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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

Help I'm loosening my mind

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13 Aug 2014 09:52 #1 by Zebrapleco (samuel wasson)
Well fokes the problem is I set up my 3 foot aquarium to be a cichlid tank a few months back with 3 frontosa labs and a few others wich ill get the names for. The tank was well stocked with over 30 fish. Then I added 3 more frontosa and since then all fronts are gone all bar on yellow lad and there were about 10. Now I have got other to replace but there just passing away nearly straight away. Eg got 10 beautiful Malawi on sat and only 4 have survived. The substrate is sand and stones are local lake stones. Everything was fine till I added the new fronts know its a death pit.

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13 Aug 2014 10:00 #2 by Gavin (Gavin)
Over 30 fish in a three foot? sounds over stocked. The addition of the Frontosa may have been the straw that broke the camels back. Have you been testing the water? what are the perameters?

dont make me come over there.

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13 Aug 2014 10:21 #3 by irish-zx10r (James feenan)
Are your fish adults or juvenile ?
How good is your filters are u running external ? Have you got a quarantine tank ? When you add new fish it can cause high ammonia spikes and nitrate another thing is do you have plenty off oxygen air stones and lots of water movement. Sorry to here of your loss it has happened to most cichlid keepers at some stage and its down to lack experience I learnt the hard way last year and I still trying to make things better and have a better understanding everyday. Hopefully someone else with more experience will be along to help.

Something fishie going on here

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13 Aug 2014 18:33 #4 by Zebrapleco (samuel wasson)
Air stone runs 24/7 the filter is an eheim 2213 and there are all young fish when bought about 2 inch give or take.
At a guess thebiggest one at mo is 3 inch. When I put the fish in last sat there were 11 of them In the tank. Did a 50% water change and moved all the rocks about to break up any terrorists.
While I know the tank on the small side I have sitting in the spare room a 5 foot only waiting for a few things to be done in the kitchen first. The five is 60x12x18 so I'm in 2 minds about putting my community fish from my planted 72x20x20 in the five and fill the 6 with cichlids.

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14 Aug 2014 01:05 #5 by irish-zx10r (James feenan)
6 ft is the better tank use two externals I am not using a wave maker but its good idea to keep food from setting in and around the rocks.
Did you do a test on the water ? Could there have been anything wrong with the fish before you added them to the tank ? Sometimes its terrible hard to figure out why these things happen hopefully someone else might be able to help.

Something fishie going on here

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14 Aug 2014 01:45 #6 by alan 64 (alan)
have u tested this water it would be helpful to know if all the water chemistry is good

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14 Aug 2014 13:02 #7 by Zebrapleco (samuel wasson)
well I'm at a loss.
At the mo I have no way of testing the water and at the mo it would not be reading that good cause I can't even find the bodies of the dead ones even after lifting out all the rocks.
Is it possible I have a big bully and there eating the dead. I have seen this with other fish but don't know enough about Africa's .

So all aqvice is welcome on what I should do. How it should be set up and best tank size and stocking levels and best place to purchase some fish when I have the bigger tank set up for the job. Know please remember I'm in donegal so the lfs stock are never pleasing so usually end up in belfast for fish. But if there were good deals to be had else were I'd be interested and dublin might get a visit.

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14 Aug 2014 13:52 #8 by irish-zx10r (James feenan)
Bring bottle of water to your lfs and they will test it for you. Plenty of water changes untill everything settles down. Check your filter and pipes for dead body's also look through the sand / gravel the cichlids will either cover a dead body or eat more than lightly you find bit of a body or bones dead body's will creat high ammonia and that can kill your other fish. Big 6ft tank can hold plenty of cichlids just make sure you have very good filteration and water movement good quality is a must with an overstock tank

Something fishie going on here

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14 Aug 2014 18:59 #9 by JustinK (Justin Kelly)
Stick your head over the tank and look down into the water.
If your eyes sting then your nitrates are high.
Make you next purchase a test kit or strips at least.

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14 Aug 2014 19:40 #10 by Q_Comets (Declan Chambers)
Hi if taking water to LFS ask for results in ppm try not to end up with the stock "your water is perfect" answer. I was once told in a shop if the ammonia was not up in dark green not to worry about it.

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14 Aug 2014 20:00 #11 by Zebrapleco (samuel wasson)
Well I'm just home and remembered I have an api test kit. Tested everything. Nitrate 0 ph about 7.4 I think while hard to tell but ammonia is off the chart. Wather this is the way it was before adding the new fish which croaked or not ill never know but I have the feeling it was many on the hi side. So I have just done a 2 thirds water change. Should I clean the filter or leave it for now.

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14 Aug 2014 20:01 #12 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
I would put overstocking in a what may be a newish tank is the main cause of this.

If you have even one dead fish stuck in rocks then it wouldn't take too much time for you to get high levels of ammonia or nitrite (or other).
Taking your water at this stage to a LFS for testing may be pretty useless as it is too late if you have had dead fish stuck in rocks for too long..........and I very much doubt your LFS would be able to test for dangerous parameters prior to the fish dying.

I would advise not giving up, I'd also advise getting a reasonable test kit, and gradually build up stocks.

Remember that Frontosas would rapidly go downhill and die if parameters are "off"...........the parameters in your tank may have been OK for the existing fish, but not for the new additions (and one of them may have died first and taken the rest of the fish with them: but is only speculation failing further info being available).

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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14 Aug 2014 20:15 #13 by Zebrapleco (samuel wasson)
Well I think this is just one of them learning curves. I have been so used with getting away with my six foot needing very little looking about due to the pants and my huge home made external filter which is made out of a small blue barl that holds 30 plus litres alone. Now is it a good or bad idea to mix Malawi with tanganyika cichlids. When I first decided to keep cichlids I got 4 bumblebees and I knpw stress in fish is not good

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14 Aug 2014 20:22 #14 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
If you can read any level of ammonia on your test kit then that is way too high.
Forget the nitrates as they are very likely to be important in this particular case.

Water changes to save your existing fish.............you may need a lot of serial partial water changes to get a high ammonia to a safe level.
Heavy aeration is vital at least.
You should have had ammonia adsorbing zeolites as part of the first-aid kit.........if your fish are still alive then get some as soon as possible or other molecular sieve or similar (eg polyfilter) that will remove ammonia.

Ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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14 Aug 2014 22:33 #15 by irish-zx10r (James feenan)
Make sure your not over feeding your fish and get a gravel cleaner and give the sand a good clean. the food and waist can cause high leval of ammonia or ammonia spikes which will kill your fish. As for places to buy cichlids there is few good private sellers around Belfast. if your on Facebook there is a group page tropical fish/tanks/accessories it will help find stock. Dublin is good and Aquatic Village Brittas

Something fishie going on here

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