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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

Starting from scratch

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22 Jun 2007 02:02 #1 by Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
Ok, I was thinking of setting up an African Tanganyikan tank but i'm being swayed towards Marine at the moment.

From my (limited) understanding, is this the hardware and decor needed.

1. Tank, was thinking about 300ltr. Does the saltwater effect what type of tank/seals needed.
2. Protein skimmer.
3. Live Rock, will this act as my biological filter on its own?
4. Coral sand, or some type of Live sand bed?
5. Good Lighting (T5's/T8's), as i intend to start fish only and slowly add easy corals, subject to compatability etc.
6. Powerheads, for obvious reasons.
7. I've noticed fans on the top of many Marine tanks, Is this to give a ripple/tidal effect?
8. External Filter, for mechanical waste removal. Probably filled with coarse sponge and carbon for chemical filtration.

Thanks, Peter.

Smoke me a Kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.

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22 Jun 2007 08:30 #2 by lampeye (lampeye)
1. Tank, was thinking about 300ltr. Does the saltwater effect what type of tank/seals needed.

no

2. Protein skimmer.

yes

3. Live Rock, will this act as my biological filter on its own?

yes , provided you dont overstock, it is a good choice IMO. get yourself a good book and have a read about the pros and cons of each filtration system, and base your decision on that.

4. Coral sand, or some type of Live sand bed?

coral sand is a bit big, and sand will become live with time from your live rock. or you can seed it like a filter, with a handfull from a healthy system argonite is a lovely substrate, small grains and it also buffers our water. it is a sort of a bone colour, i like it so much i put it in my tangyanika tank aswell. it is pricy though....prob cost you 80 quid for a 300litre tank.

5. Good Lighting (T5's/T8's), as i intend to start fish only and slowly add easy corals, subject to compatability etc.

lighting is something you can upgrade later. unless your 100 percent sure you want corals. very few thrive with regular t8s. i know very little about the subject. ask someone from a shop or russell should know more about this.

6. Powerheads, for obvious reasons.

yes . they recommend 10-20 times the tanks volume per hour. the tunze nanostreams are excellent IMO.

7. I've noticed fans on the top of many Marine tanks, Is this to give a ripple/tidal effect?

no. this is to cool the tanks down. some of the more powerfull lighting, plus your powerheads etc, can heat the tank up too much.

8. External Filter, for mechanical waste removal. Probably filled with coarse sponge and carbon for chemical filtration.

the sponge is a bad idea if you want thge live rock to be the filter....it will become a filter itself...as will the carbon if you dont change it regularly . (eg half of it weekly)

lampeye

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25 Jun 2007 05:43 #3 by Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
Thanks for the reply, i've been doing a lot of reading over the past few days (Driving the missus mad).

I've noticed that a lot of tanks have sumps,refugium, Kalkwasser reactors, C02 reactors etc etc.....

You can see how daunting it could get for the novice.

Smoke me a Kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.

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25 Jun 2007 09:24 #4 by lampeye (lampeye)
a sump would be great to hide you r equipment skimmer/heater etc, and a refugium would be great for algae /mangrove tree to keep nitrates down and breed the pods that some fish like mandarins eat.

but these are by no means necessary, just better if u can.

the calcium reactors / kalwasser etc are not necessary unless you want really high end corals etc.

lampeye

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25 Jun 2007 09:26 #5 by Anthony (Anthony)
Replied by Anthony (Anthony) on topic Re: Starting from scratch
Start of slow like me with F.O.W.L. then progress.

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25 Jun 2007 16:10 #6 by paulm (paulm)
Replied by paulm (paulm) on topic Re: Starting from scratch
Hi Peter

Keep it as simple as possable as Anto said just go fish only to start and then add to your requirments. Build it slowly. All the information you need is on this forum. Do it and they'll SWIM. :wink:

THE BEST OF LUCK WITH YOUR PROJECT

Regards Paul

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26 Jun 2007 01:34 #7 by Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
Will do alright, Once i start getting a feel for the FOWLR i'll slowly progress to some easy corals. Cheers for the info.

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13 Jul 2007 12:50 #8 by buleetu (buleetu)
hi peter

im new to the site,hows things?

i wouldnt worry too much about ur lighting system at the moment,

wait to see where u wanna go with the hobby

metal halide lights are used for most lps and sps corals (large polyp stoney and small polyp stoney) and some softies

in my tank i have loads of softies and 2 hitch hiking sps one is gonipora i think


the lights i have at the moment are 1 54w t5 with a marine white lamp
2 36w pc t5s with half white and half actinic
2 30w t8s with half marine white and half actinic (juwel lights that cam with the tank)

i started out with any empty tank full of argonite sand and saltwater then i put in some dead reef rock and then gradually added a few lbs of live rock every week

then over 6 months i added 2 clowns a baby regal tang and a chalk goby

then after the 6th month i started to add softies , in the beginning there i only had the t8 lamps but as i built up the softies i added the extra stuff

i wouldnt listen to anyone who tells u this hobby is too complicated or hard for beginners, all u need to do is slowly build up ur tank by starting with fish only then gradually build up ur live rock and see where it takes u, as u go research and read everything u can

i had intended to stick with fish only until i started getting hitch hikers on my live rock, then it bit and now im broke:woohoo:

kiss my fishy AS S

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13 Jul 2007 19:04 #9 by lampeye (lampeye)
buleetu wrote:

i wouldnt listen to anyone who tells u this hobby is too complicated or hard for beginners, all u need to do is slowly build up ur tank by starting with fish only then gradually build up ur live rock and see where it takes u, as u go research and read everything u can



the practice of adding live rock bit by bit is a bad idea. some rock is more cured than others...and any die off because of this and/or transport could give you a dangerous ammonia spike.

its much safer to add all your live rock at the same time to avoid this.<br><br>Post edited by: lampeye, at: 2007/07/13 20:05

lampeye

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