Mike Hellweg

Mike will be presenting two seminars for the WAKO show: “Live Foods” and also “Miniature Oddballs”. Both seminars are free and open to the public. They will be given on Saturday Nov. 6^th and of course they will be geared with the Killifish hobbyist in mind.

Mike has been a hobbyist since he was a child, breeding Swordtails and successfully raising them when he was 9 years old. Mollies, Guppies, Corys and Danios soon followed. He quickly discovered that breeding fish was fun and challenging and that pet stores would swap him fish that he raised for other fish, tanks and equipment. His hobby quickly grew from there to the point where he was selling fish that he raised to shops all around town.

As the only person to reach the rank of sixth level Grand Master Breeder in his local club, the Missouri Aquarium Society, Inc., he has convinced more than 250 species from more than 25 families to breed, and successfully raised their fry, including such diverse challenging fishes as Kuhli Loaches, Chocolate and Licorice Gouramis, and many other Anabantoids, Dwarf Puffers, several species of tiny Cyprinids, wild Livebearers, Corys, West African Cichlids, Apistogrammas, Killies, North American Native fish, and Tetras, not to mention Pipid frogs. He cultures and uses many different types of live foods, attributes much of his success to their use, and champions their use in his writings and talks. His fishroom of nearly 100 from 10 – 75 gallons (two 125’s will soon be installed) is dedicated to working with “miniature fishes” with adult sizes under 4” in length. All of these are full of live plants as well, and Mike is his club’s only fifth level Grand Master Aquatic Horticulturist, having propagated more than 200 species of aquatic plants, many of them by seed.

He is active in the organized hobby – having served on the Executive Council of the Missouri Aquarium Society since 1989, serving 13 and a half of those years as their president. He has also served on the BOD of the American Livebearer Association, including two terms as their Vice Chairman, and has served as the Historian of the Aquatic Gardeners Association for many years. He is the moderator for the American Killifish Association’s Foods and Feeding Forum.

Mike presents programs on various hobby topics to local schools as well as hobbyist organizations, shows, and conventions around the country. A prolific writer, he has written many articles for local and national hobbyist organizations and is a regular contributor to Tropical Fish Hobbyist, Aquarium Fish International and other magazines. He writes Adventures in Fishbreeding, a monthly column in Aquarium Fish International, and is currently locked in a breeding contest being published on the pages of TFH as well. His first book, Culturing Live Foods, was published by TFH in June of 2008. His second book, Raising Live Foods: Complete Herp Care, was released by TFH in December of 2009, with hopefully more to follow. He currently owns and operates Exotic Aquatics, selling uncommon fish, live foods, his own line of flake and pellet foods, and aquatic plants both to local hobbyists and to hobbyists around the country.