Name - Tim Addis
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Location - Redditch UK
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Fishroom location - Outdoors, large wooden building, one half storage for TA Aquaculture, the second half holds the fish.
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Speciality - Tim has specialised in Killiefish for many years. Plenty of livebearers when i visited! ​
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Notes - Unfortunately Tim was in the process of closing down this fishroom when i visited in 2013, these pictures are some of the last of the complete fishroom as i took lots of tanks home with me on the day! we had several hours looking around and Tim had a great collection of fish, lots of interesting Killiefish, tank upon tank of livebearers (Mainly guppy and endlers) plus cichlids and Gobys.
Tim is well known in UK aquarist circles as a Killifish expert and for many years has been putting together a lot of important information on west African killifish here... http://www.wak.aka.org/ he also owns and runs TA aquaculture, this started off as an online store selling foods and equipment but is now a bricks and mortar shop based in Birmingham, UK. The shop is fairly new and i have not yet had chance to visit but by all accounts it has started well and is well respected. http://taaquaculture.uk/ i plan on visiting soon and taking my camera!
Back to 2013 and the visit to the fishroom you see in the pictures! Tim was closing down the fishroom to move to Malta, myself and a few friends visited after an aquatic auction held close to Tims house, we were welcomed into the fishroom and had a chance to look around, my first impression was the amouth of light, Tim uses Polycarbonate roofing which is transparant and lets in a large amount of light, many of his tanks contained simple to grow plants such as mosses and ferms and they seemed to be thriving, the second impression was the sheer amount of fish Tim was breeding/growing! He is a very talented fishbreeder, his guppies were gorgeous, the killifish were harder to see but with patience (Or Tim chasing them out!) i saw lots of rarely seen Fundulus species, plus lots of Fundulopanchax and Aphyosemion sp.
The rooms filtration is airpowered and uses a large airpump to supply air to a narrow tube which ran around the room, from there individual plastic valves fed air to the sponge filters in the tanks. Water storage is via plastic waterbutts (With several outside collecting rain water!) and the fishroom has a drainage system running to the local sewer.
A great fishroom and i hope that you enjoy the pictures!
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A fishroom at the end of the garden! the large wooden construction spreads across the width of the garden and is sheltered by the trees growing infront of it.
Water butts are connected to the roof by a drainpipe and supply a ready supply of rainwater, perfect for breeding softwater fish in a area with a water supply that is hard and alkaline!
As soon as you enter the fishroom you are greated by this rack of tanks, 24x6x6 and perfect for growing the young juvenile fish in their first weeks, some of these were empty and were my reason to visit this fishroom, these tanks were coming home with me for use in my fishroom!
Lots of light meant good plant growth, as well as T8 tubes above the tanks Tim has constructed his fishroom with a clear Polycarbonite roof which allows light to flood in. The tanks were stuffed with mosses and floating plants which were growing really well!
Here you can see some of those plants in this tank holding Killifish.
Like a lot of large fishrooms the cheapest way to filter numerous tanks is via air, most fishrooms feature a large airpump such as this, the air is pumped into a series of pvc pipes and individual valves control the flow to each tank. Also in this picture you can see the roof construction and how bright the room is!
These plastic 'tanks' were full of some of the best coloured guppies and endlers i have ever seen, the abundant light promoted a lot of green water and algae forming on the sides, in this water the guppies thrived and glowed with beauty.
A look down one of the isles!
Some beautiful red guppies, Tim had numerous strains breeding and growing well in his tanks, these were in the lower tanks, the plastic vats were too high and visibility was too poor to take many good pictures!
I particually like this strain! very pretty fish and a good seller i am sure!
Tim had had many dwarf cichlids over the years and that soft rainwater surely comes in handy when breeding these Apistogramma, it looks like a nice wild strain cacatuoides to me but its difficult to tell from this angle!
Tim was breeding LOTS of these! he had two tanks full of well developed home bred fish. Tateurndina ocellicauda or the Peacock goby is a stunning little fish and i wish i had brought some of these home with me, i have still never kept or bred this species and it is on my wishlist!
Rivulus sp. Tim has specialised in Killifish for many years and we saw some beauties on our visit, i was told names but this is the problem with memory! it fades! i should write better notes from these trips!
Pachypanchax omalonotus.. A stunning killifish from madagascar, like all wildlife from this beautiful country it is increasingly under threat from habitat loss. A small number still remain with specialist breeders which is a blessing but more and more clubs and associations are collapsing and more and more old school specialist breeders are either giving up the hobby due to old age or dying! who is going to continue to maintain these rare fish long term? is the hobby as we knew it gone forever? I hope not.
A stunner and again my mind deceives me, i cannot remember the name of this species, Tim had to go into the tank to coax it out so we could have a look, i am glad that he did, it is a beauty!
And finally a shot of my car boot filled with the small tanks from by the door! sadly these pictures represent the last images of Tims wonderful fishroom in its entirety, it was started to be taken apart during our visit and continued over the following weeks!
Tim is certainly not out of the fish business though! he continues to run TA aquaculture which started off as a online business but is now a bricks and morter fishshop holding over 300 tanks of tropical fish, i have not yet had time to visit but you can be sure that i will do soon, and i will be taking my camera!