Gary Lange
Gary has been keeping fish since he was 10 and has been associated with the organized hobby for the last 39 years. He is a member of the Missouri Aquarium Society (MASI) and has held various positions in the club. He is a grand master breeder in MASI, and has won "Best Fish In Show" on four different occasions, twice with rainbowfish.
Extended Bio
In 2005 he took the rainbowfish collectors' dream trip – collecting in West Papua. He’s now made a total of seven trips to West Papua. He brought back rainbowfish that have never been seen in the hobby including Chilatherina alleni and Melanotaenia vanheurni. With these trips, he’s collected and brought back at least 15 different undescribed species of rainbowfish. Gary, along with his collecting partners, Johannes Graf and Wim Heemskerk are currently working on getting them named. He is currently running over 90 aquariums (~2,500 gallons, 9,500 liters) and keeping over 65 species and locations of rainbowfish and blue-eyes.
Featured Talks
Everything You Wanted to Know About Rainbowfish But Were Afraid to Ask
Friday - 1:00- 2:30
How to keep them happy, all about RAINBOWFISH SEX, how to raise the fry and how to keep your fish pure and uncrossed! I’ll go over some of the basic “groups” that form the different tribes of rainbowfish and how sampling different species in New Guinea has opened my eyes to a lot of previous assumptions that were incorrect. Science is moving forward with DNA analysis and more new places to collect and species to find!
The Blood Sweat and Cheers of 105 Days of Chasing Rainbowfish in New Guinea
Saturday - 11 -12:30
Since 2005 I have been fortunate enough to make seven trips to West Papua. We have brought back species that haven’t been in the hobby as well as some fifteen brand new species of rainbowfish! I’ll take snippets from each of those trips showing you the wonderful fish found and some of the difficulties encountered to collect them.