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
UV Sterilizers
- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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I know a lot of salty keepers that use UV sterilizers to help control unwanted microbial life in their systems. Are these really a must have or just nice to have? From the research Im doing while setting up a new marine system there seems to be two schools of thought. One being that they are an excellent addition to help supplement your filtration, and the other being thy can be detrimental to livestock by doing such a good job that over time the livestock's immune systems cant deal with infections when they arise. So, what do the salty keepers here think? Are they worth it? Bearing in mind that these aint cheap

Jay.
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- Tetra (Tetra)
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Mark
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Yeah, it seems the the debate is raging on this. Like yourself I personally am leaning towards leaving it out, but then at the same time, I dont want to be left swinging if something goes wrong if you get my drift. I think ill go ahead and set up without one and see how things progress. That said, if I stumble across a good one at the right price...

Jay
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Kev.
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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So do you just turn them on when you suss a problem? Have you had to replace any parts or had any snags with them at all?
@ Tetra,
Are you planning on incorporating ozone with your skimmer? From what Ive read it makes them far more efficient.
Jay
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- Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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I get what you mean, that peace of mind is priceless for many. However, setting up a salty aint cheap and Im flying on fumes as it is so weighing off fish health and wallet health at the same time is difficult. What make is your filter? Is it a canister with a built in bulb? You say its running about two weeks? Do you run it constantly or just when you see a problem. Any snags with it?
Apologies for all the questions...
Jay
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- gerryberry (Jeff Daly)
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I don,t plan to use it 24/7, far from it. i will use it as i stock up my tank and turn it on an off over a period of the first few months til everything settles. Long term i will probably remove it.
have it running on a seperate pump so easy to control it and by that time i will have so other gizmo to use the pump on;)
What size tank are you setting up
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Jay
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- gerryberry (Jeff Daly)
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i considered it a luxury item myself but a cheap one came up from a fellow fishkeeper down my way so couldn,t pass it up.
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- Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
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It's a canister filter, sold under the name of Hanza on Polish market but it's Chinese product. I bought it on allegro.pl as it was cheaper than on e-bay.ie. The UV bulb is built into the filter canister - so very convenient. The filter and the lamp are used constantly. I want this filter to be the only filter used in my fish tank but have to wait till it's mature (another 2 - 3 weeks and I'll remove the sponge internal one that is running simultaneously at the moment). The UV lamp is turn on all the time but I do not use full power of the filter (stream would be to heavy for my 84l tank and my gopies...) - just about 50 %. Exactly the same filter you can buy on e-bay for 90 pounds delivered. The only snag I had with it was just because I wasn't the strongest girl and I had to use "external men's power"


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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Think you hit the nail on the head there mate. Reckon Ill focus on the essentials and see how things turn out. Cheers man.
@ Katherine,
Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed response. Much appreciated. As it stands, I have a filter en route so if I do decide on one down the line I will probably head in a different direction. Interesting these dual canisters though...thanks again.
Jay
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- Tetra (Tetra)
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Jay
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- russell (russell watson)
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I would rather remove algea which you shouldn't have if you run a skimmer & use Rowafos or similar.
Stock is far to valuble to loose.
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- wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
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Having kept Marines along with Discus the question is. Can I treat white spot / velvet ets, without destroying the good guys.if you have live rock inverts etc you can't use any meds as they are copper based & will kill off everything including anenomes and the like.
Not strictly true. There are some chemical based whitespot treatments that do not contain copper and are reef safe. There are also a few herbal treatments that don't do damage to corals or inverts.
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- russell (russell watson)
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