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
What is the silliest thing you've done?
- 2poc (2poc)
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This is the first, Ok as the title says 'What is the silliest thing you've done?'
(Not necessarily fishkeeping related)
This is on my mind due to a recent incident of my own….
Sorry if it’s a bit gross - you have been warned.
I was changing water & there's a big 4' tall spikey cactus beside the tank. Had my arm in the tank & got bitten, jumped back & hit my hand off the cactus leaving my palm studded with big black spikes.
So off I went to the bathroom & pulled the spikes out. One broke off as I was trying to get it out, I could still see a tiny black dot of it in my hand so being a bit freaky about these things I decided I needed to get it out.
So I got a nail clippers & used it to take a pinch of skin out of my palm & tried getting it out. Nope. Couldn't get at it.
Further mutilating myself, I got a pin & started trying to poke it out while holding my hand under the tap.
Not being able to see what I was doing properly & poking around in a bleeding hole in my hand at this stage
I thought I had it. I could see something small sticking up so I stuck the pin under it & pulled.
The pain that followed was unbelievable… It was like an electric shock from my hand to the top of my head that made my hair stand on end.
I was worried at this stage, thinking wow, this is really embedded I need to get it out..
So I had another go, bending the pin in the process & again a crazy electric shock sensation took the wind out of me .
Needing a rest I cleaned my hand off & surveyed the damage.. Noticed that the little black dot was gone but there was still something small deep in the cut - this is what I had been trying to pull out.
It was a nerve.. I was trying to pull a nerve out of my hand with a pin. Almost worthy of a Darwin award..

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- Ian (Anthony Ramirez)
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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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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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- fourmations (NIall SMyth)
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put my first ever fish in an uncycled tank,
and then rinsed filters in tap water
introduced rampant algae to my second tank with infected moss
bought red and blue gravel for first tank
then tried to cover it with black, duh
rgds
4
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- 2poc (2poc)
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I reckon trying to pull your jawbone out with a pliers beats mine.
Sorry Stretnik - I told you it was gross.... I still cringe when I think about it... No pics tho, not even a scar (apart from the mental ones)

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- pkearney (Phil Kearney)
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phil.
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- cardinal (Lar Savage)
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years ago I crashed on a bike,smashed up my little finger...Lost half a fingernail which started to grow back funny so I decided one night to sort it out with the help of a bottle of tequila and a a Swiss army knife....It didn't hurt much at the time but the next day.......



put me off Tequila as well for some reason......



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- PAULHARTE25 (PAUL HARTE)
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- Mick0075 (Michael OSullivan)
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- dubfish (Alan Martin)
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick
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- 2poc (2poc)
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ok hows about this , 6 years ago out in leeds with some mates having a couple of beers, dancing with some cute girl and then i decide i need more beer, walk across the dance floor step on a beer bottle and snap my achilles tendon clean off the bone, to quote my mate watching me try to get across the floor after that was like watching michael jackson have an epileptic fit, and to make matters worse i walked 2 miles home on it, and had to wait while my mates got chips from the chippy and me just thinking it was just a sprain till i tried to get out of bed in the morning and by god did that hurt, so up to the hospital and told your staying and will be operated on the next day, whats the first thing i did...... rang my mate to f him out of it for making me walk home... all in all not a bad night though, three months in plaster paris, six months on crutches, and 1 year of physio later now i can see the funny side
Making me cringe even thinking about it.....

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- curefan (Dave Massey)
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- 2poc (2poc)
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Once I tried to remove a cyst form myself with a sharp blade and a tweezers.Disinfected everything and proceeded to cut myself open which proved to be painful, but might aswell continue as i got this far. Eventually got a hold of cyst but it would just not come out.....starting to bleed quite a lot and was getting worried. Eventually stopped the bleeding and patched myself up...a coupole of weeks later got it removed under anesthetic....Doctors thought I was insane (actually to think of it, i was!!) Lucky I did not get a bad infection!
Christ, I thought I was bad trying to remove a splinter

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