About

 

I'm Jen, and I breed fish that I love. 

Critical Mass Aquatics is a small conservation-focused breeding operation in Eugene, Oregon. I run about 35 tanks, almost entirely dedicated to species that are rare, threatened, or barely present in the hobby.

I don't resell imports. Everything listed here was spawned and raised in my fishroom. Fish breed here because their environment supports it - planted tanks, appropriate water chemistry, proper social groups, no shortcuts. I breed a few species at a time and raise them slowly. You won't see a long stock list, and that's by design.

My background is in librarianship, which mostly means I'm compulsive about sourcing good information and impatient with bad. I bring that to fishkeeping: I track lineage, document breeding, and lean on primary literature and specialist references over forum wisdom.

The name "Critical Mass" is the point: building captive populations large enough to sustain themselves without further wild collection. That's the project. If you're here, you probably care about the same thing.

Hours

Visits and pickups are by appointment only.