Practical Fishkeeping August 2024

THERE IT IS ladies and gentlemen. Maybe 150 issues after I joined the team at PFK, I'm handing my pen back in and turning to a new life, being hands on with fish again. My last issue, and, frankly, it's looking pretty good. There's nothing like going out on a high. It just remains for me to offer my unreserved thanks. Thanks firstly to all the contributors, for your excellent stories over the years. Thanks also to the photographers—I appreciate just how hard a print calibre image is to take. Thank you to the many companies who trusted me to test your products. And, of course, thank you profusely to each and every reader for believing that what I did was worth paying for. As one era ends, so I…

TROPICAL Oddballs L AST YEAR I gave a talk to the Aquarium Co-Op for their series of podcasts. Their members wanted to know about oddball fishes, a topic that appeals to many aquarists after they've established their first community tank. But the title begs a question: what makes oddballs odd? A simplistic (though rather unhelpful) answer would be that oddball fishes are those species that don't fit into the usual categories of fish we keep in community tanks; that oddballs aren't tetras, or barbs, or loaches, or cichlids—but that doesn't really help us think about what oddballs need to do well. Saying that oddballs are fishes you don't often see for sale isn't helpful either, as quite a few are definite staples of the trade. Taxonomic niceties and commercial availability…

STEP BY STEP African lampeye tank IN THE FOLLOWING display, I have recreated a small West African forest stream, tumbling through a sunlit clearing within a dark, primeval rainforest. The idea was to develop a setup into which the viewer can not only truly believe they are peering into a jungle creek, but where they might find calm and a sense of wellbeing. There have been studies showing the benefits of aquaria on mental health. You might even recall times you've seen a fish tank in a dentist's waiting room or in the communal room of a retirement home—places of worry, anxiety, stress, and confusion. I've often wondered what it is exactly that causes most people to relax when they watch a fish-tank and I've developed my own, rather simple…

NATIVE FISH Ruffe An Oxfordshire-based aquarist with a passion for rare species conservation. ACCORDING TO THE Etyfish project, the latin suffix ‘cernua’ refers to ‘face-first’ or ‘headdownwards’. Accordingly, the aquarist may presume that any fish bearing this name is part of the eponymous headstanders of the warm, shallow, fast-flowing tropical streams of South America. However, the species in question hails from waters far closer to home. Gymnocephalus cernua, the Eurasian or ‘Tommy’ ruffe, is more familiar to anglers than aquarists. Found across the chilled fresh waters of much of Northern Europe, including Britain, it has also been introduced by those who fish for sport in some waterways in North America and Canada, where it has proved to possess invasive potential. As a member of the true perches, Percidae, its congeners…

TROPICAL Cichlids Michel is author of several books, including the highly acclaimed Freshwater Fishes of Cameroon. THE FIRST TIME I saw Heterochromis multidens was in a book about West African cichlids by Anton Lamboj. There was a brief mention of the species and there was a photo of an adult male specimen, which had been photographed by Ulrich Schliewen. And if I'm not mistaken, it was mentioned that this recording was made in Cameroon. Everything was new to me at that time, and I eagerly took it in. As is often the case, it takes a lot of searching on the internet to obtain information about some fish. My searches suffered from a lack of useful information. In 2006 and 2007 I made consecutive fishing trips through Cameroon, and in…

THE EXPERTS [TROPICAL] Why did my angels eat their tankmates? WIN! Our Question of the Month letter will receive a Tetra goodie bundle worth up to £100* I have a 240-litre tank which is home to a pair of adult angelfish and until recently a shoal of cardinal tetras. I had an outbreak of whitespot which wiped out the tetras. Once the whitespot had gone I added some new cardinals, but the angels ate them. I was surprised as they had always left the original ones alone. Can you explain why this might have happened? JAN RIPLEY BOB SAYS: Angelfish may appear to be graceful, often placid fish, but their cichlid nature is often only buried just below the surface. They can be quite aggressive, especially when breeding, and, like…