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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

heater for water butt

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07 Aug 2015 12:33 #1 by alan 64 (alan)
OK guys do use know if there is any way I can heat a 210 litre water butt reasonably fast so I am not burning up much electric

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07 Aug 2015 14:43 #2 by Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
Is it indoors or outdoors?

You have an issue in that you have to put in the amount of energy required to raise temp so you can either low watts long time or high watts short time, the short time would have the advantage of not fighting against other environmental factors that may be pushing the temp down, like over night temp.

hope this helps

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07 Aug 2015 15:39 #3 by alan 64 (alan)
I can use it inside the fish room but I'd rather have it outside as it takes up space that's y I was wondering if there is a fast way to heat it

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07 Aug 2015 16:01 #4 by Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
If you can bring it indoors it will cost nothing to get to room temp. Then you can decide if a few more degrees are required.

You may also be able to insulate it maybe a lagging jacket would fit

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07 Aug 2015 16:42 #5 by alan 64 (alan)
If i use it in the fish room I wouldn't need the lagging jacket as it's always warm in there I was looking at some portable immersions online but they seem to be mostly in America

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07 Aug 2015 18:59 #6 by ger310 (Ger .)
I'm not sure if I said this to yeh last week but the cheapest way I found to bring water up to temp. when the water butt was outside was to boil 4 large pots of water on the cooker and pour them in to the vat..........only takes roughly 10 minutes,but they were large pots......you could always do this twice if smaller pots.

Stay away from the heater to bring it up Alan as to get the water from 10-12 degrees up to 24-30 degrees would probably mean the heater would be on constant for maybe 6-8 hours witch is a lot of electricity usage!!.......and the water temp. is going to get less and less over the coming months aswell.

Ger

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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07 Aug 2015 20:45 #7 by alan 64 (alan)
The only problem with that way for me is I'd have to boil the water up and carry it all the way to the shed and that's a bit messy for me

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07 Aug 2015 21:35 #8 by ger310 (Ger .)

The only problem with that way for me is I'd have to boil the water up and carry it all the way to the shed and that's a bit messy for me


Pour the water into a bucket and carry it to the shed that way.......quick,easy and most of all cheap!!

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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07 Aug 2015 22:42 #9 by alan 64 (alan)
I could give that a go but it prob about 40 ltr of boiled water to get it up to temp

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10 Aug 2015 12:24 #10 by hammie (Neil Hammerton)
Get a gas burner and heat the water in the shed beside the water butt

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10 Aug 2015 12:58 #11 by anglecichlid (ciaran hogan)
What size tanks have you got?
And how much water would you change at any given time,
Reason I ask is!
If your doing a 10/15% water change on a hundred liter tank the temperature drop wouldn't be that much to effect your fish.

Anyone with a aquarium can keep fish,
But it takes real skill to be a fish keeper,


And it's spongeBob,
SpongeBob lives in a pineapple under the sea
BLANCHARDSTOWN

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10 Aug 2015 13:53 #12 by alan 64 (alan)
The main thank I have is 450 litre and il be changing around 200 litres twice a week in it

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10 Aug 2015 14:02 #13 by anglecichlid (ciaran hogan)
I'm all for regular water changes but that's more than enough,
If your taking out 400 liters a week from a 210 water butt your doing well :)
Jokes aside you could easily do 20% cold water changes twice weekly,
Without effecting your fish.

Anyone with a aquarium can keep fish,
But it takes real skill to be a fish keeper,


And it's spongeBob,
SpongeBob lives in a pineapple under the sea
BLANCHARDSTOWN

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10 Aug 2015 14:10 #14 by alan 64 (alan)
There is discus in that tank and I'm feeding them 3 times a day so I'd like to keep the water spot on

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10 Aug 2015 14:41 #15 by anglecichlid (ciaran hogan)
And we must not upset the discus!
:)

Anyone with a aquarium can keep fish,
But it takes real skill to be a fish keeper,


And it's spongeBob,
SpongeBob lives in a pineapple under the sea
BLANCHARDSTOWN

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10 Aug 2015 14:58 #16 by murph (Tony Murphy)
I haven't tried it (although I could later on, ....) but how about putting a 300w in-line heater into your feed tube with a lowish flow pump (200l/h or so) driving the water from the butt to the tank. Might not get the temp spot-on, but will surely help. Just remember to allow about 1/2 hour for the heater to cool down before draining it.

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10 Aug 2015 15:40 #17 by alan 64 (alan)
That won't realy work for me mate as my return pump is 2200 lph but u have me thinking now how quickly the in line heater would heat the butt as I'm thinking the one I used before heated the tank way faster than the conventional heater

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10 Aug 2015 19:50 #18 by murph (Tony Murphy)
I was more thinking putting a small pump in the butt and using it to fill the tank directly via the heater?

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13 Aug 2015 07:18 #19 by JustinK (Justin Kelly)
If the water butt is inside and it can sit a few days then you only need to raise the water temperature a little bit more as it would be at room temperature already.
Also if space if an issue, you could raise it off the ground. If you have a concrete shed you could easily make a shelf with cantilever brackets.
A rain water butt maybe harder to position off the ground as theyre tall whereas a storage tank is shorter but longer which is more suitable.

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13 Aug 2015 10:07 #20 by alan 64 (alan)
Cheers Justin I think il put it in the fish room and as u say it will only need to be raised a little after sitting for 2 days

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