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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

Ph Question.

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13 Aug 2008 19:06 #1 by Orca (Eoin Walsh)
My rekord 96 is up and running now for 8 months and my Ph when tested is always at 7.6.I got 12 neon tetras two weeks ago and all have since died.I have 11 silver tipped tetra,10 harlequin rasbora.2 bronze-cory all doing well.Would the high ph have killed off my neons and should i try to lower it.I have read that granulated peat put into the filter might get it down.But i don't know how to go about this or would it help.

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13 Aug 2008 19:44 #2 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
Neons would prefer a pH up to 7.0, but so would the silver tips.

As all the new introductions died, it might be more ikely that something else killed them.

Do you have readings for nitrate, nitrate and Ammonia? Do you know what the pH of your water from the tap is?

Also how did they die, slowly, fast, with any marks or spots etc?

With the extra information, we should be able to find out what happened.

Daragh

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13 Aug 2008 20:20 #3 by AndyT (Andy Taylor)
Replied by AndyT (Andy Taylor) on topic Re:Ph Question.
Unless the PH changed dramatically it's unlikely to have killed your fish, none of those are particularily sensitive species and fish deal with PH changes in nature as a matter of course.

The fact that it was only the neons that died suggests the cause is other than the PH.

However, If you want to lower the PH, adding bogwood to the tank is a good way to start.

170L Bowfront Community Tank : Heavily planted : CO2 : T5 lighting

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13 Aug 2008 20:26 #4 by Orca (Eoin Walsh)
Replied by Orca (Eoin Walsh) on topic Re:Ph Question.
I got the water tested the other day in aquatic village.Ammonia,nitrite,nitrate all at 0ppm.My fish died at 1 or 2 a day for 9 days and they all lost there bright color.They had no marks or spots and always stayed to the back of the tank.Hope this helps.

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13 Aug 2008 21:40 - 13 Aug 2008 21:41 #5 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
There is something wrong with those readings, the ammonia and nitrite should read 0, but nitrate should have some reading in a tank with fish. A typrical reading would be 10 - 40 mg/l.

As they were the only fish to die and it does not seem that you have any serious water quality issues, I think you should contact the shop where you bought them.

Although the pH is higher than is ideal for neons, as Andy says it is not going to kill them.


Daragh
Last edit: 13 Aug 2008 21:41 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens).

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13 Aug 2008 22:07 #6 by PAULHARTE25 (PAUL HARTE)
Hi orca,i've had no luck with neons either,i bought ten a few months ago and lost them all within a few days,i've since changed shops to one of the sponsors,they quarantine all tetras for two weeks,not like the shop i used before,who sold them the day after they were delivered,they had 90% loss of the neon tetras within a week,i think theres just a bad strain of tetras coming in these days,i ordered cardinals the last time,thinking they'd be stronger,but again 100% loss after a week in quarantine,hope this helps

Paul

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13 Aug 2008 22:51 #7 by Orca (Eoin Walsh)
Replied by Orca (Eoin Walsh) on topic Re:Ph Question.
I am now thinking that i could have just bought bad fish.I have just go 15 cardinal tetras from aquatic village and they are great looking fish.Hope they do well in my tank.Will have to test my water again.Only reading my notes now my ph is all that has changed in the last few months and as daragh said it should read different with fish in it.Think i have to read a lot more.But will get there.

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14 Aug 2008 00:51 #8 by serratus (Drew Latimer)
Hi Orca, glad the cardinals are doing well...however.. i must say, neon tetras are \"not like they were\" a few years ago..we only bring them in from one source n they are alot better than other sources...problem is most farms overbred, etc.. they are now a weak fish as are alot of livebearers etc. fish that used to be \"ideal\" beginner fish have now become weak due to mass production, etc..sad but true!!! I would no longer recommend neons/guppys as beginner fish..anyone agree?? We also only bring in Livebearers form one source.. N 99% they are stunning!!!!!!!

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14 Aug 2008 08:23 #9 by Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
I would agree with guppies, the farm bred varieties are far more demanding than most people think. I can;t comment on neons because for some reason I have neer kept them. I have always gone for cardinals instead.

I wonder what Fr Jack (Sean) would have to say about that :-)


Daragh

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14 Aug 2008 09:37 - 14 Aug 2008 09:41 #10 by JohnH (John)
Replied by JohnH (John) on topic Re:Ph Question.

\"I wonder what Fr Jack (Sean) would have to say about that\"


Although not Fr Sean I would still like to add a few words...

I have long advocated the cessation of imports from fish farms in, especially, the Far East, their fish are, in the main, awful. You get all sorts of 'extras' free of charge - none of which is a desirable extra!!!

A perfect example is mentioned in this thread - Neons!!! I am old enough to recall when these were really delicate wild fish once, all but impossible to breed and their import would see lots of fatalities. Eventually they moved into the 'tank-breedable' class and their hardiness improved by many many percentage points. Sadly, then came the Farm Bred excuses for the Neons which were, I assume, the class of fish talked about in this thread.

I have been told that Cardinals are much harder to breed in Fish Farms and as such those reaching the shops tend to be either wild fish or tank-bred specimens from Eastern Europe, and much hardier for that. This might have changed now, but at one point Cardinals were being exported from South America by the million - but never to an extent that their survival was ever in danger...they are such prolific breeders in the wild that the stock levels soon returned to status quo - this may not be so now, but that's how it used to be!

Guppies, and indeed most other 'popular' livebearers - as both Drew and Daragh say - are now very poor imitations of what they once were. Another gripe is that nowadays, if you would like to breed Guppies (especially) it is getting on for being impossible - only Males are exported, with an assortment of Females from 'indifferent' strains ever being available. So if you choose a nice male and then buy a female from the 'hotch potch' available and they do produce young it will be most unlikely you will ever be able to sustain the strain of fish which would be anything like the original Male.

And don't let me start on about Farm-bred Angels!!!

As Daragh says; 'Wonder what Fr Jack will have to say'???

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.
Last edit: 14 Aug 2008 09:41 by JohnH (John). Reason: Mistake corrected, again

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15 Aug 2008 10:11 #11 by Sean (Fr. Jack)
Replied by Sean (Fr. Jack) on topic Re:Ph Question.
Just like Borrat keeps tropical fish in his under pants and sl...ps with his sister, keeping the gene pool means the male guppy have to sleep with their sisters:laugh: :laugh:

I once worked on a guppy farm south of Tampa, must be the most boring job I had in my life, basically you go around on a tractor with a trailer with a smooth wet table, the guppies were collect and left in pond water with tranquilizer one half a sleep then table was wet ted down the guppies were sorted the good ones went into a clean buckets through a \"hole in the table\" the brown looking one went through the \"other hole:( \" but instead of dropping into a clean bucket drop onto the the sun drenched dry grass, this keeps the genetic pool in the pond right. Smaller colour full ones went down another hole via a bucket before being returned to the pond.

Dont beelieve every one breeds cardinal tetras, I rember working in the Jewish owned fresh water tropical fish wholesaler in south London know as Neil Hardy Aquatic, they claimed to be breeding cardinals, what they were reely doing was using a guy called Paul who would imports 1000s of splinter size mireo Cardinals form latin America, grow them on to saleable size in Exsex the return the to Neil:P

That would be a ecumenical matter!!!

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15 Aug 2008 10:14 #12 by Sean (Fr. Jack)
Replied by Sean (Fr. Jack) on topic Re:Ph Question.

Borrats gene pool:laugh:

That would be a ecumenical matter!!!
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