David O Hare | digitalaquarist

Name - David O'Hare

Location - Widnes, UK

Fishroom location - 8x6ft Wooden garden shed (Pictures and info from 2012, written in 2018)

Speciality - Central American Cichlids.

Notes - I have known David for many years and spent many an hour conversing with him on various forums which were the popular choice of communication for hobbyists in the early 2000's, since then social media has grown and no many people ignore the forums (Myself included) which is a shame as they offer a lot for hobbyists and are a great way of archiving information!
It became apparent that although in his early 20's when we first met up at his fish-room in 2012 he was a very knowledgeable and competent aquarist specializing in Central American cichlids. David is also well traveled and has dived and collected fish in Mexico and various other countries.

The fishroom was located in Davids parents house and could be found in the rear garden, the building was a modified garden shed and was well thought out and held far more than i expected! a real tardis.

As you can see, the building is a modified wooden garden shed, plenty of insulation is required in the UK as we can get quite severe winters with temperatures as low as -25c in some cases! Keeping your tanks outdoors at tropical temperatures is difficult without good thermal insulation! You can see from the thickness of the door insulation that David has done a good job here!

Many fishrooms in the UK close down because the owner skimps on insulation and the resulting heating bills force them out of the hobby! its not cheap to run a fishroom but with careful management it is possible to do it without breaking the bank!

There are many species of central American cichlids and most can be described as medium to large in size!
David managed to cram in a huge amount of species into this room, including a large pair of Jaguar cichlids (Parachromis managuensis) in a 6ft tank on the top row!

The rest are 2ft tanks sited end on to maximize space. I didnt measure them but they are either 24x18x12 or 24x15x12 by the looks of it.

The racking is very strong pallet racking, usually found in warehouses, it is ample strong enough to support the fishtanks and water.

The left hand side of the fishroom contains slightly smaller tanks which look like 24x12x15(High) these hold mainly the smaller species such as various Thorichthys and Crypoheros,

Many of Davids fish are very well grown and very beautiful! this Thorichthys aureus was a stunner!

Water storage is always a topic of discussion, like most UK fish room owners David stores his water at room temperature and uses a standard garden water butt holding 220litres.

This is pumped to the tanks via a hose during water changes.

Cichlids can produce lots of fry! David had several batches of offspring growing in the fishroom, these were then distributed to enthusiasts across the country!

David is one of the more serious hobbyist breeders in this respect and spends a lot of time and money searching out good bloodlines for his breeding stock. Many of the fish are wild or closely related to wild stock, often with type locality data!

The filtration around the room consists of air powered sponge filters, dozens of tanks ran by one large airpump makes good financial sense! Imagine the electricity cost of running individual tanks with internal or external filters!

The airpump feeds a ring of PVC overflow piping that runs around the room, from there taps are drilled into place and airlines are ran to individual tanks.

A neat and economical method! The airpump uses 65w of electricity and runs around 30 tanks!

You can see the air ring piping and airlines better in this picture. Lots of aquarists use this method and it works well.

You can also see the roof insulation in this picture.

You can see the internal setup of some of Davids tanks, a fine sand substrate which allows the fish to perform natural digging behavior. A few caves made from slate and some shelter and potential spawning sites made from overturned plant pots.

Fishroom heating! an area of vital importance in the UK! especially in winter when temperatures can drop below 0c

Most fish room owners choose to insulate the room to trap heat and then heat the room itself.

One of the more effective heaters are the numerous styles of oil filled radiator, the heater uses electricity to warm up the oil inside, when at the correct temp the thermostat cuts the electricity and the heater continues to warm the room from the ambiant heat of the oil.

The heaters are widely available and cheap to buy and run.

The lighting was on timers.. simply set them and forget about them! Easy.

Fry.. But what species? its been a long time since i was in this fishroom and i didnt make any notes at the time! I am not sure what these are but the certainly look healthy and are growing well.

And finally.. It was not all Cichlids! there were a few other species dotted around, a few Plecs and in later years David developed an interest in Wild type Livebearers and bred many rare and unusual species!