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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

video regarding keeping goldfish in bowls

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27 Oct 2012 14:12 #1 by davey_c (dave clarke)
just seen this elsewhere and though it wasn't a bad way to get a very important message accross.


Below tank is for sale

my plywood tank build.

www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/forum...k-build-diary#137768

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27 Oct 2012 17:58 #2 by Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
But there are fish bowls in pet shops everywhere.

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27 Oct 2012 18:17 #3 by Aquaman (Brian Gillick)
And as long as people keep buying them, the pet shops will keep selling them. A shops number 1 priority is to make money!

100L 2 Foot Betta Aquarium & Cabinet For Sale:
www.adverts.ie/pet-accessories/100l-aqua...-accessories/2240157

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27 Oct 2012 19:47 #4 by belueberry (E I)
Yeah. It's a good effort but it will ultimately never make any difference.

The reason?

99% of people actually do not care if a goldfish only lasts 3 weeks in a bowl. They probably chose a goldfish on the very basis of that life expectancy. A fish in a bowl is usually bought to entertain kids aged 5-10 who lose interest in approximately that space of time.

Harsh reality. Not saying it's a good thing but that's how it is.

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28 Oct 2012 08:20 #5 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
Blueberry is on the right lines.

The target audience of such campaigns may not care and, moreover, may not even be in a 'community' to be subjected to such campaigns.

To be quite honest, many of the campaigns that I have seen have been pretty poor anyway.

Even in the video, there are lots of points that could make it lose credibility.....eg they could have avoided being incorrect in the science, some of the dead fish were obviously not ones that had been kept in a bowl. It is easy enough to do it correctly.

They also missed a point that may drive home a selling point to parents in that a bowl takes up the same space as a rectangular fish tank of equal width and holds much less water (1 foot wide globe holds half the water of a 1 foot cube), and the bowl needs a sturdier piece of furniture because a bowl is more damaging to furniture that a tank.
There is also no indication of what size a goldfish grows to.

Tradition and "Auntie Beryl keeps.....in a Bowl....for years..." are difficult things to get over.

How can we tackle the fact that Auntie Beryl has kept a goldfish in a bowl for 5 years?
(That is the target campaign)

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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28 Oct 2012 12:34 #6 by davey_c (dave clarke)
maybe that's why they never work is because there is always 1 to correct any efforts made whether they write literature or compose a video. i agree that most don't care about certain points considered but in fairness they don't really care either about how much space is occupied between different tanks or the extra stress a bowl might put on a cabinate... a cube tank is just a box whereas a bowl can look more fitting with the rest of their furniture!!
is an exaggeration of the situation not necessary to change minds... oh no, there is always 1 to say, that couldn't possibly happen in a bowl.... in fairness we all know that but maybe if someone joined the site that might have some want to keep their fish alive and healthy, seen such a video and said well i don't want that to happen so i'm gonna see what i can do about it!!... if i cared about every fish i would put it on my other halves facebook page but if some are going to be neglected anyway then their better off dead. this video could have been made a sticky for the people who own goldfish and join a forum because their the ones you want to share the awareness with.

@ Q_Commets.... not many of our good lfs sell fish bowls but there are an elite type that do ;)

Below tank is for sale

my plywood tank build.

www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/forum...k-build-diary#137768

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28 Oct 2012 21:26 #7 by belueberry (E I)
Well it's not like the sponsors on this site are all without guilt when it comes to this. Am I allowed to name them? Maybe it would be more elegant not to. They really are big names though. One of them is where we got our original advice not to bother cycling our tank. All of them sell very small tanks "for goldfish". One of them has a special offer, "Buy this tiny tank, get a goldfish worth €3.99 free!"

One of these shops also had a large one-eyed oranda and a large black moor floating belly-up (alive, swim bladder disease) for sale there the other day, as well as quite a number of bottom-sitting fancy goldfish. (Along with quite a few other tanks with dead, dying and half-eaten-alive tropical fish). Another also had a one-eyed black moor. Actually there's another of the sponsors I could think of that has similar problems...I could go on...

I'm sorry but you cannot boast premier status as an aquatic supplier and talk about your superb quarantine facility and protocols if you have that kind of nonsense going on for all to see in the shop. What are we supposed to think goes on behind closed doors?

If the "top" shops don't care about the fish they supply, not even to the point of offering whole, healthy fish for sale, why on earth should the average Joe be expected to treat them any differently?

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29 Oct 2012 00:02 #8 by Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
I guess the problem with these campaigns is they reach the wrong people and end up preaching to the converted.

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29 Oct 2012 01:43 #9 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

I guess the problem with these campaigns is they reach the wrong people and end up preaching to the converted.


+1

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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