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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

So I was weak and couldn't resist anymore

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28 Jul 2014 13:25 #1 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
So I couldnt resist it anymore, after a few months of watching him living in that little box I had to get it on sunday.

He is still not leaving the box... poor thing

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28 Jul 2014 13:51 #2 by Darkslice (Stephen Walsh)
what i am looking at ? :unsure:

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28 Jul 2014 13:53 #3 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Here he is this afternoon exploring the aquarium

Wife took the picture, she said she tried to feed him (not sure why) so I am hoping she didnt leave the cover open.



He is still very shy

Can you guess now? ;)

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28 Jul 2014 15:39 #4 by gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)
Is it a Goby of some sort?

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28 Jul 2014 15:41 - 28 Jul 2014 15:46 #5 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
uummm

no...

Another clue, if you have been to Seahorse you have had to seen him... he has been living in a plastic box inside one of their display aquariums for the last 3-4 months.
Last edit: 28 Jul 2014 15:46 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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28 Jul 2014 15:56 #6 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Uh, uh. I know what it is. :laugh:

You will have to teach the wife to keep the lid closed or you will find it on the ceiling.

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28 Jul 2014 15:59 #7 by Darkslice (Stephen Walsh)
looks like he ready to jump lol get a slow motion camera on the ready :woohoo:

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28 Jul 2014 15:59 #8 by gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)

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28 Jul 2014 17:16 - 28 Jul 2014 17:18 #9 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Ok ok

Here is another picture




Probably my favourite fish... havent been very lucky with them. They are very very very hard to keep... this one seems to be doing ok so far but they are very moody

And yes, platty is right! he is a jumper, this one specially, I have a temporary lid at the moment, I am going to try to build an acrylic one this week...
Last edit: 28 Jul 2014 17:18 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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28 Jul 2014 23:59 #10 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Top dollar fish fair play mate my wife had her eye on it out their also it's a beutey

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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29 Jul 2014 08:41 - 29 Jul 2014 08:43 #11 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Thanks Jeff, I just couldnt watch him inside that box anymore

He is still around, he has been locked inside that box for so long that he is finding it hard to get back to the "real" world. He still hasnt found his place in the tank.

He freaked out a couple of times yesterday when my cleaning wrasse tried to clean him but he is not aggressive towards anything yet.

All the tank mates are leaving him alone except for the wrasse (who would try to clean him occasionally) and my small sailfin tang who finds him extremely interesting for some reason and it is always staring at him and likes to stay close. He did the same with my longnose.

He still hasnt made a burrow, at the moment all he does is stares at me and hides behind tiny rocks. He is eating ok so I am not too concerned yet. He also hasnt shown any signs of illness/stress on the skin (bluespotted jawfish are prone to white spots and BJS) I have added a few PVC tubes in an attempt to reduce stress, we will see how it turns out.
Last edit: 29 Jul 2014 08:43 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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29 Jul 2014 10:57 #12 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Cool sounds like he's doing just fine it will take time for him to settle and when he does he'll be the star of the tank for sure

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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31 Jul 2014 08:44 - 31 Jul 2014 08:46 #13 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
So Julio is doing pretty well

After a couple of days of familiarizing with the other fish in the tank and getting use to the stoker he is happier now and has started building his burrow. He is not bothered by anyone/anything in the tank and seems very calm, no signs of spots so far.

I love watching this fish build his burrow. All I have to do is once he has decided for a place to start building it add some sand and crushed coral to help him and that's it.

I was hoping he would build it on the other side of the aquarium far away from the pistol shrimp but no... what are the chances he decided to build his burrow right beside the pistol shrimp. So far the pistol shrimp is not bothered by him.

Even if the sand bed is not deep enough Jawfishes will find a way to make it deeper but picking up sand from the surroundings. The sand bed went from just 3-4 cm to around 15 cm



The zoas are probably not very happy with him either but they will do just fine. I might have to move them but it is a tricky situation as I will have to be careful not to mess his burrow (specially if he is inside it) so I will have to wait for him to leave. During the day he is normally out and about (which is rare on a jawfish as they tend not to roam far from their burrow).



here he is, on the other side of the tank being stocked by the sailfin, must be love.





The tubes you see in the pictures were placed there to help him acclimate to the tank and to give him plenty of hiding places in case he started to stress out.

Another good thing about this particular jawfish is that he is eating everything, including flakes (jawfish are normally finicky eaters and only accept live/frozen food) so that is a big relief for me as well.
Last edit: 31 Jul 2014 08:46 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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31 Jul 2014 12:35 #14 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Looking good.
He was hand feeding on most food (except cockle).
Looks like he has a friend in the sailfin.

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31 Jul 2014 13:37 #15 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
:)

I didnt know that! I will try hand feeding one day. At the moment I am trying to build a cover out of perspex, hopefully it will be ready before I go on holidays.

I have had few jawfish in the past, but I have been very unlucky with them. The first one died when my tank crash while I was on holidays. Another manage to find a small whole in my cover and I found him on the floor in the morning. My first BSJ never fully acclimated to the tank, from day one it had random white spots all over his body. It took a lot of hard work to bring it back to shape, it took me 2 months to get him back in shape, one day, in preparation to my coming holidays I decided to stop feeding him 3 times a day (too much feeding for my nano) and bring feedings down to 1, I also decided to start teaching the wife to feed the fish, but the change created too much stress on the fish, he wouldnt accept food from her, 2 days later I started to feed him again but he would take food anymore. He died shortly after.

So I decided to stop trying until I'd get a bigger tank. I was gonna wait for my new tank but I couldnt resist it. I shut down my nano a few months ago and I am currently running a 200 l tank.

But this jawfish is unusual, he lived inside a 10x20 cm box for months without a bother. While in the box in seahorse, he was always out, never hid. He was always staring at people, he is not afraid when I stick my hand in the aquarium or even when I throw crushed corals around the place, and he is always curious, watching every move I make. He is also a pretty good burrow builder. Almost as good as my previous yellow headed (from my experience and from what I have heard BSJ are not as good burrow builder as YHJ). He spends a lot of time out and about which is always a good thing (as long as he stays at the bottom of the aquarium and doesnt start to swim to the surface) as it means that he feels safe in the tank, and when he is out doesnt freak out when other fish swim by.

I know it is too early to say and I dont want to jinx it but unless he jumps out (and he is a jumper) I think he will make it. it's only been 4 days so it is too early yet. Fingers crossed!

My only concern is feeding time, he is in a place in the tank where the currents will not bring much food, also, both my tangs and the long nosed are very aggressive eaters (specially my blue tang fat pig), but I think he has figure this out, as yesterday when I started feeding he moved to the other side of the tank where currents are more favorable for him and got a good bit of food.

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09 Aug 2014 13:37 #16 by carlowchris (chris)
Hes a lovely little fella

seen him so many times in seahorse..glad you got him before i did.

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09 Aug 2014 18:54 #17 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
So it was you who got this little guy. :cool:

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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10 Aug 2014 21:21 #18 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey guys

He is doing great so far. However i dont trust this type of fish so I am being extra careful.

He couldnt make up his mind of where do dig the whole, no matter where he goes everyone follows and this fish like their privacy. I mean, he was in the left side of the tank where there are never no fish, and as soon as he settles everyone is there swimming around. He is always looking around like saying "dont you have anything to do lads?"

He has tried the middle as well, no luck, and it is not only the fish, my two fighting conch love him as well... So the poor thing has decided to move close the bulb anemone (yeah I know). Most of the fish left him alone but the hippo and the sailfin were curious about his burrow and wouldn't leave him alone. It is fun to watch and I think your man is use to them now. However, he is not choosing the best spot to dig his burrow so I have to give him a hand and build one for him, I used PVC and a few T and L connectors, its about 35 cm long and 4 cm wide. then I had to dig a whole and cover it with sand without upsetting the jawfish which was not easy to do (he was barely 1 cm away) because If I scare him he will move to the other side of the tank and start building another burrow. After a few minutes he discovered the man made "burrow" and went it to investigate, so far he is very happy, he has made 3 exits and is finally relaxing, with the exception of his groupie the sailfin who still stares at him all the time.



Here is the back entrance, during the building process



I'll take another picture tomorrow when he finishes building it.I wont touch anything (like cover the entrances to make them look more "natural" until he is been living in there for at least 1 month as I dont want to scare him away.

He is eating everything, from frozen to pellets, flakes, NLS, etc. although he is always at the bottom of the tank when he is hungry he will swim up and fight for food with the others...

I also got this other fella, not cheap but I always wanted to get one of this, I didnt know they had one until while looking at the purple firefish in seahorse, I happen to compliment how nice the purple firefish were and that I always wanted to get a helfrichi firefish and when I looked to the left there he was! hiding behind a rock. Raffi said he has been there for a long time but due to the price nobody wanted him, I was surprised I didnt see him before although he was constantly hiding behind a rock.

so I brought it home and he is doing well, the sailfin was quite unhappy with his presence and attacked him a few times, it even wounded him (I believe it was him) on the side but I havent seen any more signs of aggression since (its been 1 1/2 weeks now) so fingers crossed.

He is a great guy, doest bother anyone and eats everything as well, his purple color is becoming more and more apparent. I believe it gets darker as they grow, here is a picture of the little guy (sorry for the dirty lens!)





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10 Aug 2014 23:07 #19 by carlowchris (chris)
The colours on him are amazing..hard to beleive he could hide so well in seahorse people would walk past him......but i did

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03 Sep 2014 21:11 - 03 Sep 2014 21:13 #20 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey again

So this fec..er is doing my heading.

He is still around and "happyish" but he is constantly digging wholes and he is not pretty good at it. He basically has made wholes from left to right and back to front. I was cautious enough to place all my rock on top of PVC rings to prevent them from falling which is the only reason why he is still alive.

However, now I am back again on holidays and he has moved again to the front of the tank, in the process of building his new burrow he has killed half of my colt and is now annoying my duncan (in the picture your man is at the front of the tank)



On addition I have noticed another another problem. I arrived yesterday night and this morning I noticed that the elegance is not fully expanded as usual. So I have the feeling that the Bulb anemone has probably stung him (although it could be something else).

I have also noticed that all this is generating a lot of stress in him (I can hear him, from time to time, trying to jump, I can also see he is not comfortable when other fish are around, specially the sailfin who is obsessed with this guy...

So before it was too late I decided to built the jawfish his own apartment. Most of the jawfish I have owned built the burrow with a narrow entrance, which will be around 10 cm long, and then make a bigger area with different entrances. But I noticed that his burrows are different, he likes having a big "hall" right at the entrance, which is the reason why he is failing to build his burrow as, as soon as he starts digging all the sand collapses. So taking this into consideration I built him a nice bungalow. I made it out of 4" PVC, eggcrate and plastic mesh.

This is the end result







The "shelter" its quite tall, around 10 mc tall, 35 cm wide and 20 cm deep, plenty of space for him to swim. The entrance(s) are very small which means that crabs will not be able to get in (this is another cause of stress for him)

To place it I had to remove all the rock (which made this a perfect opportunity for me to move the anemone higher in the tank and far from the elegance) and as I was rearranging the rock I decided to add my last fish (a purple tang... not sure who this is going to end up, so far he is doing well and he seems very peaceful towards other fish/tangs).

After I pull out the rocks and the sand I placed the new jawfish house in the aquarium.



It was bigger than I expected but I was able to hide most of it and is nor barely visible.

during the process the tang was very curious. He is a special fella, he is not afraid of my hand or of me moving stuff or even placing the thingie inside the tank, he was barely 1 or 2 cm away from it all of the time... he is a curious creature.

Anyway after adding some crushed coral and the live sand I removed I decided to do some rock work, crushed some of my old live rock and use some of the 2 month old rock I am curing, the result is pretty good (I think)



However, although the jawfish was curious I wasnt sure if he was going to get in there or not, and I didnt want another fish to occupy it so I had to catch him and find a way to make him go in there.

Catching him was easy, and to force him to move in there I use one of the gravel cleaners I had ( I only used the part used to scrub the bottom of the tank). I put the jawfish inside (he was not happy with me), cover the end of the gravel cleaner, turn it upside down and place it on top of the entrance. He slowly started moving backwards until without even noticing he was inside the entrance. I could tell he was quite stressed and breading heavily but I had no choice, after a few seconds I slowly removed the gravel cleaner and waited. He seemed comfortable and 30 minutes later "voilá"





He has been there for a couple of hours now and he has already started to pour out sand. But he has very few places to go so hopefully he will find it comfortable and stay there. We will see (fingers crossed)

I have given him more crushed coral and rocks to help him close the entrance and so far so good. We will see how it looks tomorrow (hopefully it wont be a mess). He is looking very happy so far and he has calm down completely.

The big rocks are well secured, tomorrow I will glue the smaller rocks together.

The anemone is doing great (in the picture it had just eaten) and it is looking more bulby now (at the botton its polyps were longer).

Again we will see tomorrow

I will keep you posted. :)

Last edit: 03 Sep 2014 21:13 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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03 Sep 2014 21:23 #21 by JohnH (John)
A very descriptive and well-illustrated post - excellent (and that comes from someone whose sole knowledge of Marines is that the water is salty).
I'm hooked and awaiting the next episode.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



It's a long way to Tipperary.

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03 Sep 2014 21:31 #22 by Jim (Jim Lawlor)
Deadly post and great story - I'm looking forward to the next instalment and rooting for the little guy!

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03 Sep 2014 23:26 #23 by baan (Fintan Breen)
amazing amount of work - hope the fish appreciates it! I also can't wait till I find out what happens next!

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03 Sep 2014 23:56 - 03 Sep 2014 23:57 #24 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
I don't know who dose more digging in the tank you or the jawfish. :laugh:

Some times jawfish don't settle long term in one burrow. If he doesn't stay in the bungalow I would let him be. Great job on the construction by the way.

The helfrichi firefish is amazing and will get better looking with age. They are a beautiful fish.

Great post Alex. You are tempting me back to the salty side.
Last edit: 03 Sep 2014 23:57 by platty252 (Darren Dalton).

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04 Sep 2014 06:56 - 04 Sep 2014 07:08 #25 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Thanks for your replies guy.

Yes this guy wont be happy to please and I am sure that he probably wont stay in that burrow for long or at least, he will dig other burrows again, specially in the front of the tank where I know he wont be able to build a proper one but he seems to like that area, God loves a trier.

I am starting to get a bit concerned about the sailfin. He is the most territorial fish in the tank and I think his obsession with the jawfish is not just curiosity but I think he might be nipping at his fins, if this is the case I am afraid he is going into the quarantine tank today for a few days to cool him off... if he doesnt calm down he will be back to seahorse, I would be sorry to do this but what can I do

Another side note, jawfishes dont like artificial burrows because they can't dig. I suppose if there is nothing to dig they get bored so in the wild they are constantly pouring out sand etc so I am not sure if this is going to work.

Another problem is that although the entrance is not big enough for the big crab to fit, smaller crabs such as my hermits might, and if they do it wil be hard for them to get out so I will need to figure out something in case this happens.

Another good thing is that the middle of the tank where the big rocks are is well protected and it will be hard for him to tear the whole structure down! :)
Last edit: 04 Sep 2014 07:08 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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15 Sep 2014 22:47 #26 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Hi Alex haven't been here for a while looks like ur building up something very nice fair play, the construction gone into the jawfish gaff is very cool Hats off to Yeh, but will the water inside that not cause problems to the fish as it's not going to be moving allot and become basically shit water if Yeh get me

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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16 Sep 2014 13:25 #27 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey Jeff

The back of the gaff is completely uncovered by sand as well as one of the sides, so, hopefully water circulation shouldnt be a problem. :S My main concern is if a snail and most worryingly a crab fells in, as I am not sure that he will be able to find a way out... lesson learn I suppose!

so a few updates, the fish is still alive and kicking. I found out what was the obsession the sailfin had with him, his dorsal fins, he seems to love nibbling them. I noticed this one day while the jawfish was building another burrow on the other side of the tank, then I looked at the fins and they were ragged as if they had been picked on but another fish.

This would explain his anxiety and the increase of white round spots (not white spots) around his body (this is a sign of stress on the BSJ)



Anyway, because of this two good things have happened. First that he has (or so it seems) finally settled in his new bungalow as it is probably the only place he feels protected.

He has already made another exit and he seems happy enough, his fins have started to recover (I bought melafix but I dont want to medicate just yet) so fingers crossed.



The other good thing is that the purple tang has become the boss of the tank or at least of the tangs, so now the sailfin has stopped stocking the jawfish which is great news.

All the tangs are getting along perfectly, no territorial/feeding fights at all, I hope it stays like this.

Now I need to start planning the aquarium, I need to have it finish before xmas

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16 Sep 2014 15:52 #28 by sincgar (Feargal Costello)
what a thread. Totally hooked. Man but you love your fish. Keep the tales coming :cool: :cool:

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16 Sep 2014 19:02 #29 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Ahh I see I thought their was only one entrance, fins look a bit bad in the pic alright, hope this does not continue for the poor little thing

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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22 Oct 2014 18:51 #30 by carlowchris (chris)
Hows the little fella doing??????was in seahorse on sunday and so tempted to get one.

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