Hi,
I'm a little late on the uptake, but yes, an Eastern MA group would be a great thing. I think Bailin's idea of meeting quarterly, or bi-monthly would be good. I'm in two tropical plant societies, and they meet monthly - its amazing how quickly the meetings roll around!
Anyhow, yes, sadly, I'm one of the folks from MA who was unable to travel to the CT meetings of the NE APS. But gosh, I did enjoy the meetings I was able to attend! And... the planted demo tank NE APS (led by Bailin, Dennis and Bryce) set up at Ned's has been going through a lot of changes, but seems to be a more or less permanent fixture there now! There have been times its looked excellent! And, of course, times its looked less than excellent. Its kind of funny - for awhile, it was the quasi-"magical" healing tank - they'd put any fish that were not looking happy into that tank, and they'd color up nicely and start eating again.
Personally, I'm just re-emerging after about a 2-year hiatus from major planted tank keeping. I went from the 7 planted tanks I had down to just my 30 gallon "El Natural" tank. The poor thing got only minimal attention - feed the fish, top off evaporated water, change the mechanical filter media now and then, and make sure the light on the timer went on and off as scheduled. I occasionally fed black worms, which apparently set up camp in a dark corner and struck a balance with light predation by the fish. It became an overgrown mini-pond, but a surprisingly healthy one. I have started clearing it out though, and I'm totally amazed at what has not only survived, but flourished in that El Natural tank... left to its own devices. I found a really big Crinum calimistratum hidden among the hygro (it was tiny when I last saw it) and some crypts hiding out as well. I did lose my big Angelfish about a year ago, and a couple of very very old (geriatric) Red Line Rasboras, but the harlequins, danios, ottocinclus and even the "delicate" R. vatifloris were hale and hearty (when I finally pushed aside the dense plants and SAW them for a change, LOL) I tested the water for the first time in months (I know, I know!) before starting to do any big changes, and it was a perfect 7.0 pH, with no ammonia or nitrates, and KH and GH in the "normal" range. HOW it did that ..... I have no clue - I've chalked it up to sheer luck.
So I'm back on the bandwagon of actually paying attention to my tanks, and have resurrected one of the 10-gallons which spent the last 18 months as a 3" deep bog. The anubias nana 'petite' seem to have liked the shallow, barely submerged conditions though, but the wood was disintegrating so I'll have to replant it on something else. That tank, substrate intact (an already settled-down soil substrate is something not to disturb, like sleeping dogs....) is now happily growing some Bylxa japonica, pink-veined hygro, various rotalas and the start of a glosso patch.
Now that the warm weather is here, all the substrate rinsing and tank washing tasks are easier - yay!
So, are folks looking for something accessible by T, or in the Boston 'burbs?
Good to see some activity on the NE APS area - I really DO miss our meetings. They were always great, and I always learned SO much!
-Jane