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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

Green powered aquarium equipment?

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02 Jul 2015 23:57 #1 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
Aquariums are extremely costly, as I'm sure we all know this.We also seem to get a lot of power outages in Ireland, or at least in my side of the country.

I was wondering if anybody has tried solar powered tank equipment, water powered, biomass etc.
I am interested in creating a much greener system of keeping tanks, maybe that way I'll be allowed more.

So, do any of you have any kind of eco friendly aquarium equipment? I'd love to hear about them and see pictures. :)

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03 Jul 2015 20:34 #2 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)
I'd be interested in tho too. As far as I know, the only real way to go "green" with aquariums is to minimise the wattage used overall ie insulating so tanks don't lose to much heat, running low wattage equipment where possible etc.

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

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05 Jul 2015 20:39 #3 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
It seems that not many people have an interest in this. :(
What a shame.
I know there are freshwater clams and mussels that filter water but water flow would be limited. Could be good for fish that don't like moving water eg Siamese fighters but not so good for fish who love currents like maybe goldfish (I had a shubunkin who would play in the filters outflow.

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05 Jul 2015 22:13 #4 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I have an idea for a D.I.Y filter system.
I took the idea from a siphon/vacuum. I'm drawing it up on paint as we speak.
It would need two pipes of equal diameter, a box like maybe a plastic cereal container and rings to put on the pipes to prevent leakage.
Water would be siphoned into the container and the outflow would be at the very bottom so that the water pressure will push it up and into the tank.
I imagine it wouldn't be the best in terms of how many liters it can filter but you could make up for this by having two or three of them. They could be hidden neatly behind your aquarium.

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05 Jul 2015 22:19 #5 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
Attachments:

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05 Jul 2015 22:43 #6 by alan 64 (alan)
In not too technical but would the water pressure in the container push the water higher than the water level in that container

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05 Jul 2015 23:37 #7 by carlowchris (chris)
Like the theory but like alan i dont think youd have enough water presure to get back to the tank.....you could try a larger diameter sypon pipe going into the filter box and then a smaller return would go higher but probly not back to the tank

if the filter box was the same hight of the tank or higher...drain from the tank with a large diameter pipe..going into the bottom of the filter box ...the water then can rise up and out the top and back into your tank.......got a feeing though you'd still need a lot of pressure for the water to get through the fiter media

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06 Jul 2015 06:36 #8 by Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
Overhead sump look pretty efficient as they only need an air pump which don't use many watts then gravity returns water to tank, there are a few examples on here.

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06 Jul 2015 13:17 #9 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
You're right, the theory itself is good but would it work. haha,
I can do some trials as the equipment is pretty cheap, could use a cut hose pipe...
Maybe a thinner outflow tube would be better.
I'll look into the overhead sumps but I do think it can be important to have an electricity free filter running, even if it is only for back up when we have power cuts.
Thank you. :)
Maybe a high but thin container would increase water pressure to cause the water to flow to the tank.

These are just theories. I'll ask my mom if she could pick containers up.

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07 Jul 2015 07:56 #10 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)
The science of it won't work. For the smaller container to be able to flow back into the larger one (above it) you'd need more pressure being supplied than simply what's flowing into it, hence the pump or air uplift. It's the law of conservation of energy as far as I understand it. Hence, one caontainer will overflow and the other will simply empty. If you want a very low energy way of running a tank you could try the Walsted Method... a system for filtering a tank using only the plants and substrate. However, even then you tend to need some kind of airstone or pump to create a little circulation.

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

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07 Jul 2015 11:05 #11 by carlowchris (chris)
What about a containter little taller than the tank and a bit shorter lenght of the tank and instead of filtering up and down...divide lenght wise into sections and full siphon.diy overflow as into one end of filter box and let it just flow through the box and out the other end and into tank

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08 Jul 2015 10:49 #12 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I had been thinking of water tight containers as I realized that the cereal box wouldn't be. Silly me. Haha. Maybe then the water would flow out of the tank.

I like that idea but I wonder where I'd be able to get a watertight container of that size.
Thank you. :)

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10 Jul 2015 20:36 #13 by carlowchris (chris)
how big is your thank?????
the container doesn't need to be water tight if its higher than the tank...water will only flow as high as the return back into the tank

last time I waas in mr price they had load of plastic containers that could possably used

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22 Jun 2016 23:37 #14 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I didn't finish this, I was going through a bipolar episode. I'm ever so sorry for wasting your time

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22 Jun 2016 23:41 #15 by Sukahn (Shane Doorley)
Never be sorry for wasting peoples time here. Its always good to ask questions and it gets people talking and finding out ideas to help make the whole hobby a better place :)

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23 Jun 2016 00:13 #16 by ChelseaSplendon95 (Chelsea Ward)
I suppose you have a point ^_^ Thank you

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