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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 Food

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10 Jun 2017 15:05 #1 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Live Food was created by Bill (Bill Hunter)
About 4 weeks ago I dragged an old bath out from a shed and put it in the wild area of my garden under the shade of a couple of mature Sycamores. Two weeks later the following wee beasties had taken up residence:

The bath.


Mosquito larvae


Glass Worm (non-biting midge larvae) Top.


Glass Worm - side


Bloodworm (non-biting midge larvae)


Bloodworm and Glass Worm comparison


I'm pleased to say I managed a harvest of terrific, free live food today.
I was a bit worried because very quickly - within a week - it was full of tiny diving beetles (it's great how quickly these devils find a piece of water and colonise it.) and some of these predate on larvae. However, I tipped some water in the batch that had leaves and other organic rubbish in and next morning they had vacated the tub.
Bill

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10 Jun 2017 22:19 #2 by robert (robert carter)
Replied by robert (robert carter) on topic Live Food
Great idea , might give it a go , would half a plastic barrel work ?

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11 Jun 2017 10:06 #3 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Replied by Bill (Bill Hunter) on topic Live Food

Great idea , might give it a go , would half a plastic barrel work ?


It certainly would, Robert. The white plastic bucket beside the bath was half-filled with water after torrential rain, a couple of days later it was full of tiny Mosquito larvae which I tipped into the bath. Mosquitos will lay eggs in any standing water they find, no matter how small. Be aware, if you don't harvest them often enough you aren't going to be popular with family or neighbours if you live in a built-up area.

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11 Jun 2017 21:50 #4 by robert (robert carter)
Replied by robert (robert carter) on topic Live Food
Hi Bill being new to this can i just feed the larve to my tropical community , and coldwater oranda tank , without the risk of introducing any nastye

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12 Jun 2017 10:25 #5 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Replied by Bill (Bill Hunter) on topic Live Food
Yes and no, Robert. It's just a case of dipping your net into the container and scooping out some food to give to your fish. I put it into a plastic container and then inspect it for dragonfly larvae and damsel fly larvae, also water boatmen and diving beetles etc. They are easily seen, usually, then I give the mossies' a rinse in the net in clean water then feed to the fish. Both your tropical and cold water fish will go mad for them.
If you're using tap water for your containers then you shouldn't be introducing much in the way of disease, if any, and it only takes a quick glance to check for unwanted insects.

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26 Jul 2017 19:33 #6 by Bill (Bill Hunter)
Replied by Bill (Bill Hunter) on topic Live Food
I've been stuffing my fish full of live food for a few weeks now, out of my bathtub - I wondered what was tickling my posterior when I washed my hair :laugh:
About 4 weeks ago I had two of those retail bags of Daphnia, the ones you get from the LFS. There isn't much in them, enough to feed one pair of fish. I dumped them in the bath with the mosquito larvae and with the spells of hot weather they have multiplied faster and more than usual. The tub is full of them now. I would suspect that there was a mixture of D. magna (or pulex, maybe both) and D. moina. There are clouds of young Daphnia, barely the size of newly hatched brine shrimp. With an extra fine net I bought from Seahorse, I've not had to hatch any brine shrimp to feed my young fish. They are growing superfast. A couple of scoops with the net and the fish get a great mixture of live food; Daphnia, Cyclops (they must have come in with the Daphnia), Blood worm, Glassworm, plus pupae from both, newly hatched baby mosquito larvae and all stages up to pupa. I have an old steel water tank, about 100 gallons in my greenhouse, I'll be setting that up as well next spring.




My feeding bill has now reduced from around €10.00 every 10 days to about €1.00 a month for yeast to feed the live food.
Bill
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