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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

Devil's hand Not Doing Too Well

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18 Nov 2015 21:12 #1 by stevebreslin (Stephen Breslin)
Hi all,

I've had my Devils Hand about 10 months and he's been very healthy but in the past week he seems to have taken a turn for the worst. I've attached one 'before' and two 'after' pics.

My nitrates and phosphates got quite high a few months ago (possibly after I started adding phyto plankton - discontinued now) and have stayed high, but the Devils Hand had only changed appearance in the last week, so might not be related.

Any thoughts on what the problem could be?

I don't have an algae problem. I have a Juwel Rio 180 litre with 2 x T5's (90W total) plus a reflector on one of them. Come to think of it, I only added the reflector recently, maybe a couple of weeks ago. Maybe related? I add Trace Elements weekly, carbonate buffer slightly more than weekly. I used to add Red Sea Reef Energy 'A' and 'B' about weekly but lately I've increase that to daily. I felt the corals needed it. Maybe that could be related too?

Thoughts?

Stephen.
Attachments:

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18 Nov 2015 23:34 #2 by hammie (Neil Hammerton)
Definitely not looking the happiest
When you say phosphates and nitrates are high...how high are they? And how are you treating them?
What test kit also?
What is salinity ammonia and nitrite readings? Kh and can levels stable? Ph level?
Remember if you have a Kh crash this can also effect ph which can slightly puss off or kill corals pending how large a swing you have

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03 Dec 2015 23:46 #3 by stevebreslin (Stephen Breslin)
Hi hammie, sorry for the delay in replying. I think I found the problem - it was water flow. After some aquascaping recently I placed the Devil's Hand in the centre of the tank, too far from the power heads. After moving him back close to his original spot near a power head he is def on the mend now. I didn't realise a leather coral would be so sensitive to flow.

FYI, nitrates are 64 ppm, phosphates 0.36 ppm. I have 4 bags of JBL BioNitratEx (in situ about 9 months now) and about 150g of NT Labs Phosphate Remover. After a honeymoon period of a few months (where nitrates were 4ppm and phosphates 0.16ppm - not rock bottom but not bad) they are now stubbornly very high. dKH can range from 7.8 to 8.1 or sometimes closer to 9. pH usually around 7.7. Salinity: 1.023 consistently, ammonia: 0 or close enough to 0,
and I I don't test for nitrites.

S.

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08 Dec 2015 23:57 #4 by carlowchris (chris)
What corals are in the tank that you need to dose reef energy daily????

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09 Dec 2015 01:35 #5 by stevebreslin (Stephen Breslin)
None really, Carlowchris, I was clutching at straws. I have a brain/favites coral, some green ricordea corals, a toadstool mushroom, and zoanthids. It was def the flow though. Devil's Hand is looking good now. I've purchased a wave maker today too, to increase flow generally in the tank. I've also removed all my JBL and Juwel filter sponges (after advice from Darren in Seahorse) and added another BioNitratEx bag to the JBL.

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10 Dec 2015 13:27 #6 by hammie (Neil Hammerton)
Yea I was told to take out all my sponges, catch them all in a big bag and &&&k it in the fire where it'll never be seen again! The bio nitrate-ex is savage stuff! It's almost a bloody miracle cure for nitrates! (I wish there was a miracle cure for po4)

What wm you get? I was having a cyano bacteria issue until I swapped my hydor's for a jaebo rw-15 it has a light sensor built in, so it drops to lower flow after lights out! But will push up to 15000 lph during the day!

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10 Dec 2015 15:17 #7 by stevebreslin (Stephen Breslin)
I'm a keeper so I've sealed the washed sponges in plastic bags and stored them - for what I don't know... :).

I got the Fluval CP3, gives 2,800 lph, perfect for a 180 litre tank. Cheaper than lots of comparable pumps too. Between that and my JBL e1501 external filter and the built-in Juwel filter pump, there's pretty good flow now, spread around the tank.

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