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
Diversa tanks
- apm (Andy McKenna)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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Like a lot of things you get what you pay for.
A standard mass produced off the shelf 54 liter aquarium would use 6mm glass minimum. They use 4mm glass. Ouch!

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- apm (Andy McKenna)
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Think I will stick to well tested brand from known supplier.Thank you.
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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- davey_c (dave clarke)
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Most of the standard 54l tanks are made of 4mm glass which is perfectly fine for that size.
Same with mine

Below tank is for sale
my plywood tank build.
www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/forum...k-build-diary#137768
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- apm (Andy McKenna)
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Aquaone Horizon 130 lt.6mm. 180 lt.6mm.
Juwel.Record 800 ,110 ltr.5mm. Rio 180 6mm. 240 ltr.10mm.
Diversa Budget 200 lt.8mm.
Certainly have no intention of criticising any manuafacturer.Will be going to view Diversa range and have a look at build quality etc.
Thank you for replies.
Already have a Juwel Record 800 but not happy with light unit so replaced it with a Odyssea T5 unit,big improvement.
Now decided to invest in a slightly larger tank.Addicted !!
Nearly forgot have a Blau 19ltr. Nano for shrimp,good tank,great light unit and filter (once you screen the inlet properly ,learnt that the hard way,)
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- Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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I noticed that Clerseal tanks are put together very thight, which is not ideal as well. There should be a gap of silicone between the panes to allow for slight movement
Most Juwel tanks are made without the glass braces. The function of the strengthening braces is substituted by plastic bar in the middle, incorporated within the cover frame. Personally i find this ridiculous. For example in Rio 400 when it's filled with the cover frame removed or the bar broken the difference in tank width on the sides and in the middle is 1cm. That's how much the glass bends from the pressure of water. Now that's dangerous

Diversa makes decent larger aquariums(and they are safely braced) but they are guilty of crappy mass production of small ones. Also they used to use unpolished pane for the bottom of the tank which is not great for various reasons(don't think that's the case anymore tho).
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- Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
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where would the dividing line be between small crappy and large decent be?
thx
Dec
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- Darkslice (Stephen Walsh)
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But what i found out is that they over brace the tanks - as the tank itself only has a safety marker of 1.75 (or something silly like that) in the end i got one custom made and its wasn't a hole lot more expensive
(Tanks are meant to be made with a safety factor of over 3.0 if memery serves)
bart could quote you a price if your interested, i know he makes tanks and he knows a whole lot more than me. well worth a PM to him
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- Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
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Thx
Dec
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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@bart
where would the dividing line be between small crappy and large decent be?
thx
Dec
Sorry for late reply
I was away for a while
Cheap and bad silicone seal can be spotted very easily. Proper one is nice even and smoothed along wit a tool. It is evenly adhering to both pieces of the glass.
The bad one can be seen on almost all 54l tanks of all producers. The silicone was just squeezed onto the edge of the glass pane and another pane was just "glued to it"'. The seal is usually uneven looking from inside, also more prone to liking over time.
I have fixed (completely rebuild) quite a few Chinese made tanks and only one thing comes to mind - stay away!!!! for many various reasons
Will agree with Darkslice, some of the makes are overdone with bracing, which adds safety but also weight.
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- apm (Andy McKenna)
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Possibly a good reason I couldn't make contact but it does not inspire confidence.
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