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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

What rock is safe????

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15 Jul 2009 21:40 #1 by Dalay (Mark Daly)
I have a load of rock my girlfriend use to use in a flower bed. No idea what type of rock it is. Its round and real smooth. Was wondering would anybody know what type of rock this is and would it be safe to put into the tank, oh and what would I need to do to it before i did.

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15 Jul 2009 22:13 #2 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
try the fizz test, put a few drops of vinegar on it, if it fizzes it will affect water quality if not it's inert and should not... this being said some rocks may contain minerals which may leech into the tank and kill fish, eg: marble can contain arsenic.. which i found out when starting fish keeping 26 yrs ago, and fish died regularly without cause and it took 5 years before it stopped with regular water changes, and then when i read some book a few years later i found out this fact.. p'd me off no end.. but you learn from experience... general rule is if in doubt leave it out

Seamus

Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild

currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick

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16 Jul 2009 09:47 #3 by alkiely (alan kiely)
It all depends on what fish you want to keep.... You can add certain rocks to ur tank like sand stone if you wanna increase kh which in turn will increase ur ph. The likes of slate wont effect kh or ph if you use that in ur tank.

Alan

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16 Jul 2009 10:02 #4 by Dalay (Mark Daly)
I'm keeping american cichlids, I don't want to add anything that will raise the ph because my tap water is high enough in it. I've only been cycling the new tank since tuesday. Its about 600 litres, I got the fluval fx5. I also bought a new API master test kit and took some readings this morning. When I was filling the tank I used about 160 litres of water from my other tanks and put in some old media from one of the other filters. The results were PH 7.8, ammonia 0, nitrite 0. nitrate was about 20. Should i still be expecting these to climb and then settle?

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16 Jul 2009 10:08 #5 by Dalay (Mark Daly)
Just to add i've also added nutrafin cycle.

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16 Jul 2009 10:36 #6 by alkiely (alan kiely)
It all comes down to what rock you put in the tank etc try find rock thst does do cause any problems.

Im sure there are members on the forum that can tell you what rock to use in the tank.

600L tank nice what tank is it...?

Alan

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16 Jul 2009 10:48 #7 by Dalay (Mark Daly)
Its an aquatlanis evasion horizon 200. I was going to buy a juwel vision 450 from the pet shop in Enfield. The owner is sound as a bell. I was in and out with him a couple of times and he offered me this tank for nothing as I said sound as a bell, came with the stand too.

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16 Jul 2009 10:58 #8 by alkiely (alan kiely)
Are you keeping central or south americans...?

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16 Jul 2009 11:02 #9 by Dalay (Mark Daly)
South american, well to be honest both Oscar severum firemouth and jack dempsey

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16 Jul 2009 19:11 #10 by derek (Derek Doyle)
it is better to be careful when using rock from the garden because apart from the possibility of it hardening the water, it can often have residue of insecticide/fungicide or even oil. it is a good idea to scrub and soak any rock of this type before use. also round smooth rock is dificult to stack and can only really be safely used singly which wont create any caves for resting up or spawning.

30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish

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16 Jul 2009 19:38 #11 by Dalay (Mark Daly)
Yeah you're probably right Derek, round ones would probably be a bit of a hazard. Alan mentioned slate, any idea where I could get some?

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16 Jul 2009 20:15 #12 by alkiely (alan kiely)
you can get slate in homebase, woodies etc

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16 Jul 2009 22:24 #13 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
just be careful when getting slate that it has no mineral veins in it which may affect your water quality, copper is the most common found in slate

Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild

currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick

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