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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Replacing Gravel and UGF

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13 May 2010 09:06 #1 by TomNolan (Tommy Nolan)
Hi lads, as the title reads I want to replace the dark gravel in my tank but it's had undergravel filters in it since it's been running the past 6-7 years, maybe more. I bought a few bags of 'Aquarium Gravel' from work (petshop) but it looks more like sand to me! I'm guessing that if I take all the gravel out and this new stuff is too small of a grain, it'll go down through the gaps in the UGF and it won't work anyway..so I'm guessing the only thing to do is take the whole lot out? What's the best way to go about this, and are there any risks to the fishies if I disturb what I'm guessing has built up under there? I run two internal filters in the tank as well, it's about 5 foot long.


Any help would be appreciated!


Regards


Tom

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13 May 2010 09:41 #2 by JohnH (John)
Tom,
I have used (and still do regularly use) the tapered "spacer" which comes with an Aquaclear powerhead this fits tightly over the syphon tube then sits fairly tightly into the uptake of the undergravel filter.
I then enter the syphon tube into the uptake, with the bottom of the tube at gravel level and start syphoning.
This removes a surprising amount of 'dirt' from under the undergravel plates, but probably not all of it. This is a regular ploy of mine in all my U/G filtered tanks.

I have found syphoning to be the best method of removing the bulk of the gravel as well - using just the tubing, with the gravel cleaner removed.
But...I have never done this with the fish intact - they would become very stressed with the falling water levels, if allowed to drop too low.

For what it's worth my suggestion would be to remove the fish into saved tank water (in covered containers) then take out the gravel and then the U/G plates and have a good clean up and re-fill the tank using a decent percentage of saved tank water.

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



It's a long way to Tipperary.

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13 May 2010 09:45 #3 by TomNolan (Tommy Nolan)
Sounds like an idea John, thanks for the advice. We actually just moved our whole fish section to the new shop and changed all our tanks from gravel to barebottom - plenty of siphoning gravel! :woohoo:

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13 May 2010 09:56 #4 by JohnH (John)
But not too many mouths-full, I hope?

John

Location:
N. Tipp

We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.


ITFS member.



It's a long way to Tipperary.

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13 May 2010 10:35 #5 by TomNolan (Tommy Nolan)
Now that you mention it, I was finishing off cleaning the last of the tanks yesterday and got a substantial gob full of manky old aquarium water and was coughing and spluttering for ages :lol: Luckily I was behind the tanks and no one witnessed it! :P :woohoo:

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08 Jun 2010 22:37 #6 by TomNolan (Tommy Nolan)
Well I have since switched the tank over to sand..I did it about 2 weeks ago and I thought I'd given the sand a good rinse..turns out not so much! I couldn't see into the tank or see fish for a week! I cleaned the filter out 3 or 4 times a day and did constant water changes and it's now crystal clear. My filter however is still a bit gunked up inside and making a lot of noise. So it's coming out tomorrow for a good clean, the problem with my tank is it's mounted in an alcove in my living room on two girders, so the filters, heaters, air pumps are all going through a hole drilled into the wall, makes it awkward when I'm changing equipment! I'll post some pics when I have the tank topped up and properly landscaped..I've gotten some JBL mangrove root and it looks the business with the sand!

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