November 2024 Speaker
Rebecca Goldring will talk about Fabulous Freshwater Puffers.
Date: November 7th 2024
Synopsis: This talk focuses on caring for some
of the biggest personalities in the aquarium hobby:
Freshwater Puffers. Learn about how to feed and care
for these fascinating fish, from tankmates to dentistry
and everything in between.
Bio: Rebecca Goldring is social scientist and lifelong
aquarium hobbyist. Fascinated with fish at an early age,
but often discouraged and misunderstood, she eventually
settled life as a weird kid. This aquatic obsession led
to early employment opportunities at The Aquarium Center
and Roraima Tropicals, outside of Baltimore, Maryland, as well as some
freelance work writing for Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine. Early years
spent watching fish and animal behavior fed into a career in behavioral
and social science research, where she applies her observational and
investigational skills to larger societal issues. To this day, her
favorite pastimes include keeping fish, looking at fish, fishing for fish, reading about fish, and writing
about fish. She also thoroughly enjoys telling people where they can take their opinions about how much more
time she'd have to clean if she didn't have so many fish.
Rebecca currently maintains about 30 aquariums ranging in size from 5 to 300 gallons and keeps a
variety of freshwater fish, aquatic plants, and invertebrates, as well as a few outdoor ponds. She's bred a
wide variety of fish, including South American Bumblebee Cats, Checkerboard Cichlids, Enneacampus ansorgii
"Cameroon," and many species of tetra. You can find her on Instagram at girlsgotfisshues.
October 2024 Speaker
Anton Lamboj will talk about his trips to Australia. His topic will include a discussion on reptiles and birds)
Date: October 3rd 2024
Dr. Anton Lamboj is an ichthyologist, associated
scientist and lecturer at the University of Vienna.
He is an addicted aquarist for more than 55 years,
and in both aspects of interest his main focus is on
cichlid fishes of Western Africa. He mainly works
with systematics and evolutionary biology of these
fishes, but another strong interest is conservation
biology of riverine cichlids of this region. A second
love is for anabantoid fishes from Asia, but in
general he is interested in any fish.
He has made numerous field trips to Africa, South East Asia,
Australia, North, Central and South America, to study and to
collect fish in the natural environment, to understand ecological
needs and the situation of fish.
He has authored more than 500 papers (academic and aquaristic)
in eleven languages, including six books and contributions to about
40 other books. He is an honorary member of several aquarium organizations.
Additionally, he is promoting several ex-situ conservation programs,
in cooperation with public aquariums, as well as with private groups and clubs
