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
water chemistry
There is quite a big difference between a course on water chemistry and being told if your water is good enough to keep fish in.
ian
I agree, doing some research made me realise how complex this can be. I am keeping Discus so the more i learn the better off i will be, or the fish will be. My LFS are overloaded with customers and very little staff, so getting the right type of attention, and even with the best of goodwill from staff is a challenge.
I have heard so many times lately comments from LFS saying they would not let customers buy fish without buying a water testing kit. Well i can tell you i had the testing kit but i had no idea how to use use it, it was incomplete (but i didnt know that), and the time it was taking for me to learn a few things my fish were dying. Secondly, i got 3 different advice from 3 different LFS on the same problem. Walked out each time with more products, water treatments etc Less money, not more knowledge. A good water chemistry and testing course would allow me to understand what is going on, and then knowing my setup, my fish, my tap water, i could come up with my own solutions.
There is a serious problem out there if LFS are going along the lines of demanding that people buy a test kit.
If the LFS were sufficiently experienced and skilled with its own knowledge of water chemistry to back up their demands then that is fine; but I have yet to come across any that know sufficient about the subject tom place their own personal qualifications on the subject.
That is in view of my comment in the post above.....there is big difference between water chemistry and knowing if the water is suitable for fish.
The chemistry behind water chemistry for aquaculture goes far beyond that which a normal undergraduate degree student in chemistry would learn (and zoology is a waste of time in that respect also).....it would be in the realms of either a specific masters degree or specific PhD (or DPhil or DSc even
)focusing on the subject.There is also a difference between being delivered a course of scientific standard and being delivered a marketing tool that seems to shut most people up (ie sell a test kit).
Having a soldering iron, a multimeter and a few spanners and a manual on how to use a spanner does not mean one can rebuild and fix a BMW engine and on-board computer.
ian
Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.
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For example: I used to have my own fishing club, and we organised workshops/meetings to teach and learn how to build new traces. We also organised casting practices (in a field). This is what I was really asking about.
So many people, and I am the first of them, get into this without having a clue, but hate to see fish dying, so at this stage I am on a mission to become good at this and quickly!!!
Thanks a lot to all for your input. Please Log in to join the conversation.