August 2017 Speaker
Joel Antkowiak - Experiences with CARES Priority List Species
Date: September 7th 2017Joel Antkowiak will be speaking on "Experiences with CARES Priority List Species" This program introduces the audience to the CARES program and then goes on to discuss various experiences with many CARES Priority List species that he has kept in over 40 years of fishkeeping. Another program that constantly changes, unfortunately it is usually due to species being added to the CARES Priority List.
Born on the Southside of Pittsburgh in 1962, Joel's first brush with the organized hobby came in 1976 when he found an ad for the American Killifish Association in an old aquarium hobby magazine. Having always appreciated the beauty of these fishes from the color plates in the old "Innes book", and not seeing them in local stores, he joined in order to acquire some. A few years later Joel found the Greater Pittsburgh Aquarium Society, where he was a member for a few years before graduating from the University of Pittsburgh and moving out of the area. Joel is now living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where he is an active member of the Aquarium Club of Lancaster County. Joel has earned many of the club’s annual awards, and was the FAAS Author of the Year for 2012. Joel has been awarded the club’s annual “CARES Member of the Year” award for each year from 2011 thru 2016. Most recently, Joel has just been honoured with lifetime membership in the ACLC for completing the highest level of the club’s Writer’s and Artist’s Award Program. Joel has maintained anywhere from a few to about 60 tanks at any one time throughout his adult life and has kept many different species of fish. He is often amazed at how some species were once very common and now seem to be non-existent despite their attractiveness and ease of care and husbandry, seemingly pushed out of the hobby by the “next great thing.” Joel has most recently been added to the official CARES speaker list and is honoured to be able to work with some of the greats in hobby in this capacity.
