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
My tanks
- arabu1973 (. .)
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500L
12 discus
20 rummynose tetra
5 marble hatchet fish
15 ottocinclus
50+ cherry shrimps (lots more in the 2 external filters)
20-30 cory sterbai (started with 12, gave few away)
1 pair apisto agassizzi (unusual male)
1 pair longfin blue rams
11 plecos, green phantom, blue phantom, L092, 2 clown, 2 starlight, bristlenose, vampire, snowball and a stardust.
300L
8 wild green tefe
3 L066
3 L190
1 L144
9 cory sterbai
240L
7 angelfish (1 blue, 6 koi)
20 cardinal tetras
10 black neon tetras
4 yellow white cloud mountain minnows
1 breeding pair of bristlenose plecos + 50-70 fry
3 amano shrimps
1 7"-8" weather loach (mr. whiskers)
60L
7 corys dalphax
7 corys CW010 "Gold Laser"
1 ottocinclus
15L
20 celestial pearl danios (galaxy rasboras)
8 corys habrosus
20+ cherry shrimps
1 baby bristlenose
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- Orca (Eoin Walsh)
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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Just doing my best to keep the fish happyB)
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- mrsFishpatrick (Astrid Fitzpatrick)
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Once again,
thanks
Astrid
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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- alkiely (alan kiely)
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That is a serious setup there and some collection of fish:ohmy:
All tanks are spot less, how do you keep up with all the cleaning and water changes?
Alan
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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Gavin
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- fourmations (NIall SMyth)
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great tanks
not a big fan of having 28 fish in a 15l though
regardless of how small they are
regards
4
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- Ian (Anthony Ramirez)
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if I get a bigger house I'll probably get bigger tanks and set up as yours, 'm very amazed especially your wild discus tank, saw lots of plants. Care to share what your flora in your big tanks as well ?hi
great tanks
not a big fan of having 28 fish in a 15l though
regardless of how small they are
regards
4
Fishkeeping CV: Co-founded, 1st President of the only surviving Fishkeeping Club (Accredited by Dept. of Fisheries) in the Philippines (mypalhs.com). I have mostly reared tropicals - Arowanas and monster fishes. My oldest arowana is 13years old (died in a tropical storm). Ive since reared a Black,...
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- Zoom (Zoom)
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- funkychic (trish coughlan)
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- serratus (Drew Latimer)
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- Alex (Alex)
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think 6 wud be ok?
Thanks
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- 2poc (2poc)
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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I made my own system for changeing water that takes just 2-3 hours for all the tanks. For taking the water out i have a 2' plastic pipe attached to a 15m long hoose that reaches all the way to the drain hole outside, i just put the pipe where the dirt is in the tank and it gets sucked up and i empty how much water i want (20-25%) from the tank. To fill the tank i have a hoose that one end is connected to the tap and the other end to a filter i made, 5 micron cartridge + carbon cartridge, and straight in the tank through a spray bar.
Fourmations,
In the 15L tank i have an external filter, Eden 501, that can filter tanks up to 60L. All the fish are healty and the galaxys and the shrimps are breeding in it so dont worry they are looked after.
Ian
In the 500L tank i have 4 amazon sword (not a clue what type), 2 types of vallisneria, 2 of each, gigantea and another small one(?), 1 huge Cryptocoryne wendtii ''brown'' and on the wood normal java fern, windaloo, anubias nana and barteri, water lettuce floating. In the 300L i have vallisneria gigantea, anubias nana, java fern, windaloo, indian fern and water lettuce. Not big into plant names so you might recognise them from the photos.
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- alkiely (alan kiely)
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It is some setup you have, i am well impressed:laugh:
But its the quailty and clearness of the tanks that has me ...... oh and nice collectiom of fish
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- scubadim (scubadim)
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these are very nice indeed:)
you obviously love your fish,one can tell;)
congratulations.
D
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- serratus (Drew Latimer)
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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- serratus (Drew Latimer)
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- fourmations (NIall SMyth)
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I dont doubt your commitment to your fishies health for a moment
and can see your tanks are in great nick
i just personally dont agree with that size tank with fish,
its about swimming space, not filtration or water conditions
the nano craze annoys me,
people have been banging on for years about small tanks being a no-no
and "your tank is too small" has been a common response
to 99% of newbies questions
but now as long as you have a fancy planted tank
and an eheim that would filter a lake, its all cool,
my point is living space
put it this way, if i started a thread tommorrow
asking what size tank for 20 cpd's and 8 dwarf corys
I can guaranatee no-one would suggest 15litres
anyway, i wont go on, its a personal view
and im diverting your thread
again, I say, great tanks, I am not having a go at you
its just a personal opinion
Regards
4
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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dont worry i know what you mean, i put those fish in the 15L tank to breed them, the CPD's colour much nicely if you put them in a little bit of a crowded space and they display more. The only time i see them is when i feed them the rest of the time they live between the branches of wood that are covered with java moss.
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- peter (peter campbell)
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im strugling to find a place for a second tank(about 300l) because most of the floors in my house have carpet on them!
are your bigger tanks sitting on concrete?
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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how do you have the space for these tanks?
im strugling to find a place for a second tank(about 300l) because most of the floors in my house have carpet on them!
are your bigger tanks sitting on concrete?
If you want more tanks you'll find the space, my tanks sit on the wooden floors that are laid on top of the concrete
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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all photo's look great, i can appreciate the work involved in keeping them all so well. credit to you!
Your royals would have gone in the 300L
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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I like your idea of the diy carbon/sediment filter for water changes.
Any chance of a close up of the Tefe green Discus.
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- 2poc (2poc)
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I thought that was the one missing!!!! Rare fish now as all Hypancistrus species are now banned from export..you can still get them captive bred!!!!
Guess who gave it to him Drew? For Free !! Yes me! And he is whinging about giving me one of his 3 Royal plecs saying that he can't catch them.
Tell him Drew! Bar him from the shop unless he gives me one of them.


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- nonie (leonie troy)
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- arabu1973 (. .)
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Guess who gave it to him Drew? For Free !! Yes me! And he is whinging about giving me one of his 3 Royal plecs saying that he can't catch them.
Tell him Drew! Bar him from the shop unless he gives me one of them.![]()
This is my brother-in-law allright

Darren
the only good photo of the tefes that i have is the one at the start of the post under the 300L tank, the moment i get close to the tank they turn towards me thinking that i'll feed them
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- 2poc (2poc)
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2poc wrote:
Guess who gave it to him Drew? For Free !! Yes me! And he is whinging about giving me one of his 3 Royal plecs saying that he can't catch them.
Tell him Drew! Bar him from the shop unless he gives me one of them.![]()
This is my brother-in-law allright, if you want one you try to catch him without takeing the wood out see how long would take you. You saw them yesterday how they hide in the holes in the wood.
Darren
the only good photo of the tefes that i have is the one at the start of the post under the 300L tank, the moment i get close to the tank they turn towards me thinking that i'll feed them
Don't worry I'll catch one while you're away on holiday

And yeah... Of course I won't move any wood... Honest....

On the subject of your post though Adrian, get yourself a marine tank to complete the stable. Or at least get some manly fish, if Sean Connoly were here he'd sort you out

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