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
wavemaker for planted tank
- Dejwys (Deividas K.)
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David.
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- Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
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I am not an expert but as far as I remember you have a planted tank with CO2. I was always adviced to create minimum - slight, gentle water surface movement in order not to push out CO2 from the tank too quickly. I use different tubings starting from air tubing to bigger ones to clean gravel and it works. In my opinion the most handy are tubings of 10 mm - you can reach nearly every place in the tank.
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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Dawid,
I am not an expert but as far as I remember you have a planted tank with CO2. I was always adviced to create minimum - slight, gentle water surface movement in order not to push out CO2 from the tank too quickly. I use different tubings starting from air tubing to bigger ones to clean gravel and it works. In my opinion the most handy are tubings of 10 mm - you can reach nearly every place in the tank.
Really! Is it true that a wavemaker is bad for plants!
I don't have co2
Your thoughts please lads
Mark
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- Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
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It's not bad for plants but for CO2 that is supplied to the tank. It desapears from tank too quickly. If you don't have CO2 system, it does not matter if you have a wavemaker or not. It won't harm plants and will speed up oxygenation of the water.
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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www.aquatichouse.com/Pumps_files/hydorbioflo.asp
Kev.
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- joey (joe watson)
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for small tanks i'd say no, use the filter output directed to where it looks like a dead spot is. i have a koralia 1 in a 450l (i have a low flow sump pump for effective bio filtration) and it does the job fine but in a small tank it would probably cause more hassle than its wort. also, angelfish are long finned slow swimmers so a strong current would make them work very hard and stress them too much (hence why i keep predominantly cyprinids)
hope this helps
Location: Portlaoise, Midlands
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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Mark,
It's not bad for plants but for CO2 that is supplied to the tank. It desapears from tank too quickly. If you don't have CO2 system, it does not matter if you have a wavemaker or not. It won't harm plants and will speed up oxygenation of the water.
Thanks Katherine
I'm ok so.. that's a relief

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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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- joey (joe watson)
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Location: Portlaoise, Midlands
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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My fish are never near the top which i thought might be a bad thing


Mark
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- joey (joe watson)
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Location: Portlaoise, Midlands
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- dar (darren curry)
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cheers. dar
Check out the angling section, it is fantastic
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- Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
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Since I set up my planted tank, I stopped using air pumps at all. My plants produce enough O2 during the day and even after night I still can find some air bubles under my lotos leaves.
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- Katherine (Katarzyna Glebocka)
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- smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
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- k.galvin (Kieran Galvin)
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To this end in my 3ft community tank (my first, I still have it!!!)I put a Rena 215 power filter upside down with the outlet approx 1" from the gravel, my substrate was always clean and my plants thrived and had to be thinned monthly!
All I had was the Rena filters and a single 30" Gro-lux tube, regular water changes and alternate cleaning of the power filters resulted in an aquatic jungle, even had Kribs breed in it 2 weeks after introducing them to the tank.

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- smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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See how much the filter dose then you can figure out how much more you need and what flow rate pump you might need.
The idea of a spraybar across the back base of the tank works realy well at keeping any ditris in suspention for the filter to take care of.
The rotating flow deverter Kev put in his post works realy well. But these can reduce the flow by up to 20%.
I would try agitate the surface slihtly 24/7.
Plants respire all the time and not just at night which is a myth that tends to get past around a bit.
I use an airline just below the water surface that constantly brakes the surface.
The flow from this is increased at night not just becuse plants dont give of as much oxygen at night but it helps keep the PH a bit more stable after the Co2 goes off.
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- k.galvin (Kieran Galvin)
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- smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
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- k.galvin (Kieran Galvin)
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- smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
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You could use a powerhead or pump but remember that fish could get caught in the intake, you dont need a strong current, just enough to move the fish waste along the substrate towards the intake of your external.
Any particular product you could recommend?
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- k.galvin (Kieran Galvin)
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here is a link to one with a spraybar attached I found on Ebay
cgi.ebay.ie/Aquarium-Fish-Tank-Internal-...9ff20c#ht_4945wt_983
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- smitas5 (Marius Smitas)
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- k.galvin (Kieran Galvin)
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