Charles Clapsaddle

​Charles paid his way through college raising killifishes and Bettas to earn a BS in Zoology from The University of Texas at Austin. During his senior year in college, Charles and a partner bought a tropical fish shop in Austin and expanded it to two locations. A few years later they sold the business, and Charles turned to pond-raising and wholesaling fish on his family’s farm in Goliad County, Texas. He also experimented with recirculating systems using plant filtration.

After moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1992 with wife Susie, they opened a greenhouse-based recirculating system raising rainbowfishes. That business was named Santa Fe Tropical Fish, Inc. In 2000, they bought the family farm in Goliad and moved the hatchery there. The business was renamed Goliad Farms, Inc. (www.goliadfarms.com).

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Charles continued to refine the recirculating systems and plant filtration and expanded the hatchery to three greenhouses covering 7,500 square feet and housing over 800 vats. and holding 100,000 gallons of water in the vats, floor gutters, and sumps. Although the occupy breeds and raises many other fishes, invertebrates, and plants, it’s the development of new livebearer and cichlid strains and the improvement of existing strains that occupy his best efforts.

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Charles has spoken to aquarium clubs across the country on various topics relating to the hobby, his methods, and the farm’s operations. He is a prolific writer on aquarium topics (see his blogs at: www.goliadfarms.com/blog) and authored the livebearer column for Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine for three years. Goliad Farms, Inc. has an active YouTube channel providing information on his breeding and culturing techniques and the greenhouses.