H&DAS 75th Birthday Bash and CAOAC Convention Speaker Bio

Jacqueline Heijman Bennett-Leaver

I was born in the Netherlands in a small town called Ede. It’s a beautiful heathland known for “Operation Market Garden” during World War II, situated in Hollands greenest part known as “The Veluwe”. My husband and I live in a small house right beside the woods and the heathland together with our two dogs. When I’m not working at the Zoo or taking care of my fish, I love to go out on long walks spotting wildlife and taking pictures.

My first tank was a 600L (~160 Gal) Discus tank. I added some Corydoras to it and that was the beginning of my fascination for catfish. I soon fell in love with these little cats and added some more which I kept in separate breeding set ups. It didn’t take long before I was breeding different species of Corydoras.

I swapped my 600L tank for a 2200L (~580 Gal) tank with larger Cichlids, a nice group of Brochis and some larger species of Loricarids. After our last house move I stopped keeping the big tank and build a small fish room with a number of smaller tanks.

At the moment I keep many different breeding projects as I have a strong desire to learn more about other species and even genera. I first started off with keeping and breeding many species of Hypancistrus but moved on to  much more interesting and challenging genera such as Ancistrus, Parancistrus, Spectracanthicus, Scobinancistrus, Panaqolus, Pseudancistrus, Sturisoma, Ageneiosus, Centromochlus and Tatia. Almost breeding all of them with great success. As a sidetrack I kept some Lifebearers just to have some fish actually swimming in the tanks.

One of my lifelong dreams would be to go out to see the habitat where many of my fish live in the wild. And learn about all there is to see out there. One should always have a dream!

I really love conventions as it is the best way to meet up with so many other different and like minded people in our wonderful hobby. I might be a little shy and overwhelmed but please come up and say hello!