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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

Should you trust habitat descriptions?

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05 Sep 2013 11:40 #1 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)
I've been thinking of starting up a swordtail only tank and if I do I'd love to set it up as a biotope. Every book or website says their wild habitat is heavily planted and the aquarium should reflect that, with open spaces for swimming. However, here's the thing. Any footage I see on YouTube of their wild habitat shows them swimming over fairly barren, algified, rock-strewn river bottoms, barely a plant in sight!

My question is pretty much as above; when it comes to aquarium guides, how much can you trust them?

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

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05 Sep 2013 11:54 #2 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

I've been thinking of starting up a swordtail only tank and if I do I'd love to set it up as a biotope. Every book or website says their wild habitat is heavily planted and the aquarium should reflect that, with open spaces for swimming. However, here's the thing. Any footage I see on YouTube of their wild habitat shows them swimming over fairly barren, algified, rock-strewn river bottoms, barely a plant in sight!

My question is pretty much as above; when it comes to aquarium guides, how much can you trust them?


It depends on the publication and the author.

For most publications and web-pages, I simply ignore them as many are simply copy-n-pastes of something from somewhere else: if the original copy is correct then that is perpetuated; if the original copy is incorrect then that becomes a classic myth.

If you want a true idea of the natural biotope then hunt down a scientific paper. Some aquatic books do, however, give a true and detailed idea of the original habitat (including the water conditions of the original habit) but many of those books are becoming more difficult to find as they went out of print so long ago.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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05 Sep 2013 12:45 #3 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)

For most publications and web-pages, I simply ignore them as many are simply copy-n-pastes of something from somewhere else: if the original copy is correct then that is perpetuated; if the original copy is incorrect then that becomes a classic myth


Sounds about right. Apparently the notion than so many live bearers need salt in their setup comes from the Baensch Aquarium Atlas. Salt does them no harm but they don't need it, including, it seems, most mollies. But because Hans and Rudiger said it 35 years ago...

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

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05 Sep 2013 13:39 #4 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

For most publications and web-pages, I simply ignore them as many are simply copy-n-pastes of something from somewhere else: if the original copy is correct then that is perpetuated; if the original copy is incorrect then that becomes a classic myth


Sounds about right. Apparently the notion than so many live bearers need salt in their setup comes from the Baensch Aquarium Atlas. Salt does them no harm but they don't need it, including, it seems, most mollies. But because Hans and Rudiger said it 35 years ago...


There are also many hybrids of livebearers. The tolerance of conditions of some has also been instrumental in their introduction into areas to which they are not native.

Often, though, mis-interpretation of water conditions is a problem. eg it could be correctly reported that the total salt content of, say, lake malawi is high......but the problems come when a book/reader interprets that as "salt" meaning "sodium chloride" as opposed to "salt" (meaning a salt).

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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