About the Author

The author, Brian Andrews, was born in South Africa in 1951. He started keeping tropical fish as a hobbyist at the age of 8 years. Prior to fish farming, the author’s career included 2 years of work in the field of microbiology and 5 years in aquaculture research on the culture of marine algae, rotifers, oysters, abalone and prawns, concentrating particularly on larval rearing.

This was followed by the development of Amatikulu Hatchery Pty Ltd in South Africa by the author and his business partner. The farm grew to be the largest in the southern hemisphere at the time, marketing around 2.5 million fish per year of over 100 species/varieties, including egg-laying tropical fish and livebearers, as well as a range of goldfish and koi.

In 1990 the author immigrated to Australia and launched Kilcoy Ornamental Fish, a farm which grew to produce 800 000 fish per year, of about 50 varieties.

Over his entire fish farming career, the author was always acutely aware of the lack of books on ornamental fish farming, and as a result decided to write and share his knowledge. The unusually wide diversity of his experience in culturing ornamental fish outdoors and indoors, using small, medium and large-scale culture techniques to produce a very broad range of species commercially, with representatives from all of the major fish groups, has equipped him uniquely to share his experience through this book.