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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

Dwarf Gourami temperament

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12 Nov 2011 09:37 #1 by Kevin (Kevin Burke)
Can these fish be agressive? Do you need females and males together?

And would they be okay in harder alkaline water?

I have a 54L tank with 6 endler and 4 panda corries.


Thanks in advance. Thinking of getting a few more fish for my tank - considering these as a possibility.

Kevin

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12 Nov 2011 11:28 #2 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
They can be aggressive, but that is often limited to picking on similar fish (eg other gourami or even cichlids).
But, I think dwarfs are an excellent community fish as the aggression doesn't really get to a tank destroying level. I'd recommend them for many community tanks.

They may nudge at the endlers, but it's difficult to predict how each specimen will behave.

You do not need to have a mix male and female. Although the females are pretty duff when it comes to colouration, I find the females to be a better character fish than the male.

Getting good quality dwarfs can sometimes be a problem.....don't buy any that show any sign of crapness or illness.

They don't really like hard alkaline water. But they are a good all-round fish that can cope with a wide range of conditions. Their preferred water is much like you'd give a wild discus fish though (soft, acid, and with few dissolved salts).

It depends on how hard and alkaline the water is.

The pandas are not really hard/alkaline lovers either and would prefer the same ideal conditions as a dwarf gourami. But, again, if kept around neutral conditions they will thrive very well.

Endlers are quite good in being able to cope with the less alkaline conditions that normal guppies demand.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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12 Nov 2011 13:42 #3 by Kevin (Kevin Burke)
Hey Ian, thanks for the reply

My Gh is 8d and Kh is 15 - 20d. The Ph is 8.3.

So I guess that's pretty hard and alkaline.

I know the pandas aren't perfectly suited but I wanted some type of cory to grab any bits of food that end up at the bottom. I've had them about 2 weeks, they seem happy enough. I mean none of them are doing anything weird. In saying that, one very small one died about a day after I got them, but I put that down to bad luck.

The endler are in over a month and seem to be fine too.

How do you think the dwarf gourami would be if I decided to go down that route?

Some platies would be more suitable (I have another post here with a q about them) but I really do like the dwarf gourami as something that looks totally different to what I have in there. But if they're totally unsuitable then I wouldn't get them.

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12 Nov 2011 14:42 #4 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
Some malawi keepers would be yearning to that pH.
It is a bit too high really for the corys as well, as is the hardness.

Is that what comes out of the tap?

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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12 Nov 2011 15:42 #5 by Kevin (Kevin Burke)
Will the corys die as a result? I knew they were a bit of a compromise, but is it very bad? Would there have been something similar that would have been more suitable? Basically I just wanted something to take care of the bottom of the tank that was also relatively small because my tank isn't big.

Yeah the water comes from the tap. I'm living in the countryside and we have a well. The water is filtered on the way in to treat it for hardness, iron and sulphur.. and maybe other things. We have an ro filter inside as well but that hasn't been working for a long time.

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12 Nov 2011 16:09 #6 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
I wouldn't like to predict the outcome on the corys.
Many fish that normally prefer certain conditions will live in other conditions if the water is given proper regular water changes. The water is not JUST about pH and hardness (even though they are important).

I keep panda corys in with our fancy goldfish with good success even though tanganyikan catfish would be a better fish for goldfish.

It would be useful to find out why the water has a high pH.....is lime added to the well?

Maybe you could mix RO water....but you need to take care when messing around with the water.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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12 Nov 2011 16:57 - 12 Nov 2011 17:07 #7 by Kevin (Kevin Burke)
Salt is added every month or so to the filter which regenerates the part of the filter that softens the water. This regeneration process happens during the night. Also a few spoons of "potassium permanganate" are added every month. I don't know what exactly that does.

I can tell you that the Ph is about 7.2 straight out of the tap but once it settles over night it goes to about 8.3.

I initially bought a Ph buffer (6.8) to add to the aquarium to lower the Ph. I tried it for a while (before I got fish) but I didn't have much success with it. Plus I didn't really like the idea of adding things to the water. I figured I don't know enough about water chemistry to mess around like that, so I stopped because I thought I'd end up creating a see saw of water parameters.

So then I decided to get fish that suit the water.. so I was thinking platy and guppy/endler. But I wanted a small sized bottom feeder too.
Last edit: 12 Nov 2011 17:07 by Kevin (Kevin Burke).

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