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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

Live Foods.......

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11 Jul 2008 20:40 #1 by komalley (K OM)
Hi Folks,

Am kicking of an Apistogramma Borelli breeding project. Have a single male and 2 females in a 75L tank at 6.5ph and in v soft water. Now need to fatten the future patents up a bit and to date have been feeding them frozen brine shrimp, daphia, bloodworm with some flake as desert! However my previous experience (with rams) is that live foods are a much better bet for conditioning breedng fish. I've got a whiteworm culture on the go, my grindal worm culture failed and am now researching how to grow on brine shrimp to adult size. A couple of questions....

1. Grindal worms - i used a 50/50 mix of commercial compost/garden soil and added water so that the mix was quite moist. Fed the culture some oatmeal and nothing has happened. (Used same recipe for whiteworms and this culture has really taken off) What have I done wrong? All advice gratefully appreciated.

2. Brine Shrimp - how do I grow on baby brine shrimp to adulthood? What should I feed bbs to bring them onto adulthood? Any non-commercial foods that can be used to achieve the same?

3. Any other live foods I should consider?

Thanks for your help.

kom

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11 Jul 2008 23:02 #2 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
This is my third attempt to reply to this so hopefully it will work this time. Either that or like the buses all 3 will come together.
I have never kept Borelli so i cant comment on the best condition food for them, but bbs, white worms and a commercially prepared food should work fine.

Brine shrimp will eat yeast, powdered algae...
When i make up bbs i dont trow out the remaining unhatched or empty shells. These i put in a tub and in a week i have adult brine shrimp. They must feed off the decaying shells.
If i remember correctly the salinity of the water is higher for adult brine shrimp.

The grindal worms could have died for 2 reasons. 1 the temp. was to high for them. 2 the mix was to acidic for them. When i have grindal worms i use a 50/50 mix that works fine for me. Maybe the moss peat i use is less acidic. You could get away with using only top soil or just a small amount of moss peat.

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12 Jul 2008 00:05 - 12 Jul 2008 12:47 #3 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
You will be able to condition apistos on BBD a couple of days old.

Some people say that their nutricional value drops as they get older, so would need to be gut loaded before feeding to your fish. The man to ask is Sean (Fr Jack) ...
Last edit: 12 Jul 2008 12:47 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens).

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12 Jul 2008 01:40 #4 by komalley (K OM)
what about feeding spirurina as a grow on food?

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12 Jul 2008 19:46 #5 by BJHillson (Brett Hillson)
Komalley, I will have to see how you do this when you have it all sorted, I treid Brine shrimp, buy had a hard time with them, I would love to grow white worms (maybe I can buy soem off you)

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12 Jul 2008 21:01 #6 by komalley (K OM)
Hi,

Once the while worm culture is established i'll pass u a part so you can get your own going. kom

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13 Jul 2008 12:19 #7 by niko001 (Noel Cutajar)
The higher nutritional value of the bbs is when they are newly hatched. Growing them to adulthood would not make them have more nutritional value. Nowadays you will find decapsulated bbs which have even greater nutritional value. As for adult bbs, one can find frozen mixture.

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13 Jul 2008 17:11 #8 by komalley (K OM)
Is the nutritional value of frozen foods i.e. brine shrimp, bllod worm , daphia etc lower than the live version.....

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14 Jul 2008 01:50 #9 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
Hi Kev,
No as far as i'm aware its relatively small the difference between live and frozen, as most of todays foods are blast chilled to freeze them which cuts down freezing time significantly thus reducing the loss of nutrients in the food, rather like what they do with veg etc for supermarkets, of course some loss in value will occur that is to be taken for granted but it will be small.
Seamus

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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25 Jul 2008 19:29 #10 by komalley (K OM)
Thanks Seamus!!

Was in aquapaws during the week and was discussing frozen foods............Gavin/Peter both made an interesting point.

Seems obvious but dumping the frozen food cube (either frozen or defrosted) is akin to feeding high levels of phosphate to the algae in the tank......... I've been having problems with algae and surprise surprise I feed frozen brine shrimp, daphia and blood worm at least 3 times a week and dump the whole unfrozen cube into my 200l tank........

1 week later and (rinsing my frozen foods) in combination with turning off the lights in my tank for 2 days I don't have anymore algae........

Anyone else got this experience?

kom

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25 Jul 2008 22:35 #11 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
komalley wrote:

...

1 week later and (rinsing my frozen foods) in combination with turning off the lights in my tank for 2 days I don't have anymore algae........

Anyone else got this experience?

kom


It would be very interesting to kno whether rinsing the frozen food or turning off the lights earlier (or both) reduced the algae problem. As you changed two variables at the same time, it is hard to know if adding the unrinsed food made any difference, though I expect it did.

Maybe put the lights back tot he there original duration and see does the algae remain at bay.

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