I just look up "new posts" ... on the icon with the envelope if you reply, there is a green arrow, so I often see threads I reply on and click out of curiosity if someone replied to me. That's just me though.
I saw a 3'' even smaller at a local LFS once a while back that had beautiful bright red tail already so I dont know if its a local thing or if its a diet thing. For 15.99 I was sorely tempted but would have known that catfish would have been either on the dinner table by now or in the "lessons learned" section in this forum.