CLS October Meeting

CLS meets at 1:30PM right after the GCCA Swap Meet.

Hilton Northbrook Hotel
2855 Milwaukee Ave
Northbrook, IL 60062
Map & Directions

Mike Hellweg presents "On the Origin of Livebearer Names"

This talk introduces the scientific names of Livebearing Fishes and their interesting and sometimes unusual origins. It’s a light-hearted look at the history of livebearing fishes in the hobby and in science and sneaks in some relevant care information at the same time.

About the Speaker

Mike has been fascinated by fishes all his life, and has had various fishes as pets since he could barely reach the top of the goldfish bowl; he has been successfully breeding and trading fish with local shops since he was 9 years old. Over the past five decades plus he has specialized mainly in miniature fishes, and has had successful spawns from over 475 species representing 33 families of fish. He currently owns a small fish hatchery and maintains about 3000 gallons divided into 100 tanks. He is the top ranked breeder of all time in the Missouri Aquarium Society, Inc. (MASI) BAP, the top ranked aquatic horticulturist of all time in MASI’s HAP with over 320 submissions from 50 families, including more than a dozen by seed, and he is an ALA Century Breeder, with nearly 150 species of Livebearers spawned. He credits all of these successes to large regular water changes, keeping live plants in every tank and culturing and feeding an assortment of live foods daily for both his breeding stock and for growing the fry of these diverse fish.

Over the past three plus decades, Mike has given over 350 talks to classes, clubs, groups and conventions all over the USA and Canada, has documented many of his keeping and spawning successes in over 375 articles published in hobby publications around the world, and he has had two books on live foods published by TFH Publications and has written a very popular booklet on shipping fish.

Donations for our Table

The primary way we raise money for our club is through table sales at the GCCA Swap Meet. Please bring your donation fish to our table as early as possible.

This helps us raise money for the club to present programming to you!

Please bring your BAP fish as usual, but make sure you bring a filled out BAP form with you.