Salamanders, fish and aquarium equipment will be available for purchase at the Southern Illinois Aquarium Society’s first swap meeting from 12:30 to 4 p.m. March 16 in Student Center Ballroom B.

The event is $2 for students with university identification present, $3 for community members and $5 for families. The student center parking lot is free on Sunday.

The aquarium society was formed nine months ago, by Emil Sutton, Rich Cummings and Marion community member Steve Christian, who owns 80 aquariums. Tom McDowell, a macroinvertebrate specialist in the school of medicine, said the society is still small, consisting of six members.

McDowell said seven vendors will be at the event. Vendor tables are $15 and will be available for purchase at the event.

“Students can come out and sell stuff,” he said. “There will be freshwater and maybe saltwater fish. They’ll have guppies, angelfish… Pretty much any aquarium fish. One guy is going to sell plants.”

McDowell said the society will raffle off a 55-gallon tank set up for tickets at $1 and will raffle off fish food.

He said future events will have guest speakers and hopes to see at least 50 fish lovers come out.

For more information, call McDowell at 618-549-3897.

Luke Nozicka can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @LukeNozicka, or 536-3311 ext. 268.