Find a finned friend at a local aquarium shop

I was prepared to be bored all the way to my prenatal gills when I visited The Fish Store in Ravenna. While I've never had an aquarium of my own, I lived with my sister and my 10-year-old nephew when he caught the fish bug. They put together a tank, which, over the years featured danios, plecostomuses and Oscars -- pretty standard freshwater fish plagued by unfortunately high mortality rates that took some of the fun out of what seemed to me an already low-thrills pursuit.

But even before I noticed (well, actually, my husband noticed on a second visit) New Guinean penis sheaths hanging from the ceiling of The Fish Store, I got the sense that aquarium-keeping was more engaging than my memories of it. Entering the dimly lit space banked by glowing tanks sent a shiver down my spine.

In dozens of freshwater and saltwater habitats swam creatures I thought could only be captured by Jacques Cousteau types wielding special deep-water cameras. Crimson starfish, candy-cane-striped shrimp, bug-eyed puffers, Surinam toads that look like patches of skin resting on the gravel floor and a pea-green Moray eel that will grow to be 8 feet long -- "for a special buyer," explained my guide, Thom Lien, who has worked at the store for 15 years and refers to himself as "Thom the Ichthyogenius." (The last four digits of his telephone number spell FISH. He calls folks who obsessively collect fish "people with fishues.")

Passionate and experienced, Lien is precisely the sort of person you'll be likely to meet at small, independent fish-only shops. In addition to selection and expertise, folks like Lien are why you go.

"Find a local aquarium store, that's the most important point," says writer Peter Stekel, who lives with his wife, a couple of clown loaches, an algae-eater named Motormouth and two albino catfish in West Seattle. "That's where you'll find someone who knows what they are talking about."

Stekel relies on the experts at B&D Aquarium in White Center. "In an enclosed ecosystem, things go wrong. Fish take an amazing amount of work to keep healthy," he says. For small fish, people don't tend to see a vet; they go to their fish store. So the people behind the counter better know their stuff.

B&D has been around for 37 years, and the newest employee has been at the store for eight. Every day, customers from all around South and West Seattle rely on the old-fashioned shop to test water pH, troubleshoot algae and diagnose fish.

In addition to your fish gurus in local shops, fledgling and seasoned aquarium hobbyists exchange wisdom during meetings of the Greater Seattle Aquarium Society. This all-volunteer group meets the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 p.m. in Weter Hall at Seattle Pacific University. Get your feet -- or at least your hands -- wet Tuesday, March 11, when Luis Navaro speaks to the society on the art of aquascaping. Meetings are free to the public.

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