Author: Benjamin McBride

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.