Mike has been fascinated by fishes all his life, and has had various fishes as pets since he could barely reach the top of the goldfish bowl; he has been successfully breeding and trading fish with local shops since he was 9 years old. Over the past four decades plus he has specialized mainly in miniature fishes, and has had successful spawns from various miniature fishes totaling over 400 species from 32 families of fish. He is the top ranked breeder of all time in the Missouri Aquarium Society, Inc. (MASI) BAP and the top ranked aquatic horticulturist of all time in MASI's HAP with over 300 submissions from 50 families, including more than a dozen by seed. He credits his success to large regular water changes, keeping live plants in every tank and culturing and feeding an assortment of live foods daily for feeding his breeding stock and for growing the fry of these diverse fish.
Mike has given nearly 300 talks to classes, clubs, groups and conventions all over the USA and Canada, has documented many of these keeping and spawning successes in more than 250 articles published in hobby publications around the world, and has had two books on live foods published by TFH Publications.

Mike presents programs on various hobby topics to local schools as well as hobbyist organizations, shows, and conventions around the country.  A prolific writer, he has written many articles for local and national hobbyist organizations and is a regular contributor to Tropical Fish Hobbyist, Aquarium Fish International and other magazines.  He writes Adventures in Fish Breeding, a monthly column in Aquarium Fish International, and has recently won the year-long Breeder’s Challenge that was documented on the pages of TFH .  His first book, Culturing Live Foods, was published by TFH in June of 2008.  His second book, Raising Live Foods: Complete Herp Care, was released by TFH in December of 2009, with more to follow.  He currently owns and operates Exotic Aquatics, selling uncommon fish, live foods, his own line of flake and pellet foods, and aquatic plants both to local hobbyists and to hobbyists around the country.