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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

LED Lighting

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04 Jul 2013 17:31 #1 by wylam (Stuart Sexton)
Hi guys , I need some info on LED's.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of LED's?

What is the electrical cost compared to standard lighting?

Do they wear out and need to be replaced?

Can they be placed under water?

Will the different lighting effect my plants?

Cheers Stuart.

Multi tasking: Screwing up more than one thing at a time.

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04 Jul 2013 21:04 #2 by CrustyCrab (Peter Biddulph)
I use the TMC 600 Marine blue/white on my native tank, supposed to last about 5 years.
I like the shimmer effect and they are not over bright for my requirements.
I had the 500 series on a mbuna tank, light was good, could see the shadow of the fish on the sand, but all and all they were shite to be honest. failing after a year, one just went dimmer, and the other lost all but one bulb, sent them back, but TMC did replace them with a set of 600s, with no hassle.
Not noticed any drop in the ESB bill, against T5s, so not sure about the running costs.
The TMC leds cannot be used underwater, but the Eheim ones can.
TMC do a plant LED, The ones I have seen, have a slightly green hue, which does look good, and the plants looked healthy.

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06 Jul 2013 09:32 #3 by paulv (paul vickers)
Replied by paulv (paul vickers) on topic LED Lighting
i have 4 meters of LEDS, got them from a site online called brightlightz, they are 100% water proof. i got multi colour that have many colour options including moon light for my night feeders. they are bright enough for my tank but i think not good enough for a planted tank.they are fully flexable so can be placed in any position in a tank. i only have them 4 months so far all working fine. i keep oscars and big cat fish so bright lighting is not realy needed and the cost is tiny compared to T5 units for a 9ft tank. its worth looking up the site if your thinking of going LEDS.

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15 Jul 2013 07:58 - 16 Jul 2013 14:49 #4 by Darkslice (Stephen Walsh)
All depends on the depth of your tank,

If yor tank if 1.5 or more ft deep then you'll need some strong LED's to penetrate but if you're tank is less then that you can get some very cheap LED strip off amazon and then cut a perspex sheet as a splash guard.

Total cost of that can be 30 euro,
Here's one i did with my 150 liter - no problem with plants growth





Very cheap to run as its only something like 50 watts

What is the electrical cost compared to standard lighting?
Cheaper - main saving is you don't need to replace bulbs (@ €30 a pop every 6 months)

Do they wear out and need to be replaced?
After 50,000 hours

Can they be placed under water?
No - Spash guard needed

Will the different lighting effect my plants?
No




So what if you have a deep tank - this is what i was starting to look at for my new tank. I ended up building my own LED system and it cost me €340 from rapidLed.com but this will be a 500 liter tank. If you interested in this check out my build thread. I did it this way because i would have needed 4 bulbs at 30 each every 6 months - so 240 over the space of 1 year and over 1.5 years this would cost me 360, so its makes sense.

www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/forum...be-needed-d?start=30



Last edit: 16 Jul 2013 14:49 by Darkslice (Stephen Walsh). Reason: typo

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