Our editorial team
Authors
Every care guide on this site is researched, written and fact-checked by a UK aquarist with real tanks, real fish and real mistakes learned. Here's who writes for us.
Dr. Aisha Rahman
Scientific Reviewer · PhD Ichthyology · 20+ years
Dr. Rahman holds a PhD in Ichthyology from the University of Southampton (2012), with a dissertation on freshwater fish stress physiology. She runs her own 600-litre Rift Lake display at home and reviews Tropical Fish Co's guides for scientific accuracy — particularly any claim that touches fish physiology, water chemistry, or disease.
ProfileConnor Boyle
Marine & Coldwater Specialist · 9+ years
Connor kept a reef aquarium for four years before switching to coldwater native fish and goldfish — he now runs a 400-litre river-community tank modelled on the Thames chalk streams. He writes Tropical Fish Co's coldwater, native-UK, and future marine guides.
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Hannah Nielsen
Planted-Tank Photographer & Writer · 10+ years
Hannah is a Cambridge-based aquarium photographer and writer whose planted-tank work has appeared in Practical Fishkeeping and the ADA Aqua Journal digital edition. She writes Tropical Fish Co's deep species guides on schooling tetras and planted-tank communities — always accompanied by her own photography, never stock imagery.
ProfileJames Okafor
Aquascaper & Planted-Tank Lead · 8+ years
James is a Manchester-based aquascaper who competed in the 2023 UK Aquatic Plant Society Aquascaping Challenge (top 15 finalist). He writes the planted-tank and aquascape buying guides on Tropical Fish Co — every layout recommendation has been built, grown out, and photographed in his own tanks before it goes live on the site.
ProfileKevin
Editor & Site Owner · 15+ years
Kevin is the editor and owner of Tropical Fish Co. He has kept freshwater tropical tanks for more than 15 years — starting with a single 60-litre planted tank and now running a rack of species tanks across his home and the shop. Every care guide on this site is written or reviewed by Kevin from first-hand experience, cross-checked against peer-reviewed sources, FishBase, and the hobby's most trusted references.
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Priya Ramesh
Discus & Cichlid Expert · 15+ years
Priya has bred discus commercially in Leicester since 2016 — supplying Tropical Fish Co and two other UK retailers with F1 tank-bred juveniles. Before that she spent seven years on South American dwarf cichlids. Her discus and cichlid guides on this site are written from the perspective of someone who has actually hatched, grown out, and shipped the fish — not from library research alone.
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Sophie Harding
Shrimp & Invertebrate Specialist · 12+ years
Sophie has been breeding freshwater shrimp in her Bristol spare room since 2014, starting with a single colony of neocaridina and now running twelve species-specific tanks. Her shrimp guides on Tropical Fish Co lean heavily on first-hand breeding data — moults logged, water parameters tested with Salifert kits, and cull-rate stats that no YouTube video will give you.
ProfileTom Whitfield
Nano-Tank & Beginner Specialist · 6+ years
Tom runs a YouTube channel on nano-aquariums (12.3k subscribers) from his one-bedroom Edinburgh flat, where he keeps eight tanks between 10 L and 60 L. He writes every beginner guide on Tropical Fish Co — on the theory that someone six years into the hobby remembers what's confusing, where a twenty-year veteran has long since forgotten.
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