Author: Benjamin McBride

November 9, 2025 @ 1200

Maretta Zufuto will be speaking at GPAS in November on “The Selective Breeding in Betta Splendens”.  This talk will not only cover the breeding aspects of keeping bettas, but will  touch on betta standards, health and genetic considerations, choosing which fish to pair, conditioning, spawning, and raising them.  Maretta will also very briefly cover selling and breeding for profit since bettas produce soooooo many fish.

Maretta has been keeping fish since 2019, gradually expanding from small personal setups and posting on social media into breeding, importing and selling fish online.

Between 2021 and 2023, she focused on breeding both domestic and wild bettas, while also importing shrimp and other nano species for her website. In spring of 2023 her part time betta retail business began to grow and she was able to stop school run a full time business.

In July 2024, PNW Bettas opened a retail aquarium store in Corvallis, Oregon, where she have a full array of freshwater aquarium fish, inverts, and products. She stocks a lot more then just bettas, but focus on nano fish, and of course a larger betta selection.

At the conclusion of his presentation Eric will be available for a Q & A and will be available for questions during breaks as well.

September 14th 2025 @ 1200

Please join GPAS in welcoming Dr. Eric Thomas for his presentation: “When is a Species not a Species.”

Eric Thomas started keeping fish around 1970, at about 8 years old with his older brother Bill. From 1970-1978, they kept and bred mouth-brooding cichlids (Geophagus and several Lake Malawi mbuna including Labeotropheus trewavasae, Maylandia zebra and Melanochromis auratus), along with Steatocraneus casuarius…and convict cichlids (who doesn’t start with convicts?). Eric and Bill were members of the now-defunct Tri-City Aquarium Society of Southern California. In college, Eric studied captive husbandry of vertebrates; with his mentor Professor Rudolfo Ruibal at UC Riverside, in 1978 Eric was the first person to breed the Budgett’s frog Lepidobatrachus laevis in captivity. In Dr. Ruibal’s lab, Eric learned about and began studying skin glands and their function. Eric went on to earn a Ph.D. under Dr. Paul Licht at UC Berkeley, studying reproductive endocrinology and the influence of sex hormones on frog skin glands. Eric is an Associate Professor of Biology (and former Co-Chair and Director of Graduate Studies) for the Biological Sciences Department at University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Eric’s research is split between reproductive pheromone production Hymenochirus frogs, self-poisoning in cory catfishes, and recently he’s started studying Microglanis bumblebee catfishes in Peru.

At home, Eric’s interests are keeping and breeding catfish, including Corydoradinae, Loricariidae, Auchenipteridae, and Pseudopimelodidae (mostly Microglanis); Eric is perhaps best known for having bred some oddball catfish, including the South American banjo catfish Bunocephalus coracoideus, the African bumblebee catfish Microsynodontis sp. `Nigeria` and the marbled talking catfish, Amblydoras nauticus. Between home and work, Eric runs up to 35 aquaria and currently has over 40 species of catfish. Eric operates a YouTube Channel (Bekateen) and FaceBook page (Bekateen’s FishRoom) for sharing his knowledge and experiences with fellow fish keepers; he is also a moderator on PlanetCatfish.com, and he served seven years as the program coordinator for the Sacramento Aquarium Society.

At the conclusion of his presentation Eric will be available for a Q & A and will be available for questions during breaks as well.

Sunday August 10 2025 @ 1200

Please join GPAS in welcoming Lowell Dunnaway, the man behind the hit YouTube channel Lowell’s Fish Lab as he discusses “Practical Methods of Breeding Fish.”

Lowell has had a lifelong fascination with aquatic animals and kept both tropical and native Californian species throughout his childhood. As an adult, an unexpected spawn introduced him to breeding fish; a pursuit that now dominates his free time.

In 2020, Lowell created a YouTube channel (Lowell’s Fish Lab). The channel seeks to document the reproductive behaviors of species available in the aquarium hobby as well as methods that might be used to facilitate successful spawns.

In early 2022, he began development of a 3D printable, air-powered enclosure for safely housing larval and juvenile fish. After much testing and revision, the enclosure is now in use by fish breeders around the world.

Lowell will be available for question after his presentation and during breaks.  Please feel free to introduce yourself to him and ask away.

Sunday June 15th @ 1200

Please join GPAS in welcoming famed Brazilian ichthyologist Leandro de Sousa.  Dr. de Sousa is well known in the catfish community for his work in describing new Brazilian species of fish as well as his contribution to the reclassification of the the sub-family Corydoradinea that was published in the summer of 2024.

His most recent work was the classification of Hypancistrus seideli which is made up of several popular loricariids in the hobby including: L236 RB Super White, L66, L333 King Tiger, L399 and L400 (likely L345 and L173 as well).  This paper also gave formal classification to the L174 Ocelot or Panther Pleco was given the name Hypancistrus yudja.

Dr. de Sousa will be speaking about his work with Brazilian catfish and beyond.

At the conclusion of the presentation Dr. de Sousa will host a Q & A and will be available to talk/answer questions during breaks as well.

Sunday May 18, 2025 @1200

Nate Crilly is a veterinary pathologist who has spent more than a decade providing care for aquatic animals in health and disease. Nate grew up  in Knoxville, Tennessee where he also attended university.

From 2018 to 2024, he lived in Baltimore, Maryland, where he worked with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, National Aquarium, Maryland Zoo, and John Hopkins Medical Institute.  In 2024, Nate relocated to Portland, Oregon, where he has been delighted to connect with the thriving aquarist hobby of the Pacific Northwest.

Nate’s main aquarium is a thriving 60 gallons colony of small red creatures, including cherry shrimp, chili rasboras, lizard catfish, and endler’s livebearers. Aside from fish, he also has two greyhounds and a garden full of blueberry bushes.

Nate’s talk is entitled “When Things Matter, It Matters How They End: Euthanasia in Ornamental Fish and Invertebrates.” He will be discussing humane methods of euthanasia in fish and other aquatic pets, centered around practical advice for hobbyists.

At the conclusion of the presentation Nate will host a Q & A and will be available to talk/answer questions during breaks as well.

Sunday March 9, 2025 @ 1200pm

Jebriel Houdroj, is a proud Lebanese American born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. He works at The Wetspot Tropical Fish in Portland, Oregon as a store manager and has been the plant specialist for 5 years.

He has been keeping aquariums on and off for over 12 years; though his love for aquatic flora didn’t start until about 7 years ago. In his free time outside of work, he cultivates and documents his process of (amateurly) dissecting species of bucephalandra and their inflorescences.

His interest in bucephalandra sp. started in 2018 due to finding out their endangered status and he has only grown since then.  His goal is to help stop the misinformation spread in the hobby about bucephalandra and other rheophytic plants, and also inform people on the importance of cultivation over exploitation

Jebriel’s talk will be titled “Cultivation over Exploitation” and will discuss how to properly cultivate bucephalandra in the the aquarium in addition to how to properly identify (or at least try to) the species you’re keeping.  Additionally he will detail some of his adventures in dissecting bucephalandra and how he was able to identify the species.

Jebriel will further share a ‘How To’ on growing bucephalandra terrestrially and cultivating emersed plants. He will cover the difference between ‘Epiphytic & Rheophytic’ plants and how we have been using the incorrect terms for years as well as the importance of cultivation.

At the conclusion of the presentation Jebreil will host a Q & A and will be available to talk during breaks as well.

Sunday February 16, 2025 @1200

Allen Barber was born in Johannesburg, South Africa immigrating to the United States in 1963.  He has lived all over North American since, spending significant time in Dallas, Winnipeg Canada, Chicago and Los Angeles before moving to Battle Ground, Washington in March of 2024.

Allan has been an avid aquarist most of his life breeding numerous species of fish including anabantoids, ancistrus, corydoras and cichlids.  However, his true love is Killifish of which he has bred in excess of 100 different species.  His “killidiction” began in 1977.

Allen’s presentation will cover a wide array of topics relating to killifish including a brief introduction to killis, best practices in keeping killis, where killi populations are found, spawning killis, collecting eggs, raising fry and best practices for purchasing and shipping killis.

At the conclusion of the presentation Allen will host a Q & A and will be available to talk/answer questions during breaks as well.

Sunday January 12, 2025 @1200

Please join GPAS in welcoming OG B.i.t.C.H (Babes in the Cichlid Hobby) Caroline Estes for her speaking engagement on the History of Women in the Aquarium Hobby.

Caroline Estes has been in the aquarium hobby for over 42 years and a member of the American Cichlid Association since 1987 and is currently a fellow.

She co-founded Babes in the Cichlid Hobby (B.i.t.C.H.) in 1994, and has helped to raise well over $200,000 for cichlid conservation and research through raffles, a women run late night auction for featuring interesting cichlids (call the Babes live auction) and silent auctions of donated aquarium items.

Caroline likes to get her feet wet has collected native species all over Texas and Mexico. She recently got to spend two weeks on Lake Tanganyika with Ad Konigs and fellow B.i.t.C.H.es. 

Caroline owned Amazonia Aquariums (AA) in Austin, Texas for 20 years. AA is a cichlid specialty store with 500 tanks that stressed conservation and breeding.  Now happily retired from retail, Caroline spends her time being in a band, going to see live music, working on local political issues at the state capitol and collecting folk art, all the while thrilled to death to be out of the retail and back to enjoying cichlids as a hobby, and not as livelihood.

At the conclusion of the presentation Caroline quickly host a Q & A that will be limited in time to ensure she is able to catch her plane home.