June 1 meeting: Dabbling in Dicrossus

Bio: Rebecca Goldring is social scientist and lifelong aquarium hobbyist. Fascinated with fish at an early age, but often discouraged and misunderstood, she eventually settled into being the weird kid. This aquatic obsession led to early employment opportunities at The Aquarium Center and Roraima Tropicals, outside of Baltimore, Maryland, as well as some freelance work writing for Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine. Early years spent watching fish and animal behavior fed into a career in behavioral and social sciences, where she applies her observational and investigational skills to larger societal issues. To this day, her favorite pastimes include keeping fish, looking at fish, fishing for fish, reading about fish, and writing about fish. She also thoroughly enjoys telling people where they can take their opinions about how much more time she'd have to clean if she didn't have so many fish. 

Rebecca currently maintains about 30 aquariums ranging in size from 5 to 300 gallons and keeps a variety of freshwater fish, aquatic plants, and invertebrates, as well as a few outdoor ponds. She’s bred a wide variety of fish, including South American Bumblebee Cats, Checkerboard Cichlids, Freshwater Pipefish, and many species of tetra. Current “fish goals” (STILL) include spawning some very uncooperative Gnathochromis permaxillaris, Corydoras pantanalensis, and Tetraodon schoutedeni. You can find her on Instagram at girlsgotfisshues.

The talk is titled Dabbling in Dicrossus and covers topics on general care, sexing, spawning, and rearing both Dicrossus maculatus and Dicrossus filamentosus. It includes detailed experiential information with both species and will have some new material on best practices for artificial rearing.