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.
- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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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!

Hope ye enjoy.
Gavin
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- JohnH (John)
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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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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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Gavin
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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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Any luck raising the fry?
Daragh
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Nice one matey
Mark
Location D.11
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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Gavin
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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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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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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You can never give them enough food.
Lovely fish Gavin, have u a girl for him
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- Melander (Andreas Melander)
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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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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- ejgibbo (eric)
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- 2poc (2poc)
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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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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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Still got some..
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- Melander (Andreas Melander)
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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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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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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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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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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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- mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
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Mick......

Follow me up to Carlow
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- dar (darren curry)
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Check out the angling section, it is fantastic
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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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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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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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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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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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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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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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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- Melander (Andreas Melander)
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Good luck on finding some new ones!
Melander
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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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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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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