Name - John Dean
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Location - Saint Helens UK
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Fishroom location - Indoors, upstairs in a spare bedroom.
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Speciality - Generalist fishbreeder, lots of rare fish including Livebearers, Corydoras and lots of Characins. ​
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Notes - John runs an absolutely fascinating fishroom! i have been visiting John for a long time now and i love spending time in this room! this room is all about the fish! John travels all over the world in pursuit of specimens for his tanks, he has collected in Uruguay and has just returned from the Peruvian/Bolivia border. He regularly travels to Europe and brings back fish, his fishroom is a treasure trove of rare and unusual fish!
Add to that the hospitality shown by Liz and John makes this one of my favourite places! there are always fish that i do not recognise! several are shown in the pictures below, i hope that you enjoy looking at Johns room as much as i love visiting!
The right hand side of Johns fishroom, you can clearly see that he has crammed a lot of small tanks into this space! some of the tanks are tiny holding barely 3-4 litres of water but are still sustaining populations of livebearers or fry, it requires a lot of skill and experience to keep fish this way, luckily John has both in abundance!
Swinging from right to left we can see this rack head on, i can count 34 tanks/tubs on this rack alone!! plus i can see Johns grindalworm cultures stacked up in the left hand bottom corners! as well as being superb at keeping fish John has also mastered the art of breeding and growing live food cultures! His fish are always well fed!
This central table/stand doubles as a workspace and a breeding area, its also storage for foods etc..
And now on the left wall, 14 larger growing on or stock tanks in the left hand rack, most of Johns Corydoras are kept in the rack on the right hand side! he has a stunning collection of Corydoras catfish!
John Dean explaining the finer points of aquarium keeping to John McCormack, a Preston member and fellow fishroom owner.
Ray Blackburn stands behind.
Its an 'In' joke but John has a wicked sense of humour..... heheheheh
A small drop tank for a livebearer species, the fish are only held in these small tanks for a few days but they are in safe hands, John knows exactly what he is doing!
Not an uncommon sight in Johns fishroom! there are fry and homebred fish everywhere!!
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I told you that John had a wonderful Corydoras collection! one of my favourites and possibly one of the prettiest species! Corydoras eques.
I dont recongnise this characin, it is possibly one of the new ones that Pier aquatics imported in during 2017? whatever it is i hope that John breeds them and lets me have some offspring!
Betta dennisyongi or Betta rubra? i am not 100% sure but they are stunning and one of the 'wild type' Betta species.
Plenty of action in this tank, these Cory fry were pacing up and down the front glass, desperate for attention! so i gave it to them! ... I think they look happier now they are on the website.
Brachyraphis sp... roseni i think? I dont know my livebearers as well as i should!
Maybe i should take more notes in Johns room and stop eyeing up his dwarf cichlids?
??? again im stumped! ill get the books out and learn what it is, for now i have more typing to do so it will have to wait!
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I know this one.. Hyphessobrycon wadai, the blueberry tetra, an absolute stunner and one which should be far more popular than it currently is, high prices currently account for its absence in the hobby, however it is easy to breed and many people are now doing so. Hopefully the price will drop and this beauty will become more accessable in the mainstream hobby.
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Xiphopherous cortezi by the looks of it, a Mexican beauty!
Hyphessobrycon sp
Danio pathirana? the stripe on the caudal peduncle is making me think this is something different!
Trigonopoma gracile, a very rare occurance in the UK hobby, this was the first time i had seen this species alive. A beauty from Bornean blackwater habitats.
Corydoras parallelus, a beauty from the Upper Rio Negro in brazil, always in demand and never common, John is one of a very few people i know to breed this species.