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
Getting junior interested
- padraigr (Padraig Rooney)
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- dar (darren curry)
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Check out the angling section, it is fantastic
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- JohnH (John)
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I saw the young lad win his tank and was delighted, it's even better knowing he is the son of a Forum member (and a new member in the making, perhaps?).
There no doubt will be a huge amount of conflicting advice on what fish he should get, but in all honesty I would have him steer clear of Guppies for the time being (and I never thought I would ever be giving that advice to a newcomer, they were always the fish most aquarists 'cut their teeth' on.
Although they wouldn't exactly be my choice, I would suggest some Neons (or Cardinals, if they look OK), a selection of 'other' Tetras, like Emperors for example. Then a small shoal of Danios, perhaps Zebra Danios - or, if you can a] afford them and b] find them the Celestial Danios (Microrasbora Galaxies as were).
Gouramis, especially Dwarf Gouramis are not the best ever imported recently and I would caution against them, although I have seen some very nice Honey Gouramis recently, they might be worth a look.
You could round this off with a small shoal, say four Marbled Hatchet Fish as surface dwellers and five or six Corydoras Catfish to keep activity in the lower regions.
Food for thought, go out 'looking' in decent shops and make your own choice (or let the lad choose with your 'advice' in the background).
Let us know how you get on, but, of course, there's water and filter cycling to be done...
Good luck,
John
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We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
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It's a long way to Tipperary.
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- dar (darren curry)
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Check out the angling section, it is fantastic
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- JohnH (John)
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Another very easily-kept Tetra is the what we used to know as X-Ray Tetra, nowadays I think they are called Pristella Tetras, but really the choice is fairly-well endless.
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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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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Depending on ur location of course
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i am also planning to get the wee man interested in the hobby do his will be plastic as he won't be one till next week:laugh:












when in a few years he is old enough i am going to start him with a a cold water set up white clouds as with reasonable care they can be quite successful and very enjoyable plus easily replaced in case of accident while providing opportunity to learn.
The reasons i hope to use these is their size so his first will only be 11 liters but will provide enough of a challenge with been overly difficulty.
show and tell/pet days in schools are becoming popular in schools. they will easily be able to be transported to school and the temp will not be a big concern were as with tropicals you face the dilemma of saying no and trying to explain the reason which to a child will be very hard especially since they may have already told the class they would bring fish.
just my ideas hope this helps
mickey
ps sorry about spelling
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- padraigr (Padraig Rooney)
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- dyco619 (steve carmody)
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it has a nice mix of mollys, guppys, tetras etc, and small loachs an cats,
rather than decorating it with the usual coloured stones, plastic plant & ornaments
we done it real natural with live plants,sand,stones & rocks we even built little caves.
i have to say it looks stunning!! i actually prefer it to my own tanks,
the fish are much happier and it is much more educational for him.
its something you might want to think about..im sure he will enjoy it either way.
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- padraigr (Padraig Rooney)
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- padraigr (Padraig Rooney)
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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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What about cherry shrimp and cories, bn cories and shrimp.
Cherry shrimp will breed well and lots of guys on here have them so they would not be costly and i said i would give u a bristlenose, great algae cleaner
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