Freshwater Fish of the Month *please read*..where to submit

[nursie]

Hi Everyone,
We'd like to extend the ___ of the month informative articles to general freshwater. The idea is to include fishes not covered in the other catagories listed.
This is to be a species profile of your favorite fish, and short article. A good fish would be one that you have personal experience keeping, and can share tips. Please don't just gather info off the web and submit, but you can link to outside resources or pics if needed.
There were several people mentioning various fish they'd like to see have their own forum, these could have their own fish of the month article. Please pm your ideas to a mod, or post discussion on this thread.
Hope to see some great ideas!!

Are we voting on this or something? I have over a year of expieience with the followng fish if you want to do species profiles on them:

• three spot gourami
• bettas (gonna be breeding them soon)
• zebra danio
• bronze corydoras
• ottocinulus affinis
• bunos aires tetra
• black skirt tetra

[nursie]

Are you offering do do one? We are looking for people to write them. We do already have an offer for betta info.

Originally Posted by nursie

Are you offering do do one? We are looking for people to write them. We do already have an offer for betta info.

I'm offering to write 7, but I gues ones already taken so it's 6.pics can be included if you can wait a week or so for me to get a cord for my digital camera.

[OrionGirl]

I think we need to establish a few things first. Because we do want these for reference purposes, it shouldn't just be something hurriedly typed up. We don't want to discourage anyone from participating, but in order to make them easy to understand, grammar, spelling, and punctuation will all be very important. If you're not comfortable with that, get in touch with one of us--we can help point you in the right direction.

Secondly, our long term goal will be to have each species summary put into a profile list. In order to make these the most effective, there needs to be a standard format--and we're working on that! So, for now, please make sure to include the following information for any species, and understand that we'll be working with you (ie, any authors), to get the pieces together. Pictures will be great--your own, or others if you have permission to use them. Please do NOT just take a picture from another site! Copyright issues are a big deal, so anything you use from another site should be referenced, including images!

Elements:
Species Name common and scientific. If the scientific name is in dispute, list them, with the preferred name first. If the species is known by more than one common name, list them as well (ie, Pea Puffer, Dwarf Puffer).

Description Color, size, shape, gender characteristics, commonly confused with, etc.

Natural Habitat Where is the fish from originally (geographic location can be specific, ie, the Amazon River, or Generalized, South America)? What are the water conditions the fish is found in, in the wild?

Aquarium Needs Water parameters, tankmates, tank size, planted/unplanted, food sources--anything related to keeping them in the tank.

Disease concerns Are they prone to ick? Get fin rot at the first problem? Able to survive just about anything?

Breeding information Not everyone will have this from personal experience. If you've kept the species, and never seen breeding behavior, just note that, and indicate if the species has been succesfully captive bred. For example, I've kept dwarf puffers, but they never bred in my tanks. I do know that they can be bred in the tank, and are considered one of the easier puffers to captive breed.

Your personal experience. After all, the goal of these writeups is to share what you've seen in your tank, and gone through to care for the fish. Please understand that if your personal experience is contrary to what most aquariasts will have, it IS going to be corrected. If you say that an oscar will be fine in a 10 gallon tank, we aren't going to let it go. So, consider the species you keep carefully, and determine how comfortable you are with sharing that information. We don't want to discourage anyone is helping out--and it is a huge help! But at the same time, we want to develop a quality product.

[nursie]

Originally Posted by dorkfish

I'm offering to write 7, but I gues ones already taken so it's 6.pics can be included if you can wait a week or so for me to get a cord for my digital camera.

Great offer! I thought you were offering choice of, not to do all!!
OG is working on posting some guidelines for article content. If you'd give her a bit, she'll get it posted here for folks to look over. A big thanks to Lobo for getting us started. We've got one lined up for next month too, but that just gives you a little more time!!!
I think pics are a great addition. Not everyone may be familiar with the fish you are doing your report on.

[OrionGirl]

Ha! Beat you to the punch.

Originally Posted by OrionGirl

Disease concerns Are they prone to ick? Get fin rot at the first problem? Able to survive just about anything?

well, for me, with freshwater fish all of them that have caught disease have just died and I never went back to them. So what do I do if my fish have never caught any diseases?

[OrionGirl]

Provide what you've experienced. If you've never had a disease concern, mention that. If you quarantine, mention that, as well. This isn't info that really applies to all fish, simply because there are some ailments that any fish CAN catch, but there are also diseases the some species are particularly prone to catching (ie, any fish can get bloat, but Malawi's that aren't fed enough vegetation are so prone to it that it's commonly called Malawi Bloat, and wild-caught puffers are almost certainly going to have some sort of skin or internal parasite.) Identifying treatment concerns--ie, neons tolerating heat/salt treatment for ich--is also great, if you have the experience that confirms that info.

[Lobo.]

im going to keep adding more details as i have time (exams are soon at school) , tell me if anything important is missing...

[FreddytheFish]

OG, I think the guidlines are a great idea.

Freddy

[nursie]

It's looking good, Lobo!! Thanks!

[nursie]

Anyone have one for August??

[sarcare]

Hey nursie--if you want I can work up my comments on tiger barbs to a fish of the month profile for November. Just let me know if you are interested, and I'll try to get some pictures!

[nursie]

Please submit any futher fish profiles directly to the article section. thanks!!

[Daveedka]

Just to add to Nursie's comments, please remember that articles submitted will not be immediatly viewable. they will need to be reviewed by staff and then approved for public view.

Dave

[mostlycichlids]

Great idea and great information to have around in the future! Id post one but I already have a couple floating around. LOL, anyway personally I hope everyone participates in the _of the month contest. We need good fish profiles! OG, Dave, Nursie I have one question.....are these supposed to be short quick profiles or actual article type profiles?

[OrionGirl]

Both will be valuable. Basically, the more information that can be provided, the better. So far, we've gotten some of both.

[Lucky_13]

i submitted a couple articles in the article section....is there a different place to put FOTM?

[OrionGirl]

Depends. We started the FOTM in an effort to get more articles, soo...! We need to rethink this and see if it's not more efficient to have everything go in to the Articles section, and then pick species from there to promote as an OTM.