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
let's guess fish!(2)winner will have reward~
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- davey_c (dave clarke)
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Below tank is for sale
my plywood tank build.
www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/forum...k-build-diary#137768
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- joemc (joe mc)
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Hoplias malabaricus a monster, not for most tanks!
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- Tropicalhobbie (tung vu)
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origin: Central and South America
size ; grow up to 20inch in aquarium









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red wolf fish / rainbow wolf fish / orange belly wolf fish
Erythrinus Erythrinus sp. "Perù"
2nd & 3rd photo
Wolf Fish
Hoplias microlepis
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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The second is Hoplia malabaracus.
ian
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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1st photo
red wolf fish / rainbow wolf fish / orange belly wolf fish - Erythrinus Erythrinus sp. "Perù" / ery ery sp.
2nd & 3rd photo
Hoplias microlepis / Wolf Fish
And Des posted just before my post (but I'm in the middle of ciggy anyway

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- Tropicalhobbie (tung vu)
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2nd photo is a hoplias curupira also know as blackwolf fish
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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With the Erythrinus, both species are reddish (hence the name) and, again, are quite similar (with a number of different scientific names being applied in the past). Caudal spots may or may appear at different ages. So, a size of the fish in the pictures would be useful as would a location caught.
Really, though, you'd probably have to get the measuring equipment out or to see the fish in-person to get a better ID.
ian
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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I used to breed them tetras years ago when I was able to get hold of decent stock in the first place (ie stock that were still alive during the drive home from a shop).....cave spawning with guarding the eggs, has a special 'eye' (crenuchus) on the top of the head, I believed them to be air-breathing fish (like wolf-fish), and look somewhat like a close relative of the wolf-fish.
I wouldn't, however, have any yearnings to breed Hoplias. !!!
ian
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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the sailfin tetra are extremly cheeper the wolffish but they are peacefull fish :
iam a monster fan
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Well, for 30 euro you could have 10 look-a-like wolf-fish if you went for the sailfin tetra. !!

I still have a few monster fish hanging around, but as one gets older one finds it more and more difficult to net the monsters.

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- joemc (joe mc)
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re the i.d. of the wolf fish, maybe the person who posted the pictures might post some info as to where they downloaded the picture from or some info on the history of the fish, then it could be narrowed down as to what species it could possibly be
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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I'm not sure off-hand how closely the fish are related (apart from being called a 'characin'....and that in itself is a bit too vague anyway).
I did manage to get some here last year, but the person who ended up catching them in the shop did not have the experience of catching such delicate fish.....and nearly all were dead in the bag when I arrive home after just a 15 minute car drive. They were not expensive, but that wasn't the point.
Stress levels on them go through the roof if netted incorrectly.
There are a few cave spawning tetras....all fascinating, all tough to breed, all tough to keep alive, pity that no one seems to want to keep them, but the effort of breeding them is well worth the challenge. Once we get some good home-bred captive specimens on the go, then the captive bred are much much easier to keep alive....and make great community fish (in a perfect Amazonian biotope with good water...no messing).
As Joemc says, maybe the original poster could come back to give their opinion on what fish they are supposed to be.
ian
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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oops, just read my post, i meant to say the cave spawning tetras i have are the Black Morpho Tetra Poecilocharax weitzmani
Mega fish.
Once settled in, they are stunning and have some great behaviour.......almost like a mega monster predator but without the monster predator bit (if you get what I mean).
I don't have any pictures of the weitzmani, but here is a link in case others haven't seen them (this is not one of my pictures)...
If you have any pictures, Joemc, then maybe a few here would be good.
ian
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i am not the best on photos, here is a video of them feeding, after watching this video back i realised how they got the name darter tetra, i think there are a few pictures of the individual fish and some of the males in the spawning caves on my photobucket account, the account name is joemcjoemc if ye care to have look
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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i am not the best on photos, here is a video of them feeding, after watching this video back i realised how they got the name darter tetra, i think there are a few pictures of the individual fish and some of the males in the spawning caves on my photobucket account, the account name is joemcjoemc if ye care to have look
They look superb Joemc.
You can see the true predatory nature of them in that video, and they are loving the non-living food.

What I used for spawning the cave spawners was to naturally keep the fish well fed and in good water (low conductivity being very important). Then I let the water quality deteriorate somewhat (care!!! as there is a potential to lose fish).....then start to change the water back to an even better condition than 'perfect' by dropping the pH, dropping the hardness and having very very low conductivity (care!! again, as that is very unstable water).
A coconut shell may come in handy.
as for the weitzmani.....I have not seen these available here in my area.
ian
ian
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- joemc (joe mc)
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re the morphos, thanks for the info Ian, mine were spawning in the clump of wood and java fern / jave moss mix in the left of the video, i then added some 3-4 inch pieces of pipe tied together in bunches of 3's they use these too, not many of the young survive and grow on as it is a community tank with one of the fieriest of predators as the main shoal the dreaded cardinal tetra, they would eat anything from fish fry to a sinking banana. but the numbers of morphos is steadily increasing from 17-18 fish originally in that tank to about 35-40 now.
re the food, it is tetra discus granuals, the fish have never been given any live food, they prefere large chunks like the granuals to smaller foods and flake
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