AUGUST 2026: DANIOS, DEVARIOS, AND THEIR KIN: Speaker Mike Hellweg (St. Louis, MO)

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NWAAS In-person meeting and program:
Danios, Devarios, and their kin
Speaker: Mike Hellweg

This talk covers the amazing members of the genera Danio and Devario and some of their amazing close relatives. Who would have thought that you could do an entire talk on Danios? There are dozens of species, many with interesting behavior, that have entered the hobby in the past ten to fifteen years. Many of these fascinating fish are from Burma, which was only barely represented in the hobby until very recently. Plus there is the amazing Zebra Danio and all of its contributions to human health

About this Speaker:
Mike has been fascinated by fishes all his life, and has had various fishes as pets since he could barely reach the top of the goldfish bowl; he has been successfully breeding and trading fish with local shops since he was 9 years old. Over the past five decades plus he has specialized mainly in miniature fishes, and has had successful spawns from nearly 500 species representing 35 families of fish. He was recently named a Fellow of the Missouri Aquarium Society in recognition to his decades of service to the Society and to the Hobby. He currently owns a small fish hatchery and maintains about 3000 gallons divided into 100 tanks. He is the top ranked breeder of all time in the Missouri Aquarium Society, Inc. (MASI) BAP, he was the top ranked aquatic horticulturist for over 30 years in MASI’s HAP with over 320 submissions from 50 families, including more than a dozen by seed, and he is an ALA Century Breeder, with nearly 150 species of Livebearers spawned. He credits all of these successes to large regular water changes, keeping live plants in every tank and culturing and feeding an assortment of live foods daily for both his breeding stock and for growing the fry of these diverse fish.

In the past four decades, Mike has given over 400 talks to classes, clubs, groups and conventions all over the USA and Canada, has documented many of his keeping and spawning successes in well over 400 articles published in hobby publications around the world, including writing the Aquarium Fish International column, Adventures in Fish Breeding for over a decade, and his award winning column Minifins published in the Darter since the 1990s. He has had two books on live foods published by TFH Publications and has written a very popular booklet on shipping fish. An updated live foods book and a book on breeding fish will be coming out soon, with more to follow.



Meeting Location:
Millwood Christian Church
3450 W. Pleasant Grove Rd.
Rogers, AR 72758
(Just off I-49, exit #81 west)

Free admission • Refreshments • Mini Auction