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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

Tank for years but I'm still a beginner

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31 Jan 2014 16:35 #1 by RosieJoe (Ronan K)
So I've had a 2 tanks over the last few years, starting with a 60 litre one and now a 180 litre one. Why do I consider myself a beginner, well I really only know the basics. I now know that I should research the fish I get instead of turning up in a shop and going "Oh they look nice, I'll get a few of them!".

As I said in my intro thread I have a tank that has become what it is as opposed to being specifically set up the way it is. Hopefully over the next while I will start changing the way the tank looks, what decorations are in it and the type of fish that I am going to concentrate on.

First task will be to change the substrate from the coloured gravel that's in it to either sand or a more natural coloured gravel. Then I hope to clean up the "rocks" and other decorations, removing the fake plants and replacing them with real ones.

Then when everything settles I'll look at getting a few more fish in, probably going with a Cichlid set up.

There'll be fun times ahead which I am looking forward to but it'll probably mean throwing up a load of questions along the way, so thanks in advance

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31 Jan 2014 17:03 #2 by mossy (gavin blanchfield)
welcome along rosie joe
you will get plenty of help here so fire up any questions
there are a great selection of cichlids out there
best of luck with your setup

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31 Jan 2014 19:44 #3 by ger310 (Ger .)
Rome wasn't built in a day RosieJoe....Good luck with the change over

Any thoughts on what kind of Cichlids you want?

Ger

What do you call a three legged Donkey?

A Wonkey....duh ha :)

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01 Feb 2014 09:34 #4 by hammie (Neil Hammerton)
Id hold off picking fake or real plants till you decide what fish to keep, plenty of cichlids will dig up and or destroy real plants!
I hope you enjoy learning as much as i have over the last couple of years! Some really good information out there and some fascinating fish to learn about!!!! By no stretch of the imagination wiuld i be an "expert" we are all still learning to an extent

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01 Feb 2014 14:48 #5 by Esoxluciouss (denis goulding)
Welcome...there are lots of folks here to help you all the way.. wishing you all the best

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01 Feb 2014 19:55 #6 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Welcome to the forum research every cichlid you fancy cause most will out grow your tank in no time

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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10 Feb 2014 19:44 #7 by RosieJoe (Ronan K)
So did a small bit of work over the weekend to the tank. Took out all the decorations and gave them a scrub as they were covered in algae. I removed the picture backing on the tank and took out a couple if fake plants.



I'm going to leave it for a few weeks to let the tank settle. This will give me time to choose a substrate.

Also, I can look at which type of algae eaters I'll go for. Do many of you have snails in your freshwater tanks?

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10 Mar 2014 13:58 #8 by RosieJoe (Ronan K)
The upgrade continues. I got myself a few bags of white sand over the weekend so I replaced the gravel with it. After reading up on amount to get for the tank I got 25 kgs. It was probably too much, 20 would have done, but I am delighted with the results.

I'll get some photos this evening and I'll post them later.

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10 Mar 2014 14:28 #9 by Joekinsella (joe Kinsella)
Look forward to seeing the change to sand I'd say your in for a lot of work removing the gravel. Don't forget to scrub your sand (put in bucket an overflow till clear) only takes a few rinses and if it still leaves a cloud your filter can take over it looks lovely when set up and easy to siphon as waste don't sink beneath the sand. I just Hoover over the only time sand comes up is wen I press the siphon on to it other than that the sand is fairly heavy.

Location: Clogherboy Navan.
Attachments:

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10 Mar 2014 15:00 #10 by Aroshni (Lydia Olivera)
Looking forward your update.
I have snails in my tank, they're 3 tylomelania orange rabbit and 6 malaysian trumpet. I don't recommend tylomelania for a planted tank with utricularia, cuba or similars because they're so huge that will take out almost everything that has not strong roots.

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10 Mar 2014 17:44 #11 by irish-zx10r (James feenan)
Its a good start knowing the basics
if your anything like me you never be 100% happy and always
playing around with new ideas, looking forward to seeing whatever you do.

james

Something fishie going on here

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10 Mar 2014 21:08 #12 by RosieJoe (Ronan K)
Heres a couple of pictures, could be better quality but it gives you an idea.



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10 Mar 2014 23:30 #13 by Aroshni (Lydia Olivera)
Thats definetely a great change, nice job B)

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11 Mar 2014 19:36 #14 by Joekinsella (joe Kinsella)
Looks nice I like the young firemouth too.

Location: Clogherboy Navan.

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13 Mar 2014 23:06 #15 by luas (Lewis Johnston)
The tank looks great buddy well done.As suggested i too would lay off the live plants as the cichlids tend to devour them.
Good luck with it any way and play around with it.
Also you mentioned you have two tanks,what's in the other?
luas

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14 Mar 2014 09:45 #16 by RosieJoe (Ronan K)
Cheers Luas. I was going to hold off on the plants for the time being, more to do with the fact that there is a bit more than "stick them in the tank" than I realised. Seeing as I made the choice to get normal sand as opposed to coral sand I will probably go for SA cichlids and/or jack dempseys and as you pointed out, they'd end up killing the plants.

As for the other tank, I gave that away once I had the current tank up and running.

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