Speakers

The following speakers will be presenting at MACI in 2012.  We look forward to seeing them!

This list is in progress and will continue to be updated as we get more details.  Check back for updates.

Julian Sprung

Julian Sprung was born in 1966 in Miami Beach, Florida and is a graduate of the University of Florida, with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Zoology. He is President of the aquarium industry company Two Little Fishies, Inc. that he co-founded in 1991.

Julian has been keeping marine aquariums for more than 30 years, and is an aquarium design consultant, author, and photographer. He has dived in various Caribbean locales as well as in the Red Sea, Australia, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Japan, France, Croatia, Maine, and Oregon.

Julian’s books include The Reef Aquarium, volumes One, Two and Three, which he co-authored with J. Charles Delbeek, Corals: A Quick Reference Guide, Invertebrates: A Quick Reference Guide, and Algae: A Problem Solver Guide. Julian resides in Miami Beach with his wife and son, five marine aquariums, one freshwater aquarium, and a Westie.

Kevin Kohen

Kevin Kohen earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Wright State University, and is an avid marine life photographer, lifelong aquarist and marine fish enthusiast. He was one of the early pioneers maintaining live corals in captivity back in the early 80's.

He began his professional career in the marine fish industry working in a retail fish store, and then moved on to manage the operations of one of the largest freshwater and marine fish wholesale and import/export businesses in the Midwest for over eight years. From there, he ventured on to launch the LiveAquaria.com web site, and designed and oversaw the installation of the Drs. Foster & Smith Aquaculture Coral & Marine Life Facility. He currently oversees the operations of the facility, and is responsible for the acquisition of the animals, as well as their husbandry.

Kevin writes articles for various aquarium publications and speaks to reef clubs throughout the country. UPDATE: Kevin has recently succesfully paired, and spawned, several batches of eggs from the rare McCulloch's clownfish at the LiveAquaria.com facility in Rhinelander, WI! This has only ever been successfully accomplished by one other person in the world, and Kevin is the 1st in the U.S.

George Parsons

George is the Director of Fishes at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tal Sweet

Tal got back into the hobby in 2006 after a long break. He got sucked into fish breeding in 2008 after hearing Dr. Frank Marini speak at the Midwest Marine Conference. Since then he has created his own website with his personal captive breeding information and helped create the Marine Breeding Initiative. It is his hope to promote captive breeding as much as possible.

Captive Breeding FAQ

This presentation addresses some of the most frequently asked questions that hobbyists want answered before getting involved with captive breeding. To generate a common list of questions for his presentation, Tal ran a poll on multiple websites.