NEC 2015 March 20-22 Rocky Hill CT

[Shane]

2015 Convention Speakers

The Convention Committee is pleased to announce this year's speakers:

(In Alphabetical Order)

Ariel Bornstein

A lover of both gray and brown fish, Ariel has been an aquarist since the age of six and took special interest in cichlids at the age of eleven. As his tastes matured, and under the tutelage of his fish-gurus, he added killifish and characins to his repertoire. Between the ages of fifteen and twenty, he enabled his addiction by working at Uncle Ned's Fish Factory and interned for two years at the New England Aquarium.


Ariel has collected fish in Brazil, Gabon and Uruguay, focusing on bringing back and spawning odd dwarf cichlids, characins, killifish and barbs. Ariel has always had a special place in his heart for the Old World group of cichlids known as the tilapiines (Tilapia and their kin) and his interest, while enjoying them in the aquarium, extends to their natural history and biogeography and interrelationships.


Ariel is a former editor of Cichlid News and editor of the English-language version of Lamboj's The Cichlid Fishes of Western Africa. He enjoys fishing and custom rod building, photography, and working with unusual orchids and aroids.


A former resident of Massachusetts, Ariel now resides in southern Florida.

Pam Chin

WomenDriversNoSurvivorsLakeTanganyika

Pam loves cichlids! She has been a tropical fish enthusiast for many years and cichlids are her passion. Along with her husband Gary, they currently maintain over 100 aquariums in their fish house filled with cichlids from Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, and Central America.

Pam is an Honorary Life Member of the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (PCCA) and past editor of the PCCA's award winning publication; Cichlidae Communique. She has been a long time member of the American Cichlid Association in the past she has served as Secretary and Chairman for the Board of Trustees and was recently named an ACA fellow, it is the highest honor the American Cichlid Association gives to members for their support of this national organization.

Pam is an avid writer her cichlid articles and “Ask Pam” column have been published in the Buntbarsche Bulletin, Cichlid News, and aquarium societies from Australia to Sweden. She has received numerous writing awards from the ACA and FAAS, including “Best Continuing Column” and “Author of the Year.”

Pam is a founding member of “Babes In The Cichlid Hobby” where they try to make a difference in cichlid keeping, by raising money (Over $110,000.00 to date) for cichlid research and cichlid conservation.

Pam loves to travel with cichlid friends to fish events across North America. These friendships have led to expeditions and opportunities to visit fascinating places like Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika, South America & Mexico to observe cichlids in their natural habitats.

Her real job is working as a purchasing agent for a large mechanical contractor in Sacramento, Ca.

Mark Denaro

Mark Denaro has been keeping freshwater aquariums since 1970 and marine aquariums since 1976. In that time, his interests have spanned the entire range and have always included invertebrates and plants. Mark has been keeping planted and biotope aquariums since the mid-70s and was keeping reef aquariums before that term was coined. He has bred well over 200 species of freshwater fish and propagated over 150 species of aquatic plants. He has spawned 10 species of marine fish and propagated over 30 species of marine invertebrates.

During his 30+ years working in the pet industry, Mark has been involved in all phases of the business, from import/wholesale to retail. He has been in store management at both independent aquatics retailers as well as several large, big box chains and served as warehouse manager and sales manager for a regional wholesale company. Mark has owned an aquarium shop, a saltwater wholesale operation, several aquarium and terrarium installation and maintenance companies and Anubias Design, an online retailer of freshwater and marine fish, invertebrates and plants.

Mark is a coauthor of Adventurous Aquarist Guide to the 101 Best Freshwater Nano Species, published by Microcosm, Ltd. in September of 2014. He has written articles for several national and international magazines and writes the recurring column ‘Into the Labyrinth’ as well as feature articles for Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine.

Mark has been involved in the organized hobby since 1984 and has held almost every possible position in aquarium societies. He is a past president of the International Betta Congress, the Indianapolis Aquarium Society and the Bucks County Aquarium Society. He is a founding member and the inaugural president of the American Labyrinth Fish Association.

Mark currently works as a fish room manager for Pets Plus, a regional chain in the mid-Atlantic. He is a well-known speaker and judge and has lectured to more than 50 aquarium societies in 20 states plus Canada and Bermuda and spoken at numerous regional and national conventions.



Mike Hellweg


Mike has been keeping fish all of his life and breeding fish since he was 9 years old. Over the past 40 years he has specialized in miniature fishes, working with fishes that most other hobbyists overlook. He has bred most of the known Gourami species, over half of the known Betta species, several species of loaches, catfish from six different families, puffers, native fish, killies, over 120 species of livebearers from five different families, and many other miniature fishes giving him a BAP total of well over 400 species from 32 families of fish (only about 70 of which are cichlids!). He credits his success to keeping live plants in almost every tank and culturing and feeding an assortment of live foods daily to both his breeding stock and for growing the fry of these diverse fish. He currently maintains about 3000 gallons divided into about 100 tanks from 5 – 135 gallons.

Mike has been active in the organized hobby for nearly 30 years, and has given over 250 talks to groups all over North America in the past 25 years. He has served on the boards of several national organizations and he serves his local club as a councilor and is their auction and HAP chairman. Mike is a former American Fish International magazine columnist and has had well over 200 articles published in hobby magazines around the world, and has had two books on live foods published by TFH Publications.

Shane Linder

Catfish expert and naturalist Shane Linder is the “Shane” behind Planetcatfish.com‘s (http://www.Planetcatfish.com) Shane's World. Shane’s World houses well over 150 articles by various catfish experts making it the largest such resource known to exist.


Shane is also a frequent contributor to several US and international aquarium periodicals and has been a guest speaker at numerous fish conventions in the US and Europe.


From 2000-2011 Shane lived and collected fishes extensively in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa and Uganda. He has made additional collecting expeditions into Ecuador, Peru and Brazil.


Brian Perkins

Brian's father was an avid fish-keeper in his youth growing up in the Midwest United States in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s and so Brian was “imprinted” to theropical Fish hobby from very early in his life. Brian has kept and bred his own fish since 1965 when he received his first pair of bright red Swordtail livebearers as a present.

Since then, Brian has kept and bred many different fishes, maintaining an avid interest in Killifish, West African Tetras, Dwarf Cichlids and Catfish.

In 2003, Brian received the first shipment of wild-caught Corydoras weitzmani to reach North America, and his interest in this group of fishes started to grow once again, leading to his first trip to South America collecting these fish and many others, in 2005.

By 2008 Brian was starting his own Tourism and Exportation business, WildPERU (http://www.wildperu.net), based in Peru and making regular trips to all regions of the western Amazon. Brian finds the opportunity to go into unexplored areas of this region in search of new fishes to be an almost irresistible desire. He is constantly driven by his intense interest in seeing what is there beyond the next bend in the river.

Today after nearly 50 years of fishkeeping, Brian is still avidly learning more and more about the amazing world of fishes, plants and animals, but this time from working in the field and collecting known and new species. Brian says, "I am living a dream from when I was a small boy; to explore the less travelled areas of the world in search of the fishes that live there."

http://northeastcouncil.org/NewNEC/inde ... n-speakers

[TwoTankAmin]

I attend some parts of this event every year now- I made my first one in 02 or 03. It is a nice event, good people, good knowledge and this year's speaker lineup looks pretty good. If you can make it for any part of the weekend, try to as you will enjoy yourself.
I look forward to hearing Shane speak and am hoping his presentation will be catfish oriented. I look forward to seeing some of the fine PC folks there as well.

[Shane]

Hope to see some PC people there.
-Shane

[Jools]

Wish I could make it, I'll be at the CSG convention around about that time. Please post lots of pictures!

Cheers,

Jools

[TwoTankAmin]

I just wanted to mention that it was a nice weekend and Shane's presentation on "Exploring the Natural Habitats of Loricariidae"
was very interesting (it was the only one I could make, so I missed his second one: "Collecting Uganda"). I also learned that in addition to needing a big butt to collect plecos, they will attack if you are not on guard. Thank goodness they managed to save Jools.

I was mostly in the vendor room but, I know somebody was taking pictures.

[Jools]

Jools

[Shane]

Great weekend. Managed to get lots of time with Mark Soberman, Rachel O'Leary, "Two Tank" Chris, Steve Lundblad, Pam Chin, David and Jeanine Banks, and many others. Even had a phone call with Lee Finley during the banquet.

Chris even tried to raffle a Hypancistrus zebra after my talk for the benefit of PC. It was disallowed under some convention rule, but I am sure Jools appreciates the intent.

-Shane

[Uncle.Ned]

It was nice to meet you there.
I loved the talks.
I also missed the one on Uganda.
There was someone videoing the talks,
would you know if the videos are available?

[Jools]

TTA managed to provide a great $50 donation to Planet even given the issues with the auction - so very happy with that and that everyone enjoyed the event and had time to hang out.

Jools

[Shane]

Ned,
It was good to see you as well. I would suspect that you would need to contact NEC directly to get the videos.
-Shane