America's Renaissance Aquarist
Author; Godfather of the US aquarium hobby; AKA founder.
Al Klee did and wrote more about aquaria than anybody else in the 20th and 21st century and possibly in all time. Al was principal founder of the American Killifish Association in 1961 and as of 2020 is still a prolific author, these days documentation the history of the aquarium hobby.
Upon Klee's passing, nobody wrote a better effigy then Bobby Ellerman.
"To the majority of aquarium hobbyists today, unless they are interested in the hobby's history, the name Al Klee probably means nothing. To hobbyists active from the early 1950's until the early 1970's, the name Al Klee is unforgettable. In so many ways, Klee and a few others like him are responsible for the most important developments in the post-1960's tropical fish hobby. I say this because of the American Killifish Association of which Klee was a co-founder and architect of its organizational structure. His format for how the AKA could operate as a truly national association would later, directly or indirectly form the foundation for all national US tropical fish associations - the ACA (which Klee helped organize), ALA, IBC, IFGA, etc. Before the work of Klee, all attempts at national tropical fish associations had failed - goldfish, guppies, mollies, etc. Even a well supported effort for an earlier version of a killifish association, the American Panchax Association, had collapsed almost instantly. Klee's vision would essentially give rise to the modern national hobby scene of elected regional representatives, yearly conventions, specialty auctions, monthly publications devoted to one group of fishes and all the rest. It's "Golden Age" was no doubt the 1970's and 1980's but it survives till this day. (Continues below)
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Jim Kelly and I met during his tour of the United States, after hours of discussion we decided that we would write a collaborative book on the guppy. Alec Fraser-Brunner had written his book, The Guppy, in 1946 and we wanted to do a far more comprehensive work. After agreeing on who should do what I started on my part right away but some time afterwards Jim decided to go back to school and get a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine (at the University of Manchester if I remember correctly). Therefore I finished the book and named it The Guppy, 1859-1967. It is probably much more scientific than Jim might have written (it also contains a detailed biography of Samuel Garman since his most famous publication was his book, The Cyprinodonts, written in 1895 (and the genus Garmanella was named after him) but I am pretty sure he would have liked it (it has gone through three editions).
Unfortunately a doctorate in Veterinary Medicine typically takes between four to six years and clearly Jim had no time for the aquarium hobby and I lost contact with him even though I contacted British aquarists but they had lost touch also.
Jim Kelly wrote an article, “English vs. American Guppy Breeding” (Aquatic Life, January, 1966). This was followed by two articles, “Irreverent But Relevant (Formation of Guppy Groups in Great Britain) and “Irreverent But Relevant (Size Differences In U.S. and European Guppies) that appeared in The Aquarium, Vol. 1, No. 1, January-February, 1966 and Vol. II, No. 1, January-February, 1967, respectively while I was its editor. However, none of this material appeared in my Pet Library booklet, Know Your Guppies, which was published in 1967.
Al Klee - December 2020
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