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
Let me introduce myself!
My names Stephen
I've always wanted to keep fish for years i've been saying i'll save up and get myself a decent tank and kept putting it off!
Over the last few months i've been doing some research into what type of fish i want to keep, my goal would be to eventually keep marine fish but i wasn't going to jump into the deep end of keepin fish one thing i've learned so far is that your gonna patience when it comes to fish keeping!
So i decided i wanted to keep community fish!
And last Friday i finally got myself a Rio 180!
I treated my water and i put my first load of fish & Live plants into the tank last night!
4 Guppies
4 Neons
3 Red Harlequins
4 Zebra Danios
Is my lil collection so far!
I just about avoided disaster this morning cause when woke up my heater had stopped working!
But I went and got the heater replaced ASAP and my little dudes are all gettin on fine!
I joined up to this site to get some helpful advice because i know there are gonna be highs and lows in keeping my fish alive and healthy!!
Thanks for reading and i hope to chat to you all!
If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
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Welcome to the forum
As said above you need to do some reading/ do not add anymore fish to the tank
when you start a tank it takes time to build up good bacteria this good bacteria deals with the poo from your fish 
without it you will have problems with ammonia and general bad water 
we can talk you through it but be prepared for a steep learning curve Chances are with a new/not cycled tank you will need to do daily water changes till your tank is established
Any pic's of your tank? Where do you live?
LB
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i added my live bacteria!
i was advised, as a way of kick starting the bacteria in my tank to add water from an already established tank's filter.
so i got my hands on some water which was squeezed from a well established filter sponge!
just to get a second opinion,
have you heard of this being done before/does it work??
i do have 2 pics of my tank but i took em on my phone and i tried to upload them and it says my files are too big to be uploaded!!
I'll find a way!!
Im from dublin!
If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
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Welcome to the forum,any questions just ask,can i suggest you make your next purchase a watertest kit and carry out all the usual tests (PH,Ammonia,Nitrate,Nitrite )you can get a master kit which will cover all your needs in 1 box (available from your local fish shop-LFS) also get to know the guys in your LFS,a great source of information,along with everybody here I hasten to add
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If you're going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you're going to be locked up.
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