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
Indoor Koi not eating
- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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Have three Butterfly Koi in a 240l tank inside, yes I know it's too small, I have a 2500l pond that I'm going to move them into at the start of the next season after they bulk up a bit. Tank is heavily filtered with an Eheim 2236 and a JBL E900 along with aeration, gets a 20% water change every week with alternating gravel clean.
Two of the Koi are eating fine but the other guy is getting thinner and is not eating. He is still swimming about, doesn't seem to be flashing or have buoyancy issues. No pebbles stuck in his mouth that I can see as a google search said this could be a reason. I'm going to do a water test tonight, I had only done a water change and filter clean yesterday when I noticed him so I didn't think I'd get a proper reading. Bought them all in Newlands about two or so months ago. Will try and post a picture of the three of them later on today so you can see what I mean.
I put a drop of Tetra Medifin in this morning before I left for work just to see if it's a mini infection, any other ideas??
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- robert (robert carter)
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- ger310 (Ger .)
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Ladies and Gents,
Have three Butterfly Koi in a 240l tank inside, yes I know it's too small, I have a 2500l pond that I'm going to move them into at the start of the next season after they bulk up a bit. Tank is heavily filtered with an Eheim 2236 and a JBL E900 along with aeration, gets a 20% water change every week with alternating gravel clean.
Two of the Koi are eating fine but the other guy is getting thinner and is not eating. He is still swimming about, doesn't seem to be flashing or have buoyancy issues. No pebbles stuck in his mouth that I can see as a google search said this could be a reason. I'm going to do a water test tonight, I had only done a water change and filter clean yesterday when I noticed him so I didn't think I'd get a proper reading. Bought them all in Newlands about two or so months ago. Will try and post a picture of the three of them later on today so you can see what I mean.
I put a drop of Tetra Medifin in this morning before I left for work just to see if it's a mini infection, any other ideas??
Sorry I've read it a couple of times and at first I thought this is going on a while but then you say when you were doing a water change yesterday you noticed him?..........there could be a number of reasons for this,a pebble that is wedged that you cant see being one of them..........if you haven't any at home get your hands on some Epsom salt (a decent sized tub of it is only 3-4 euro in any pharmacy) and add some to your tank........it helps to clear fish out among other benefits so it will only help your tank even if it doesn't help the fish that is not eating.
Ger
What do you call a three legged Donkey?
A Wonkey....duh ha

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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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The nitrate is high but that is something in my water here in kildare because no matter what I do be it water changes, gravel cleans or filter cleans it's always the same and doesn't fluctuate.....I can't reduce it through the usual channels and I don't want to be constantly adding chemicals.
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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I'll try live food, I think SH normally have it in and see if that gets him going or I'll separate him into a bucket and try him on peas to see if he's a bit backed up.
Great advice as always and thanks for your time!!!
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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- Jonlate (Jon Late)
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Test that with your water test kit to see if it's OK and use that in your hospital tank. The nitrates might be lower than your tap water.
Just bring it up to temperature first!!
I mostly only use rain water now for my tanks water change. Sometimes I top it up with treated tap water when it's raining and can't be bothered to go outside.
So, try and give rainwater changes a go, and see if that helps.
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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I do regular gravel cleans, major one the other night using a spare external filter. I do regular 20-30% water changes and I clean the two external filters in tank water every 6 weeks alternating them, so one filter of the two is cleaned every 6 weeks....
Filter foam, should I now look at changing this out again on alternating weeks, ie one chamber once a week? Could it be my filtration dragging down my system??
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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I am baffled as I didnt think I was doing anything wrong. Going to cut back on feeding to once a day with one cube of blood worm and then look at filtration, either replacing pads or adding to it
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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Going to SH tomorrow to buy nitrate media for the JBL and also see about getting some plants. Didn't want to go down the plant route again as they make gravel cleaning a nightmare.
Can anyone recommend koi friendly plants?
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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I don't want it to crash though
What else could I try?
I have reduced feeding to one cube of blood worm or brine shrimp per day/every second day
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)
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www.seachem.com/garlicguard.php
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- ger310 (Ger .)
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I think if you stick to weekly large water changes and regular gravel cleans you will keep your Nitrates in check without needing to add anything else to your tank/filter.
Ger
What do you call a three legged Donkey?
A Wonkey....duh ha

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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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Still no change, poor chap has seemed to lose colour in his eyes, they have gone very white in comparison to the others. I put him in a 60l hospital tank, been doing regular water changes, added salt and melafix in case it was bacterial, upped aeration my taking out the non return valve. I bought epsom salts so I'm going to fill a bucket and do a 5-10 minute bath over a few days and see what that does.
It's looking like we may have lost another life in 2016
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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I hope everyone is having a great 2017 thus far. Well the poor guy didn't make it, he just went to skin and bone, sank and that was it I'm afraid. I think himself and George Michael went within hours of one another
I have kept up the water changes on both tanks anyway and again I can only get the nitrates down to between 10-20. Nothing will shift them lower.
I have some Eheim bio media that I am going to try adding to see again if it's perhaps the over use of filter foam. I have the JBL running with the nitrate sachets so I might add another sachet to see if that helps.
Keep the faith!
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- robert (robert carter)
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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All seems to be going well in the tank of late, been doing twice weekly water changes and gravel cleans, Nitrates still seem to be a tad high but no where near the red line that they were.
The two remaining Koi are eating and getting bigger and everything else seems healthy.
I've reduced filter cleaning as the Eheim 2236 bleeding handle has been acting up so I'm trying to keep that to a minimum. It's also started drawing in air from the top of the suction side, aside from the noise it doesn't bother me as air in the filter can assist the bacteria from what I have read.
Just an update as there were concerns about the nitrates!
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- robert (robert carter)
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