Current CAFE News
June 2019 Meeting
The speaker for CAFE's June 1st meeting will be Mike Hellweg from St. Louis. He will give a presentation on "The Joy of Goldfish". This talk introduces the audience to Fancy Goldfish, their history, husbandry, and forms. It’s a light-hearted talk, and doesn’t really go into breeding, etc. but rather concentrates on the variety of forms and their unique and charming beauty.
The meeting will be held at 1125 Plant Sciences Laboratory, 1201 S. Dorner Drive Urbana, IL 61801. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. and will remain open until 7:00. Enter through the eastern most door on the north side of the building. Meeting starts at 7:00 p.m.
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 four decades plus he has specialized mainly in miniature fishes, and has had successful spawns from various miniature fishes totaling over 400 species from 32 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 and the top ranked aquatic horticulturist of all time in MASI’s HAP with over 300 submissions from 50 families, including more than a dozen by seed. He is an ALA Century Breeder, with over 100 species of Livebearers spawned. He credits his success to large regular water changes, keeping live plants in every tank and culturing and feeding an assortment of live foods daily for feeding his breeding stock and for growing the fry of these diverse fish.
Over the past three plus decades, Mike has given well over 325 talks to classes, clubs, groups and conventions all over the USA and Canada, has documented many of his keeping and spawning successes in over 300 articles published in hobby publications around the world, and he has had two books on live foods published by TFH Publications.
May 2019 Meeting in Review
Bob Hargis from Terre Haute, Indiana gave a talk on "The Homemade Fish Room". He discuss the many useful gadgets and techniques he has learned over decades of fish keeping. What ideas did you walk away with? Share your favorites with our Facebook Group (closed group).
April 2019 Meeting in Review
Rick Borstein gave a talk on tips and techniques for breading cichlids. He shared his preferred products and why he uses them. Also included in the talk were some do-it-yourself project ideas and some great cichlid pictures.
Rick is the Webmaster of the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association (GCCA), President of the Chicago Livebearer Society (CLS) and President of the Federation of American Aquarium Societies (FAAS). Rick was the Chairman of the successful 2006 American Cichlid Association Convention held in Chicago, IL. Rick has spawned over 200 species of cichlids and is one of only fourteen people to hold the title of Master Breeder in the GCCA. Rick’s basement fishroom has 44 tanks ranging in size from 5 gallons to 240 gallons. Rick is primarily interested in cichlids and livebearers.
March 2019 Meeting in Review
At March's meeting the club library was taken out of commission. CAFE members in attendance were able to keep a book of their choosing and given the opportunity to purchase addition books. The remaining books have been sold to a specialty book dealer who makes them available at fish related events. All proceeds from the sales have been added to the club funds.
Our Sponsor:
Champaign Area Fish Exchange © 2012 