East Manchester woman turns fish hobby into business

This is not an article about a scientist, but it is an interesting story on how to follow a passion into a profession.

(Edited to remove incorrect assumption that she lived in England. She's in Pennsylvania!)

YorkDispatch.com: East Manchester woman turns fish hobby into business

His name is Captain Crankypants.

Rachel O'Leary brought him home for her husband, thinking a charismatic and interesting Oscar cichlid would be the perfect fish to invite him into her world of breeding fish and invertebrates.

"I thought he would enjoy a big, mean cichlid," she said. "What he got was a prissy, moody cichlid trying to blend into the back of his aquarium."

Standing in the basement from which she operates Invertebrates by Msjinkzd,

she stared into Crankypants' habitat and gave him a look that said, "We both know how you are, don't we?"

He was in one of his moods, floating against a black wall in his aquarium, playing chameleon. His white stripes had gone dark and he wore a pretty serious look on his mug.

"It's not just you," she explained to a visitor. "It's anything different. ... He ignored Chris (her husband) for a year. He pouts for months on end when you change anything. He'll go on hunger strikes."

In one way, he's just like the woman whose stares he seems to be actively avoiding. O'Leary might not be prissy or moody, but both she and the fish aren't what people expect.

He's a moody cichlid. She's a 32-year-old scientist with a foot-high mohawk.

She's a mother of three who likes baking, an academic with a degree in fine art. She's a heavily tattooed homebody who's more likely to spit out a term like "Cambarellus patzcuarensis" than an expletive.

Hobby turned business: Like a growing number of entrepreneurs, O'Leary conducts most of her business on the Internet, where she has a website and sells through online aquaria networks.

She specializes in rare species, many of which are imported from Asia, India and South America, and she sells retail and wholesale, she said.

Many of her customers are people who have exotic plants and are looking for species to accent their water-garden arrangements.

She started formally selling invertebrates and nano fish, which are generally shorter than two inches, out of her East Manchester Township home about 18 months ago but has been breeding for about eight years.

It all started, she said, after she received a frog for Mother's Day and wanted to fill its habitat with other creatures that wouldn't bite it. Employed as a veterinary technician, she said she has "had a lot of jobs and a lot of interests," but there's always something new to learn about fish and invertebrates.

She developed a voracious appetite for information on the hobby, soon becoming a respected expert in the field who speaks at conventions and serves on the board of the Capital Cichlid Association. She is paid to appear at events for aquatic organizations and fish clubs.

"There's not many people who look like me," she said. "Fish people are typically middle-age men."

But those "fish people" might be an easier crowd to win over than the PTO moms. She said people who share her interests rarely misjudge her because she's respected and her reputation precedes her mohawk.

"I'm focused and thoughtful in what I do, and that's something that trumps my appearance," she said. "People tend to get over it pretty quickly."