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
Help with pond please
- robert (robert carter)
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- Aldrin (Aldrin Martin)
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I think I'll hit some store today, euro general, more 4 less and dealz. Mr price is a good bit away from me so I won't be able to cycle to there
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- paulv (paul vickers)
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- Bill (Bill Hunter)
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Personally, I wouldn't worry too much about plants depleting oxygen levels at the expense of fish otherwise we would be doing damage by introducing Co2 to our tanks to get good plant growth. My personal opinion is that both kind of plants can be used for a healthier tank and less need for introducing Co2 to the tank, but the difficulty is finding those plants that "reverse" this respiration. But there again, if plants were ever to use more o2 than Co2 I wouldn't worry about my fish, I'd worry more about life altogetherOk, I never knew that, well u learn something new every day.
Also could this filter work?
Or will the plants deplete the oxygen at night?

Bill
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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As Robert mentioned I'd not put gravel in the bottom of a pond, it's going to build up with sludge and gunk and as he say's they'd be impossible to keep clean.
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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How about building it the other way, go water into the bottom of your 110l container, build a spider web of holed PVC piping and force water to rise through the tub and exit via the top? This way you can use gravel as your media along with foam, curlers, bioballs ect and then plant it making a mini bog filter? It offers affordability and an enjoyable bit of DIY!!
Watch this video and I think you'll see where I'm going. There is about 10 parts to it but I think he covers a lot of what you want to do....the pond digger other then the irritating intro music has some very good build videos as well and planting ideas as well as stocking options.....
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- FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
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Remember you can have a lot of water turnover with little effect if you don't have enough media, water gets cleaned by passing through media so the more you have of it the better it will be. If you have a fast turn over the water will not get properly clean so don't think it needs to go through at high pressure. Also, if you have a small area of media with 2000l trying to pass through it, it will get clogged in no time at all, it is better to spread out the surface area that the water comes in touch with to increase cleaning intervals.
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I also know from experience that not having enough filter media surface area leads to clogging of the media which in turn caused an overflow and my pond completely drained!!!
That was a lesson learned, this is when I also learned to put your pump up on something then on the floor of the pond so if an overflow occurs fish still have a body of water to swim in.....
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