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
Update - Green Laser Fry
- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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They spawned a couple of times before but the eggs were infertile, now they are spawning like crazy

Daragh
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- Andrew (Andrew Taaffe)
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music by ???
ITFS Club Secretary
email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
see the ITFS tab above for more information www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/itfs
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- JohnH (John)
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Nice video clip - but the 'music'...youtube have really become autocratic about using what they perceive to be "copyrighted" music clips and are now forcing everyone to use this sort of dross to accompany their videos - not everything changes for the better, I fear.
Thanks for posting it all the same.
John
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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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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Jay
Location: Finglas, North Dublin.
Life
may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Daragh
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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one of the nights i was there i brought my camcorder with me and shot a video of the full show ...
The fountain show is accompanied each time by a backing track ( which is being publically played for everyone on the strip to hear )and the microphone on the camcorder picked this up very well ....
Upon returning home i uploaded the video to youtube , only for a warning email to arrive a day or so later telling me that i was breaking copyright laws .
Seems a bit strange to me when you consider i didn't add the music myself later
Always makes me wonder .. wot about the videos ppl have posted of gigs they were at ??? how is that not copyright infringement
ah well ... such is life !!
martin
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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...
Always makes me wonder .. wot about the videos ppl have posted of gigs they were at ??? how is that not copyright infringement
...
martin
Ah Martin don't go there, I am sure it is only a matter of time. I post live performances of various bands - all with their permission, but that is not the same as the permission of the copyright holder, the only reason that they don't get picked up by YouTube is the digital sound print is not closely enough matched to the original CD versions in the Youtube database.
Daragh
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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Gavin
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Daragh,do you bring the temp down to get them spawning and do you find the atmospheric pressure in the weather often gets a response from your corys ??
Gavin
Can't say I have noticed atmospheric pressure having any influence. Just cool water changes and lots of live or frozen food. The last couple of weeks corys have been spawning like crazy 7 or 8 varieties and about 20 spawns. I just don't have the time at the moment for loads of hatching tanks etc so most are getting bunged into one tank and I am keeping my fingers firmly crossed.
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Temps vary according to species, warmer e.g. Gossei, Sussie, Sterbai normal: most corys, cooler Paleatus, and all the Scleromystax family (Barbatus, Kronei, Prionotus, C113 etc), usually considered corys.
Daragh
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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Congratulations on the cory boom.
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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You really need to watch in HD to get the full picture, so click on "YouTube" logo and then select "1080" option.
Daragh
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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what other species are in that tank.
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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I hope so too, they are the very slim almost white fry and there is not as many as I would have expected from the number of eggs that went into that tank. Reading up about them it seems that I am not the only one having difficulty raising them, Bolton Zoo and an American cory expert has had trouble with them too. I have only two from my original batch back about a year ago, I have lost several batches since then, though mainly through egg eating. So fingers crossed for these little guys. The adults are stunning fish, particularly the males.
Also in the tank for definite are Green Lasers, Gold Lasers, and about four other eggs were entered, which are there now I have no idea, other eggs introduced were CW028, adolfi and venezuelanus.
Daragh
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Great video Daragh. The shot of the snails on the leaf (around 0:26) is amazing.
Congratulations on the cory boom.
Cheers, there are more close ups in the later video, it is weird to see them so close up, I had no idea what their heads / mouths were like. Interesting that they do not damage the eggs either.
The boom continues, it must be the weather or something, another load of eggs today in three tanks including the Green Lasers again, that's about 6 or 7 batches of eggs in two weeks or less! Long may it continue.
Daragh
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- DJK (David Kinsella)
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Dave
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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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Regards.
DEnis
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- Tom (Tom Brecknell)
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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The main differences between Scleromystax and Corydoras are that, generally speaking, Scleromystax are larger more elongated fish, are more aggresive, prefer cooler temps, lay their eggs in bunches or tight groups, not scattered around like cory and the fins of the males are considerably longer - check out the male C113 near the end of this video
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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- DJK (David Kinsella)
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I'd keep an eye on that fry at 1:35-1:45. He might just explode!!
Lovely video again.
Dave
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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As there are several species in that tank and fry grow at different rates, the gap now between the largest fry and the smallest would be a body mass difference of at least 15 or maybe 20 times! All the eggs went in there in the space of a week maybe 8 days so the vast difference is not just down to age. I have read that Green Lasers are one of the fastest growing corys, up to 3.5cm in three months, which sounds extraordinarily fast, so on that basis I am hoping that the big ones are all green lasers. I know from experience the Gold Lasers grow much slower. The tiniest fry I have seen in there and none feature in the video are still only like slivers of glass, I suspect they are C113.
Daragh
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- Tom (Tom Brecknell)
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Tom.
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- Melander (Andreas Melander)
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Daragh
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- JohnH (John)
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You certainly have a comprehensive mixture there!
John
Location:
N. Tipp
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
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It's a long way to Tipperary.
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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when the laser corys first appeared in magazines, i was convinced that they were dyed bronze, but now most authorities seem to accept them as naturally occurring species. did all three lasers appear in the hobby at the same time and are they found in the same region.
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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The Green and Gold came along together I think, all the lasers are from Peru.
There is a Red Laser and Orange Laser (though some think they are the same fish, I sometimes agree and sometimes don't) came later as a far as I can recall.
They were considered a relation of the aeneus group originally, however it is generally accepted they are one or more separate species.
The gold lasers are a slimer fish than the green or orange. Also the greens lay large white eggs in small groups almost daily for days on end. The gold lay slightly smaller orange eggs, more scattered like an aeneus, but not in very large numbers.
I have read that the greens can grow to 35mm in 6 weeks!!! That is an amazing growth rate for a cory.
I have also read that raising the red/orange fry is extremely difficult with either infertile eggs or die-offs, so there is some work to be done there to get conditions right, my red (or orange, if they are the same) have not spawned yet, so I have no experience of the eggs.
Daragh
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