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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

Newbee Introduction & stocking help

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03 Jul 2019 14:22 #1 by cinos27 (Jason Pantig)
Hi everyone I am new to fiss keeping, I just love watching fish and aquascapes so I plan to enter the hobby. I found this hobby very relaxing and fun, there are times I found my self staring at my aquarium for a long time. Done a lot of research (watching and reading aquarium related stuff online) and I am eager to learn more.

Recently bought an 57L FLuval Flex aquarium some says its a bit small for starter but yeah fine for now.

I used the following in my tank:
ADA sand at the bottom
ADA amazonia soil middle just to get a slope
ADA malaya powder top layer
Small amount of white gravel in front
Added JBL heater on my kit tank
planning to add more Biomedia on the 1st slot at the back of Fluval Flex

Add some easy plants (just to test if i can handle plant growing in aquarium and also I love the aquascaping idea)
No C02 just using liquid fertilizer

Done with Water cycling (no fish just plants, just add Fluval Cycle Biological Enhancer and dechlorinator). It took 3 weeks then I monitor the if its stable for another week before adding fish. During the cycle I experienced those nasty stuff like those white spider-web like thing floating and covering most of my driftwood and plants and then the brown algae.

After 4 weeks; I add 6 ottos, 6 cherry shrimp and 2 mollies. Did the acclimate thing before adding the fish monitor the temp and PH.

Feeding my fish with either algae wafer, small pellets or frozen bloodworm, alternately.

Found that the fish were ok when I introduced them to their new home they swim a lot (although the shrimp just hide on the plants most of the time) and the ottos are very happy eating those brown algae stuff in the glass, plants and wood. But after a days the glass is crystal clear so i am trying to train my ottos to feed on algae wafer and this comes my first problem they don't eat the vege small pellets and the algae wafer. I also tried blanching some cucumber, they gaze on in a bit but yeah they don't eat. I'm starting to worry, and then 1 day I found 1 of my otto's died (maybe from starvation) I check the water parameters and everything is ok.

I need advice on how to train these otto's to feed not just natural algae so they won't starve to death.

And also I need some suggestion on additional fish that I can add on my tank, I am looking at the following combos below:
5 male guppy
6-8 endler guppy or 6-8 neon tetra or any small species of tetra.

And also I think 1 of the mollies that I bought from Seahorse Aquarium is pregnant. Any suggestion on what to do with the fry, I don't want to overcrowd my tank and also I don't want to just throw them.

Thanks,
Jason.

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04 Jul 2019 00:31 #2 by derek (Derek Doyle)
hi. my advice would be to not add more fish for a while and let the molly give birth to her young and they should survive as you have nothing predatory in the tank. Then after a few days a few endlers or guppys could be added. Otos can be a difficult fish to acclimatise to a new tank as they prefer well aged water and also are active at night so be careful not to overfeed the tank. A method I used was to put stones in shallow water in the sun and algae grows quickly on the stones and then place them in the tank. All of your current fish are algae eaters so this will supplement their diet.
Anyway good luck with your tank and be patient and everything should settle.

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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04 Jul 2019 08:48 #3 by cinos27 (Jason Pantig)
Thanks for that, I actually am doing the stone thing. I put some stones in a big bottle and add a bit of fertilizers and put the bottle in a windows with direct sunlight.

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05 Jul 2019 10:58 #4 by Dihanio (Paulie Hanlon)
Yeah, as has been said, Ottos are a fragile fish and sometimes can die without reason, even if they look healthy and the tank’s conditions are perfect. Most will be fine though.

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14 Jul 2019 12:50 #5 by Pat (Pat Coogan)
try blanch some spinach. My cats love it. Also I dont bother blanching cucumber they eat it as is. Couple of lead weights to hold it down for the ottos.
If you are looking for small fish you cant beat galaxy rasbora.

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