August 2009 Speaker Preview
This August we are excited to welcome our guest speaker, Mike Hellweg.
Mike has been an aquarist and breeder for over 35 years, working almost exclusively with fishes that mature at 4” or less in his 60 plus aquaria - primarily Livebearers, Anabantoids, and Egg-scatterers. Having bred well over 200 species from 24 families of fish, he is the top ranked Grand Master Breeder of all time in his local club. With nearly 200 species of aquatic plants propagated (including many by seed), he is also their top ranked Grand Master Aquatic Horticulturist, and he recently earned the ALA award of Master Breeder.
Mike is currently the President of the Missouri Aquarium Society, Inc. and has served on their board of directors since 1989, has recently served as Vice Chairman of the American Livebearer Association and is currently the Historian for the Aquatic Gardener’s Association. He is a trained and experienced Show Judge and gives about a dozen fish-related talks to various hobby groups and gatherings each year.
A prolific writer, his monthly column Adventures in Fish Breeding appears in Aquarium Fish International magazine and his series Live Foods for Cichlids appears in the Buntbarsche Bulletin. He is a regular contributor to Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine and has had articles published in various hobby publications around the world in several languages. His first aquarium-related book, Culturing Live Foods for Aquarium Fishes, has recently been released by TFH Publications, and his second book Complete Herp Care: Raising Live Foods will be released by TFH Publications late in 2009, with more underway.
He has owned and operated Exotic Aquatics (www.minifins.com), a mail-order fish and aquatic plant business since 1994.
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