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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

L144 comes of age.

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30 May 2010 10:37 - 30 May 2010 10:40 #1 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
L144 now matured nicely and defo my favourite fish :)

First pic is when he was only a few month old,small and skinny and colors were mild.


Second pic was when taken around a year ago, fish would of been about perhaps 9 or 10 months old or so.
The colour now a far deeper yellow and the bristles beginning to show more.


Last one is a video taken a few months ago, the cave he is next to is his spawning cave.
The bristles now far more pronounced and coloured up nicely.Unfortunately he back into his cave after about 40 seconds,so I just scanned around the tank then! Hope you like the "Cat" fish on top of the tank also!
File Attachment:


Hope ye enjoy.

Gavin
Last edit: 30 May 2010 10:40 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner).

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30 May 2010 10:47 #2 by JohnH (John)
Replied by JohnH (John) on topic Re:L144 comes of age.
Nice fish Gavin,
I'm most impressed with your 'heat retention' method!

John

Location:
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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30 May 2010 10:52 #3 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
Thanks John,she's the boss of the tank at this stage,and even manages to have a drink from it on occassion! Damn timer on the light switch ruins her sleep though at 10 pm each night though!
Gavin

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30 May 2010 16:33 #4 by Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
Fantastic looking 144 Gav, a beauty...

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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30 May 2010 19:15 #5 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
Great photos and video. The L144 is a beauty.

Any luck raising the fry?



Daragh

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30 May 2010 19:39 #6 by Gerry The Chip (Gerard)
Very nice lookin fish mate:-)

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30 May 2010 20:37 #7 by Ma (mm mm)
Replied by Ma (mm mm) on topic Re:L144 comes of age.
Lovely coloured fish. Would love to add one of those to the gang.


Nice one matey


Mark

Location D.11

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30 May 2010 21:11 #8 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
Have had all the fry reach perhaps 3 weeks but Ive not tried to raise them and I suspect they die off probably down to hunger,as they only come out at night.Im hoping to get another tank or two set up soon so will be looking at raising some of them.They spawn very regularly so shouldnt be a problem getting them to produce. I checked the tank last night and I did see one larger fry than usual so perhaps one or two will make it this time without having to take them out of the tank etc to raise them. Ive also increased night time feeds in the hope they will get some food,but with the corys and kulhi's and the L144,plenty of competiton for food!


Gavin

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31 May 2010 01:11 #9 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Looking good Gavin. It's a beauty.
It is a pity they are so expensive (for an Ancistrus) and small when they come in to the shops.

IMO they will eat day and night when they are young. Any young plecs i've had would eat 24/7.

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31 May 2010 04:07 #10 by Denis (Denis Goulding)
U are dead right Platty about them being exspensive and eating day and night.
You can never give them enough food.
Lovely fish Gavin, have u a girl for him

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31 May 2010 18:22 #11 by Melander (Andreas Melander)
Very nice bn, congrats on the spawns. Is the female yellow with dark eyes too?

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31 May 2010 19:50 #12 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
No,Ive not been lucky enough to get my hands on a female L144,its crossbred with an ancistrius (either a dolichopterus (what type I dont know) or else a lineoltus).To be honest Im not sure what one it is!Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Side view


Both pics taken when she was younger.These dolich are often mislabelled when young so can someone tell me what it is!


Gavin

Ps:anyone with a female L144......its my 30th really soon!!!

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31 May 2010 20:28 #13 by ejgibbo (eric)
Lovely bn :)

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01 Jun 2010 07:41 #14 by Denis (Denis Goulding)
u can get them no problem in the uk,, over here fully mature fish are hard to come by

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01 Jun 2010 12:30 #15 by 2poc (2poc)
Replied by 2poc (2poc) on topic Re:L144 comes of age.
platty252 wrote:

Looking good Gavin. It's a beauty.
It is a pity they are so expensive (for an Ancistrus) and small when they come in to the shops.

IMO they will eat day and night when they are young. Any young plecs i've had would eat 24/7.


Last time I saw them petstop had them for a tenner each.
Lovely fish, they get so orange as they get older they look unreal

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01 Jun 2010 19:54 #16 by Denis (Denis Goulding)
16 euro in one of the sponsors lfs and they were really small...1.25-1.5 inches...
Still got some..

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01 Jun 2010 23:38 #17 by Melander (Andreas Melander)
Identifying an Ancistrus seems to be a bit of a nightmare, I’m no expert but here’s my 2 cents.

If your female is wild caught then you will probably need a capture location for a proper ID, if it was breed in captivity I would guess that she is a common Ancistrus sp./Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus, origin unknown. Based on that they are the most common but it could be anything really.

I don’t think it’s an Ancistrus dolichopterus as they are darker with small white spots and have a white edge along the dorsal and tail fin, even as adults. See below:
www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/species.php?species_id=221

To my knowledge it sounds unlikely that it is an Ancistrus lineolatus as I think only one specimen was ever collected, I’m not sure about this thou, maybe someone else knows more.

Allot of people also argue that the L144 we have in the trade today being amelanistic mutants, could be cultivated forms of the common Ancistrus sp./Ancistrus cf. cirrhosus. The original male was supposedly imported from Paraguay and breed with a brown Ancistrus but I don’t think its known what species it was.

What ever they are they both look great!

Melander

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02 Jun 2010 00:02 #18 by Denis (Denis Goulding)
Yes they so indeed look great.
I have one wild caught from Brazil, a lovely common male.
The rest are tank bred commons apart from some albino, clico and L144 Blue eyed.
They are lovely interesting fish, grteat colours and easy enough to keep.
There are lots of variations being bred and all you have to do is look at aquabid or any of the other english aquarium classified adds
Like the new super reds as they are called.

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26 Oct 2010 09:48 #19 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
With a heavy heart I have to report that this L144 passed away yesterday. It died off suddenly,and I noticed there was some red discolourment under its skin towards its snout and near its right hand gill.I didnt take pics of it as I was somewhat shell shocked that it was dead.It was my favourite fish and had produced alot of fry also.(thankfully I kept some of the fry and there are grown on now some 6 months on,albeit they are crossbreds).
Anyhow I have to now go looking for a new favourite fish! I was soo annoyed over it when I found it,but I guess these things happen.

So Im back on the lookout for a L144 now if anyone has one. I'll be in Dublin in 2 weeks time so hope someone/sponsor/anyone can help me get one of my favourite fish once more.

So here is the most recent pic of him,taken about 3 or 4 weeks ago I think.


Gavin

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26 Oct 2010 09:50 #20 by mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
Sorry to hear that Gav, its amazing how close we get to our fish and especially our favourites in the tank. Best of luck with the search for a new one.

Mick......:)

Follow me up to Carlow

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26 Oct 2010 09:54 #21 by dar (darren curry)
shame it was a beauty, good luck with the search for the new one

Check out the angling section, it is fantastic

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26 Oct 2010 10:02 #22 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
That's unfortunate Gavin. They are a great plec and yours looked very well in the photo.

Most of the sponsors should be able to get these in, although they are usually very small.
I was to collect a breeding pair of these a couple of weeks back but your man was a no show. So i had to pick up some small ones to grow on.

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26 Oct 2010 10:04 #23 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
platty252 wrote:

That's unfortunate Gavin. They are a great plec and yours looked very well in the photo.

Most of the sponsors should be able to get these in, although they are usually very small.
I was to collect a breeding pair of these a couple of weeks back but your man was a no show. So i had to pick up some small ones to grow on.


Id have no problem growing them on,I did it with this one before and its fab to see them colour up and get the bristles etc.
Hopefully one of the sponsors will help me out.Im in Dublin the weekend after next so perhaps I'll pick one or two up then. Any of you guys know if they are in the shops up there at the moment ??

Gavin

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26 Oct 2010 10:54 #24 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
I was pasing seahorse yesterday and i seen 1.
Maybe contact them to try get some in on the next order, or an order close to when you are up in Dublin.

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26 Oct 2010 12:11 #25 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
platty252 wrote:

I was pasing seahorse yesterday and i seen 1.
Maybe contact them to try get some in on the next order, or an order close to when you are up in Dublin.


Thanks,Ive emailed them so will see what happens.Would be great if I could get some.
Gavin

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26 Oct 2010 22:06 #26 by Melander (Andreas Melander)
Too bad to hear about his death, from the photo it was a great looking fish.

Good luck on finding some new ones!

Melander

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27 Oct 2010 19:14 #27 by Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
Managed to get my hands on 2 new L144's today :)
Both settling in nicely,and one has already claimed the cave the previous one lived in! Will try to get pics like I did before and hopefully chart their rise from smallies to nice bristly snouts!!

Gavin

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28 Oct 2010 14:35 #28 by Denis (Denis Goulding)
sorry to hear that gavin

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