 20 Regions. Each region has one or more Associations. Also other Clubs periodically organize events, shows and conferences about aquarium topic.
The "Gruppo Acquariofilo Salentino" (my Association.. I was one of the founders...) "was born" in 2000 and today it is a very active aquarium club, one of the most famous in Italy. It is because we launched our annual event "Salento Acquari" which, year after year became the Greatest Aquarium Event of Italy (30.000 visitors in each of the two last editions). Furthermore, in 2003 we launched "Mediterranea Discus" Contest. At the first Edition, 30 Discus competed in our Contest. This year 101 fishes will participate to our International Championship and many o them will come from other countries. An International jury will judge them and many "names" of the Discus world will be in Lecce during our Show: just to mention some of them there will be Manfred Gobel (Germany), one of the "fathers" of the Discus, Dr. Sun See Seng (President of Discus Club Singapore), Jeffrey Tan (Ex- President of the Discus Society of Malaysia), Heiko Bleher (explorer and expert in wild Discus), Sergey and Alexander Goriushkin, breeders from Russia, Sebastiano Solano (Italy, expert in Discus and international judge) etc.
Many firms will sponsorise the Event. There will be the booths of SERA, TETRA, PRODAC, ACQUARIO DI BOLOGNA, HYDOR, NEOGEA, GS TROPICALFISH, HOBBY FAUNA IMPORT EXPORT, AQUARIUMZOO, AQUAPRESS and others.
In the past we organized also the first Italian Betta Competition and the first Italian Guppy contest. We are interested in all the "Aquarium World" and among our members there are discuslovers, bettalovers, african cichlid experts, reef keepers, mediterranean fans, etc.
Finally, for the Discus enthusiasts, I would like to inform also that, by few time, it was published my new discus book "Trophy Discus" (only in English version) written in collaboration with two other authors, Dr. Sun See Seng (Singapore) and Dick Au (USA). I am proud of it because it is also the result of many year spent by me to breed and study the Discusfish.
Ciao a tutti.
Francesco
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