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
Planted tank
This tank has been setup as a planted tank for about 1 1/2 years so its a fairly mature tank, this particular layout has been setup since the end of January this year, there is relatively little algae in the tank ATM its been running pretty smooth for me, but once i ease back on the ferts at all i start to get some problems (tbh i usually just forget to dose when i get busy at work!)
Because this is a highlight tank it needs to be dosed with some fertiliser every day (a little and often is the key) except saturday, the tank works in a 7 day cycle, with day 7 (sunday in my case) being a 50% water change day which "resets" the tank, and stops any particular nutrient building up to too high a level which could cause problems with algae.
The spec
40 gallon tank 30x18x18 inches
Lighting 2x55 watt power compacts giving me 2.8 watts per gallon
Lit by ASL PC tubes 1x8000k and 1x7100k for a maximum 10 hours per day
Substrate is a fine 2-3mm gravel mixed with first layer laterite
Filtration by an Eheim 2215
Pressurised CO2 running at 30ppm throughout the photoperiod
Weekly fertilisation routine-
I dose 3x10ppm KNO3 (potassium nitrate) per week
3x1ppm phosphate (via Fleet enema from the chemist shop!)
and i add extra potassium via potassium sulphate
I also add CSM+B which is a trace fertiliser 3x10ml per week
I also add a small amount of magnesium at water change
and heres what you get when you do all that!
Thanks for looking at the weeds in my tank!!
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You couldnt posibly strip this tank, that would be a mortal sin.
You must be verry proud of your tank. I know i would be.
Excelent work.
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Pablo.....yes im using pressurised CO2, it would be very difficult to run a tank this size and with this much light with DIY CO2, i tried it for a while but had to reduce the lighting as i kept getting algae, DIY CO2 is fine if you dont use that much light.
There are fish in the tank although not that many and nothing special really, there are about 6 Otocinclus 3 platys and 3 zebra danios, so its well understocked, i will definatly add more fish to the tank soon, perhaps a schooling type fish, open to suggestions.
platy252......i might do a total stripdown and really clean the substrate, its a good thing to do with a heavily planted tank every year or so, keeps the tank from going bad, you get much less algae problems when you do this (presuming off course you are fertilising correctly in the first place) i like changeing the layouts anyway, its part of the hobby for me , i usually do a layout, enjoy it for a few months, photograph it and then do something different, it would be very time consuming maintaining (and expensive) several planted tanks, so i just change the main one i have, thats the thing with plants you can have a totally different looking tank within a couple of months, this is probably about the third decent layout i have had in this tank, i might keep this setup going for another couple of months max only because its easy to maintain but as soon as i get some time i will probably change it for something totally different, i feel a totally grassy vibe tank coming on
If i get the time i might run a step by step journal here on the next setup to see if i can encourage any other budding plant people out there to take up the hobby.
Cheers everyone
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