available talks
Several times a year I travel to aquarium societies across the US and Canada to deliver one of my aquarium-related talks. If you see a talk that interests you, ask your local aquarium society to consider booking it. Here are the talks I have available:


 
The Art of Characins
keeping, breeding, and more...

The title and content are based on my seies in TFH magazine. I have identified four aspects of characins that require the aquarist to garner experience:

  • understanding the group of fishes called characins (including the tetras),
  • the characin keeper and the challenge of keeping these fishes (not all are a beginners' fish),
  • obtaining the rarer species (you see them in books but seldom in local pet stores), and,
  • the challenge of breeding them (most are not beginner fishes!).

    • When all is said and done, the audience should understand that there is an art to characins.

     
    Engineering My Aquaria Room

    After having kept fish for about ten years, I was tired of the clutter and haphazard state of my fishroom. I resolved to rebuild my fishroom into the room I wanted it to be. Being a software engineer by day, I decided to apply engineering principles to this project. This talk discusses how I determined what I really wanted out of my room and several of the design decisions I faced. Slides chronicle my progress. As the project evolved, I came to recognize that certain qualities transform a fishroom into an "aquaria room" -- much like a fish tank can be transformed into an aquarium.

     
    Community Tank Theory
    the art of selecting species and aquascaping

    [available Fall 2001]    What makes an aquarium a work of art? Art is deliberate; it demands the careful attention of the "artist." First, the environment and fish must be completely compatible. Second, the aquarist should choose a theme or purpose for the aquarium. And third, while building on this theme, the choice of species and aquascaping should employ variation -- variation of size, shape, color, pattern, behavior, and more. This talk is not just for beginners. Most aquarists today don't really know what it is that promotes a community tank into a work of art.