He currently maintains 70+ tanks for breeding and displaying fish ranging from 10 to 180 gallons. For the last 3 years, he has started breeding fish outside in 65 and 100-gallon tubs taking advantage of the conditions outdoor tubs offer for breeding fish during the summer months.

In July 2019 he had the opportunity to attend and speak at a scientific meeting in Brisbane, Australia. He took advantage of the opportunity to explore the outdoors after the meeting.  Leo O’Reilly, who collects, keeps, and breeds 20 locations of Rhadinocentrus took him fishing and showed him collecting, Aussie style, at Tin Can Bay.

Starting with the aforementioned swordtails, I continued with "Royal Blue" discus (an extraordinary rarity in the 1980s), followed by excursions into the world of tetras, dwarf cichlids, livebearer wild forms (resulting in several trips through Mexico) and Corydoras species, until I came across the rainbow fish at the end of the 1990s. These have not let me go until today and an end is not in sight.

Through the friendship with Dan Dority and Gary Lange and inspired by the travels of Gilbert Maebe the first idea of a trip to New Guinea was born in 2007, which then took place in 2008. From this trip, we brought back e.g. G. dorityi, G. pseudoincisus and M. praecox. This hooked me so much that five more trips followed and only the Corona virus could keep me from the seventh trip so far.

On the sixth trip in 2019 together with Wim Heemskerk, Gary Lange, and Marten Luter Salossa we again experienced a lot and discovered many new rainbowfish.  One of my talks will report on this trip. I thank you very much for the honor to speak at the ACA Triple Crown Convention. 

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. 

Leo has been a keen sports fisherman for many years, targeting large sport fish such as Barramundi, Saratoga, Bass, and Trout. But he’s only been keeping aquarium fish for the past 20 years. Leo has kept a variety of fish including Cichlids, Corydoras, Bristle nose catfish, Angelfish, and Gouramis. But these days he keeps mainly Australian Rainbowfish and specialises in the Rhadinocentrus ornatus (Ornate Rainbowfish) and the Pseudomugil mellis (Honey Blue-eye). He’s in the process of building a fish room, but currently does most of his breeding in ponds and tubs outdoors. Fortunately, the Australian climate in his area (equivalent to northern Florida) allows him to keep local rainbows outdoors all year without heating. He currently has around 100 small tubs ranging from 100lt (26 Gal) to 220lt (60 Gal), and 25 x 1,000lt (264 Gal) IBCs, with plans to add more IBCs.