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
Breeding Boesemani Rrainbows (last update)
- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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I got this idea to breed them as i keep small group (5 male 3 female). Search in net reveals plenty information and the only problem is to have sexually mature couple.
Setup: 54l tank, air driven sponge filter (previously matured in other tank), plenty of vegetation as they love it. I used live plant (Heteranthera zosterifolia) as spawning medium.
Water: hardness 2.8 dH, pH 7.6, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate = 0, 25 degree Celsius.
Got first eggs two days later and i kept the couple in the tank for 5 more days (eggs start to hatch after 5 days).
First fry hatched next day after removing parents and few more every day over 5 days period.
First food: infusoria
Have some 50 fry at the moment, last ones about week old
So far so good

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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- JohnH (John)
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I have always found all Rainbows to be literally the easiest Egglayers to breed. The problem comes with them being such slow growers!
I also found that I could feed them with newly-hatched Brine Shrimps straight from the 'off'.
With this they seem to be fairly quick-growing for the first few weeks, but thereafter the growth rate really slows down.
Another thing which happened with mine was that they needed careful grading as the larger fish came to look upon their smaller brethren as a food source. You shouldn't have this problem if your fry are only a week in the difference, but keep an eye on them all the same.
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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- Alan86 (Alan86)
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I tried raising the fry a few times, but again i had the problem of feeding the tiny fellers!...after that i stopped trying! lol
Wishing you the best of luck anyways!
Alan
The money was just resting in my Account!
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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Just started to feed brine shrimp few days ago and a little bit of egg yolk.
Some of the little fellas already tripled in size.
Didn't do any breeding for a long time, almost forgot how big fun it is
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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are you pouring it in raw or are you cookin it first ??
never heard of feeding like this before ... sounds interesting
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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Egg yolk is old-school method before all them "fancy" foods appeared

Just boil it hard and give some to the fish it will disintegrate to tiny particles perfect for fry, not all fry tough.
The main problem is that if You feed to much it will decompose very fast polluting water.
One also shouldn't feed fry exclusively on it cause when it's high protein food it lacks other nutritional elements.
Thanks Platty
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- Denis (Denis Goulding)
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Cant wait to follow their progress,
Regards,
Denis
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
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Follow me up to Carlow
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Rainbows are lovely and deserve their own setup, as do all my fish. Now I just have to convince herself of that too:)
Mark
Location D.11
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- CJackson (Frank Farrell)
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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as for the breeding setup/regime it's at the beginning of the post, this way i got 58 of fry (was able to count them at early stage), fish are in 100l tank now
3 of them died of unknown reasons, had to kill another 4 due to deformities
here is main tank as it was when it existed

www.irishfishkeepers.com/cms/component/o...w/catid,27/id,70205/
the new one is 400l and not worth showing as it's not in its full glory yet
i'm surprised myself that it goes so well although very slow

cheers
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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I guess it's the last update on this
looks like complete success, although long time to wait for it
just the last photos of few males about 7cm long
don't really have anything to add except that patience is biggest challenge with them

whole bunch is in 400l now
next project
chilatherina bleheri
post about it soon
cheers
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Jay
Location: Finglas, North Dublin.
Life
may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.
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- 2poc (2poc)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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8 months on, they really are slow growers.
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