Lee Finley

Lee has been an aquarium hobbyist/professional for over 40 years. As an integral part of this, Lee has regularly written on various aquarial topics over the past 30 years and has over 335 published articles to his credit. Among these writings are included almost 12 years of a monthly book review column (“Aquarist’s Library”) in Aquarium Fish Magazine, and almost six years of a monthly catfish column (“Catfish Corner”) in Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine. After a little “vacation”, Lee has once again returned to the “Catfish Corner” in TFH, and this second set of installments has been appearing since June, 2005.

Lee has enjoyed the pleasures of many different fishes over the years and many of his early experiences were mainly with cichlids. From there he moved on to catfishes and this fascinating group has kept him interested and challenged for the past 27 or so years. This interest has prompted some travel, and Lee has made four trips to South America (Brazil and Peru) to observe and catch catfishes (and cichlids) in their natural habitat.
Lee has been involved in many other aspects of the aquarium hobby/industry. In the past he was owner/operator of an independent pet store. For the last eight years, Lee has run a predominately mail order book business (Finley Aquatic Books) dealing in both new and used literature encompassing all aspects of the aquarium hobby and aquatic natural history.

As noted above, Lee has returned to the “Catfish Corner” and this (and other writing projects, some of which deal with the early history of the aquarium hobby) will be developed around the many and varied aspects of catfishes including taxonomy, natural history and their captive care and breeding. For the last year or so Lee has been actively working on a web publishing project (siluri-gut.net) which deals with the natural diet of catfishes. Like many such things there have been unanticipated bumps in the road, but the site is expected to open in late 2008.

Lee is not a new speaker for the ACA. In days long past (1980 to be exact) he presented a program to the group in Cleveland, OH and looks forward to being back again in Atlanta, GA (the city of his birth).