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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

Thinking of a change....Thinking

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15 Jun 2012 16:12 #1 by Brazzill (john)
Well lads,

Ok, as ye know i have Piranha setup at the minute, i love them to bits and have spent loads of time and money on getting them and their setup. But a few of my mates are keeping Cichlids and everytime i visit their houses i'm blown away with how active and different they are, so i'm thinking long and hard about it but would like to hear from my fellow fish keepers on what ye think. :huh:

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18 Jun 2012 13:51 #2 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
ok tough question here what types of cichlids are you thinking of... central american, south american, malawi, tanganyikans... might be able to steer you in a better direction if you give us a hint which way your leaning

Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild

currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick

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18 Jun 2012 14:20 #3 by Ski (Alan McGee)
I was feeling the exact same way with my piranha but regret selling them now.

They made way for an arowana, oscar, bichir and a few others in there now.

Nice to look at and a bit more action out of them but i think i just prefer having a mean tank so "thinking" of getting a few piranha back. Might go for something different to the red bellies though. Maybe black or pike depending on what comes up.

I'd have a hard think about it before giving them up.

You might soon get sick of the cichlids as well if you get them in.

On the plus side, you can have a few different kinds of fish in the tank which is the problem with the piranha's

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18 Jun 2012 17:59 #4 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s."

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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18 Jun 2012 18:06 #5 by Ski (Alan McGee)

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19 Jun 2012 14:59 #6 by Brazzill (john)
Thanks lads,

Nah I can't get rid of my boys. Just after putting neon tetras in with them today do far do good no casualties I'm going to keep adding them as I know I will lose a few and reading a lot of forums where they say it is and is not possible. Time to do the test as my piranha getting big now. Some giant valliseneria located aswell so gona finish the piranha setup thank god. Anyway cheers lads

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19 Jun 2012 15:03 #7 by Ski (Alan McGee)
Yeah good decision.

I tried with the neon tetra's as well but they were gone in about a day.

Maybe you'll have better luck though

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19 Jun 2012 15:12 #8 by Brazzill (john)
What size were your piranha

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19 Jun 2012 15:30 #9 by Ski (Alan McGee)
They were pretty big, 6 or 7 inches anyway i think

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19 Jun 2012 16:02 #10 by Brazzill (john)
ok now i just have 1 out of 5! and i fed the piranha before i put in the neons, id say you would want bout 50 tetras

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19 Jun 2012 16:09 #11 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Thinking of a change....Thinking
Hmmmm. I can imagine the tetras feel the same as someone waking up in a Lion's den........ Is it really fair?
I know we have been down the ethics Road on numerous occasions and the rebuttal has always been that the Fish have to survive being hunted in the wild and my retort is that in the wild they may have hundreds of miles of water to escape, something they cannot do in captivity so.... I have to respond, as I usually do to these threads with, I think it is a horrible practise.

Kev.

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19 Jun 2012 16:17 #12 by Brazzill (john)
A Valid point, but i wasnt doing this to feed my piranha but just to try to see is it time, its 50/50 on forums that it works but time will tell guess my piranha still aren't big enough, it is my smaller piranha that cause the havoc.

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19 Jun 2012 16:31 #13 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Thinking of a change....Thinking
I hear you but the smaller Fish, even though not predated upon, are always in a panicked state which, in the long term, leads to a shortened Life, I wonder what the Life span of Fish kept in these conditions is ? I have watched Piranha in Videos, wild, eating carcasses given to them by Tourists and you also see tetras en-masse, feeding on the leftovers that pass through the PIranhas Gills, they are not eaten nor are they threatened by same because there is an alternate sourse of food and when the Piranha are satiated, both they and the groups of little Fish go their seperate ways unharmed.

It has to be very stressfull being constantly on guard in the event of an attack.

Piranha themselves are well known for starting off as a large group in Aquaria but ending up as the sole occupant, this must also be very stressful for Piranha.

Just my thoughts, no mantra intended.

Kev.

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19 Jun 2012 18:14 #14 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
I think that the OP should stick with the Piranha.....and in a single species tank (there would be a few exceptions to this).

I am a little lost, to be honest, as to why the tetras are being placed in the tank. ?

ian

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19 Jun 2012 18:35 #15 by Brazzill (john)
Wishful thinking

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19 Jun 2012 18:43 #16 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
It would take a pretty large tank with visual barriers for such a mix to even be close to working.

If they are intended to be food, then that is not a great idea as there are very few fish that demand live vertebrates in their diet in captivity. And those that do demand living fish will often not do well in captivity anyway.

If they are not intended as food, then that may work against you in the piranha taken them and then starting to refuse other food OR that the stress levels in the tetras will rise.

Some species of fish release a 'fright' pheromone into the water....but that is a strange quirk of evolution as the fright pheromone is released by predators as well: it may be unwise to co-mix other fish in a community of predators !!

Now, having said that, I do not believe that neons release such compounds, but there is a good principle there to follow.

ian

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19 Jun 2012 19:48 #17 by Brazzill (john)
Cheers lads,

Wont be trying that again anyway.

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20 Jun 2012 00:21 #18 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
i agree with both what kev and ian have said here but on a differnt note have seen this combination work, granted there was a larger shoal of approx 100 neons in the tank, but the secret to making this work is quite rightly as Ian has said having plenty of cover but also that the neons where well established in the tank before the introduction of the piranha, the reason being that as the piranha get used to food coming in from the top of the tank they then associate every that comes into the tank from above as food and eat it. just my two cents

Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild

currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick

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20 Jun 2012 22:36 #19 by Brazzill (john)

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