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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

How many in a Betta Splendon spawn?

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20 Jun 2016 11:27 #1 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I got the most beautiful blue/purple/green Siamese fighting fish I have ever seen, he seems to be very healthy and he is actively making huge bubble nests. I'd love to finally start breeding them!
Now I know that you can end up with 600 fry but I also know most die.
How many of yours on average, survive? I wouldn't be culling any less than perfect fish unless they were in pain or were unable to eat. Of course I would be eliminating them from the gene pool.

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20 Jun 2016 11:32 #2 by fishmad1234 (Craig Coyle)
Last time I spawned bettas a f1 blue comet pair had 100+ and a dragon scale pair I could only count between 30 or 40 very hard to get an accurate count I put my blue male in the breeding tank last nite I will be adding the female once he has a half decent bubble nest made.

Every spawn is different I have been told that the second spawn is always bigger then the first.

But trying to count the tiny fry is nearly like guess work when there is so many.



Regards
Craig

at the end of the day it becomes nite

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20 Jun 2016 11:40 #3 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I want to get an idea of numbers so I can work from them there. I was thinking of picking up a large plastic container and using that, I saw one, it's probably 100 liter.
How many surviving adults did you have?

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20 Jun 2016 18:00 #4 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
100 litre is a bit big for breeding...............but fine for rearing.

You want to keep quality up...........so constraints placed on the brood will select the best fish.

Really, 50 to 100 would be what to aim for and then to do some selective breeding you'd need to expect to go to 8 to 9 generation from your original parents by selective breeding to get an idea if your strain is gonna be good.
That is potentially a lot of fish to think about.

I can deal more with the specifics on the other thread on genetics.

I am sure I had a thread somewhere on breeding fighters along with a video.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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20 Jun 2016 20:22 #5 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I didn't explain well haha. I would use a divider to make a small section for spawning so I put the fry under less stress when they are ready for more space. I will customize it to allow the addition of small compartments once the males get aggressive.

I'm hoping to join a fish club beforehand so I can easily find homes for the babies that I don't want to keep. I wish I had my own house! I would have hundreds of tanks!

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20 Jun 2016 20:35 #6 by Eric (Eric Corcoran)
It does vary from spawn to spawn , how well they are conditioned prior to spawning (very important for a successful spawn) and how good a dad the male is etc etc

Setting up a breeding tank is straight forward. Once ready we can go through a setup. Small tanks work best. I breed mine in only 5 litres of water.

Regarding culling which is always a hot topic id advise you to only keep the very best of the spawn. They're hard enough to move on anyway plus do you really want to have 50-60 males that need separating into jars ?
My latest spawn had about 100 odd fry and ive cut that in half and probably will do again over the coming months

Any pictures of your male ?
If taking a picture place a mirror beside his tank and he'll flare so you'll get a decent picture then

Eric

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20 Jun 2016 21:01 #7 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
If you live around Dublin then we have a fish club.

Raising a lot of siamese fighters in one tank is always quite interesting.

If the alpha male remains the alpha male from day one then you can get a surprisingly stable community.
ie raising a large number of fish is possible.

But if things get unstable eg the alpha male dies or you take out the alpha male then things get very hot.
And you cannot add any other fish to the group of growing siamese fighters.
In general, at 8 to 9 months you may find that a dominant alpha male may start to lose control.......take care at that stage (or before is things get unbalanced).

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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20 Jun 2016 21:01 #8 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
As a veggie I just cannot cull unless it's to save the fish from pain, it's against everything I believe in. I'd rather give the less desirable ones away to people who I'll teach to look after them.

I'll get a photo of him now.I'll try to get him to flare if I can find something reflective.

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20 Jun 2016 21:51 #9 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
My internet is being stupidly slow and of course, I have large photographs! I'll upload them to another site and send a link

I need a polarizing filter, the glass was too reflective to pick up his colours or even focus on him. Thank god I don't use my photographer name on this!

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20 Jun 2016 22:19 #10 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
I have always loved Siamese and wish i had the room to put in a tank to have some of them but currently on 3 marine tanks so cant :(

Taking proper photos of tanks is a very difficult thing to do chelsea, trust me im a photographer too lol and my pics aint that great of my tanks :)

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20 Jun 2016 22:28 #11 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
500px.com/photo/159556231/ignore-by-chel...ser&user_id=17455695 just click through these. Unfortunately they don't show off his purple tints, the dark around his fin is actually light purple. He also has slight patterning on his tail similar to a cobra or snakeskin guppy. I'll have to get photos in daylight tomorrow. Considering the man asked if I wanted my males in the same bag.........I was very surprised to see such a beauty in Petmania of all places

Yes! You know the struggle then! I seriously need a polarizing filter for my fish!

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20 Jun 2016 22:32 #12 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
DId you buy that here in Galway?

I'm sorry for ranting now but i really hate that place, they used to do marine and i went in one day to ahve a look at their stock and went along and was going to call the GSPCA on them as their tanks were all in complete chaos. I picked out 22 dead fish in all the different tanks and none of the marine tanks were clean.

But then again they now no long do marine there so its not too bad. they have improved on the other coldwater and tropical tanks.

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20 Jun 2016 22:45 #13 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
No, in Limerick.

I hated the place but it was the only shop I could get to. I went in to get guppies after 6 months of not visiting to find that all their prices had gone up, they had separated all the male and female gups, there was only one dead fish in a tank (which is excusable) and all the fish looked way healthier. They do have some seemingly experienced fish keepers working some days. Overall, they had seriously improved. They even warned me that one fighter I was buying was extremely aggressive.
They only ever had a few marine tanks and they got rid of them not so long ago. There's just not the same demand

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20 Jun 2016 23:06 #14 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
No there isnt and its a shame. In galway we only have the one place left for buying marine. There used to be 3 this time last year but petmania got rid of theirs and the other guy that was out near claregalway went bust. So since i dont drive i cant go to anywhere but the one place :(

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20 Jun 2016 23:32 #15 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I have always been too afraid to venture into marine because we always have power cuts.....

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20 Jun 2016 23:41 #16 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
Power cuts are ok in marine in my opinion as long as its not really much longer than 12 hrs, if its longer than that backup's just to keep flow in the tank and a big blanket to cover the tank will get you through 24hrs. I accidentally left my heaters off for 24 hrs before and everything was fine, and that was in my 5ft tank full of coral.

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20 Jun 2016 23:50 #17 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
Ours goes out every year during the storms coming into Spring, lasting up to a week.

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20 Jun 2016 23:53 #18 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
Lol well then i wouldnt advise it lol, How do you keep the tropical tanks going then over that amount of time?

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21 Jun 2016 00:00 #19 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I do water changes, remove the filter and have never really overstocked the tanks. I usually keep hardy fish anyway who do okay at room temp like guppies, fighters and tetras.
My male fighter doesn't have a heater right now because the thermometer reads about 25 before the heating even comes on. The fighter in the larger (50l) tank has a heater though.

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21 Jun 2016 08:28 #20 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Sorry to go off-topic for a moment, but have I seen your photographs on ViewBug?
Bill

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21 Jun 2016 09:49 #21 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I sure hope not! :O
I haven't heard of ViewBug but if you do see my photographs, please send a link.

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21 Jun 2016 10:14 #22 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Sorry, just thought I recognised one or two of your photos. It's a great site, I use it for inspiration, but if you feel so inclined you can enter loads of competitions :cool:
luvit.me/28L1QmL
Bill

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21 Jun 2016 10:26 #23 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
Thank you. :)
If you say anything with Chelsea Ann Victoria photography/arts on it, please let me know :) I use 500px :)

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21 Jun 2016 10:31 #24 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Certainly. I don't think anyone was stealing your pics, I look through thousands each day and sometimes some pics elsewhere look similar.
Bill

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