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
DIY CO2
Ive just been so busy at work and home lately that everything else has fallen by the wayside. Sorry.
To try to answer some of your questions:
- I run my DIY setup on a Juwel Vision 180 (with internal filter removed and using an external Eheim 2126 instead) so yeah, to get the extra CO2 you want, I think you could add one more 3L bottle should do the trick
- as Im sure you know, adding CO2 will lower pH so perhaps as you are already going to be adding more CO2 then your problem about the pH will also be solved?
- surface movement is claimed to drive off CO2 by increasing the surface area of the water (most people believe that even a gentle ripple across the surface wastes CO2). However, I run my return pipe from the Eheim filter close to the surface and pointing slightly at it to give me quite a current in the tank and a good surface movement.
Two reasons for this:
1) the surface of the water is broken, so eliminating any oily film that accumulates from food and other stuff which is bad for fish health
2) the good current in the tank helps keep down algae and prevents \"dead\" spots of low oxygen/CO2
- I would suggest you get a \"drop checker\" to test for CO2. As you rightly say, too much CO2 can badly affect your fish; yet for optimum plant growth you want CO2 around 30ppm so its a balancing act making sure you dont harm anything.
A drop checker will give you a permanent in-tank test which in my short experience using it, is very reliable and accurate (if sometimes a little difficult to read).
P.S. you mention that your water is quite hard (which is exactly like mine),. Thats not the best for plants, so choose carefully, but there are some stunners that Ive really enjoyed and have come up great in the harder water.
My fav at the moment is MONOSELENIUM which loves calcium so its going to do great in your harder water. This coupled with the fact that it doesnt like alot of light, and has a natural algaecide in it, my amano shrimp like pruning it, my male gourmai rips pieces off for his bubble nest, AND its a lovely dark green carpeting plant, means it really can look stunning.
Hope this helps
If you need anything else at all, especially when it comes to putting together the CO2 system, please ask.
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