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
Another one of my goldfish has died....
- schnappsmom (Muireasa Harney)
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This morning when I checked him, he was wedged further into the plant in the same spot. I think he hadn't the strength to move away from the plant when he slipped further in and the leaves trapped his gills, so he suffocated.
Real plants from now on! Who told me that this fishkeeping lark was relaxing? This is the second fish I've lost and I am devistated again!
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- Jasonb (Jason Browne)
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J.
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- schnappsmom (Muireasa Harney)
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- JohnH (John)
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What ingredients did you use for the gel food?
Goldfish are predominantly vegetarian and it could be that your home-made food is too high in protein for them.
Just a thought - perhaps others would care to make some observations?
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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- wylam (Stuart Sexton)
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Stuart
Multi tasking: Screwing up more than one thing at a time.
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- schnappsmom (Muireasa Harney)
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2 medium sized sweet potatoes.
2 very, very large potatoes.
Tesco bag kale- might have been 200g or 500g, (I don’t remember and I didn’t write it down at the time.)
150g prawns, frozen, but didn’t include shells
100g toasted wheatgerm
2 tsp sera fishtamins
1 sachet gelatin
This made up just under a kilo of food. I have been giving the fish 1g a day, and I give it to them frozen cause it breaks up too quickly otherwise.
I am probably going to throw out what’s left next time I defrost the freezer, cause I’ll do things differently next batch. However it’ll be in the bin tonight if you think it contributed to Tripod’s swim bladder issues.
Also I forgot, once a week they get tetra tabimin or a sera spirulina tablet- cause like all kids they just freakin' love junk food!

Thanks for your help
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- schnappsmom (Muireasa Harney)
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Sorry to hear about the fishy, I read somewhere(probably on here) that feeding your fish a squashed up pea every so often is good for the swim bladder. But it could just have been a crazy dream
Stuart
You weren't dreaming, I read that too. I forgot to mention that they get a pea every Wednesday. They love the peas almost as much as the junk food!
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- JohnH (John)
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But...I'm far from being a nutritionist so would happily defer to anyone better able to look at this.
My concern was that you might have used beefheart or some other meat derivative - this would be a pretty definite 'no'.
Just a footnote - you might want to chop up a few cloves of garlic and add this to the ingredients when you make up your next batch of food - I read that garlic contains natural forms of antibiotic plus it would appear to be both an effective appetiser and a fairly good laxative, if what I read was correct.
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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- schnappsmom (Muireasa Harney)
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- irish-zx10r (James feenan)
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Yes, the first boy on the left. I am very glad I got one good picture of him!
Sorry to here there is noting as bad when you get like the fish then something like this happens hopefully you will find out why and the same thing does not happen again.
Something fishie going on here
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