O’Leary, Rachel

Rachel O’Leary of Mount Wolf, Pennsylvania has been in the hobby since childhood but has gotten increasingly active in the past decade. She is currently operating over seventy tanks with interests that range from the micro to monster. She has a special focus on dwarf freshwater invertebrates including snails, shrimp, crayfish, and aquatic crabs as…

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Randall, Karen

Karen Randall grew up with aquariums as a child. While experienced in many facets of the aquarium hobby, as an adult her focus turned to a concentration on planted display aquariums and the study and propagation of aquatic plants. Her articles and photography have been published in multiple languages and publications around the world. For…

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Hemdal, Jay

Jay Hemdal has kept aquariums for over 40 years.  He worked in various retail and wholesaoe aquarium firms from grade school through college.  After graduating from collete, he managed the aquarium department ofa large retail pet store for five years until 1985, when he was hired as an aqurist (and later fishes departent manager) for…

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Galarraga, Luca

Luca Galarraga is the founder of Aquabase in Brazil. To call Aquabase a “local fish store” would be a misstatement; it’s a community that fosters the skills of aquascaping through mentorship and workshops. He has been an aquarist since 1976. He is a regular competitor and winner of aquascaping contests, including the Brazilian contest CBAP…

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Laurens, Bart

Bart Laurens was born in Palembang on Sumatra, Indonesia in 1947, at that time a Dutch colony. At the age of one and a half his parents brought him to the Netherlands, and so he regrets that he doesn’t remember a thing of his homeland. It was his grandfather who caused his interest in aquariums.…

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Cho, Chi Hung

Pacific Aquarium has been in NYC since 1980. New York City’s source for exotic tropical fish and their state-of-the-art man-made environments, has a faithful following among consumers. Pacific houses close to 150 stocked display tanks with many dozens of species of fancy goldfish; Japanese koi; chichlids from both Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika; silver and black arrowanas;…

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