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
diana walstad method to a planted tank
- lawrenceog (Lawrence O Gorman)
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Has anybody used the diana walstad natural method when setting up a planted tank???
here is a link that describes the method
If you have I would sure appreciate some pointers
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- lawrenceog (Lawrence O Gorman)
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The aquariumwiki.com/Walstad_method
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- ceech (Desmond Gaynor)
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But sure there is only one way to find out if her method works give it a go

It may be ok for small tanks but i would not do this method on a big tank.
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- bart (Bart Korfanty)
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I'm huge fan of her ideas and simplicity in therms of equipment. Used to have planted tank with no filtration, only water circulating pump. Clay as first layer of substrate, gravel on top. Most light was from the sunshine through the window.
It was working very well but to be honest i can see it only in tanks 200l+ and it requires experience in therms of selecting plants. They need to be fast growing nitrogen and phosphorous removing species. The amount of inhabitants is very limited and has to be carefully thought through. The whole idea is to build working/semi working, enclosed ecosystem, and that's not easy.
Anyways my tank crashed when i accidentally introduced Malaysian Trumpet Snails (Melanoides tuberculata). They multiplied and overwhelmed plants capability of filtering of the waste from the water.
Read the book first if U haven't yet, and try to understand it "Ecology of Planted Aquarium" (some chemistry and biology knowledge is needed)
www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trk...t=See-All-Categories
If U decide to go ahead with the project let us know how it's going
Good luck
Bart
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Kev.
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- joey (joe watson)
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but seriously, i do think planted tanks require a bit less maintainence once established (well in my medium light no co2 low tech setup anyway) - smaller and less frequent water changes - although green spot algae is still an issue its not as bad as without plants
Location: Portlaoise, Midlands
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- lawrenceog (Lawrence O Gorman)
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Im looking into plants right now, I need to see what kind of deal I can get on these from my LFS, I really dont want to get them online.
Im also looking into my cleaning crew (snails/shrimp) I will get some MTS's to help with aeration of the substrate and ill also introduce an assasin snail or maybe a clown loach to deal with their eventual population explosion
Im in Limerick City I know we have hard water down here but not sure how hard and I dont have a test kit at the moment, can anybody let me know what the GH and KH levels are down my way????
I will keep a journal on how I get on with this and ill take photo's if I can work out how to upload them

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- PompeyBill (Killian Walshe)
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Im planning on setting up this method some time in december, I have a deposit on juwell vision 260 (Cant wait), I WILL be running a filter of the canester variety not sure if it will be a JBL or a Fluval just yet. Going to use an aquatic soil (J Arthur Bowers)for ponds with some clay chunks added topped with playsand and the tank will come with 2 T5's I think......I will confirm.
Im looking into plants right now, I need to see what kind of deal I can get on these from my LFS, I really dont want to get them online.
Im also looking into my cleaning crew (snails/shrimp) I will get some MTS's to help with aeration of the substrate and ill also introduce an assasin snail or maybe a clown loach to deal with their eventual population explosion
Im in Limerick City I know we have hard water down here but not sure how hard and I dont have a test kit at the moment, can anybody let me know what the GH and KH levels are down my way????
I will keep a journal on how I get on with this and ill take photo's if I can work out how to upload them
Please do keep a journal mate. Started reading about it after talking to bart about on here and its certainly an interesting idea. Would love to see a step by step by someone on here.
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- davey_c (dave clarke)
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without the snails or if they all get eaten the playsand will get very compacted so for that reason i would as have ye considered silica sand, i use it and others also highly rate the stuff
i had clown loach for years in a planted tank and they use to dig for snails, bear that in mind when i say i'd recommend letting the plants establish a good root system before introducing them (i have the same problem with my big geo's digging around my plants and exposing the roots)
apart from that i will be keeping an eye when ye start it

Below tank is for sale
my plywood tank build.
www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/forum...k-build-diary#137768
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- k.galvin (Kieran Galvin)
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- joey (joe watson)
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keep us updated, good luck and please PUT UP PICTURES!!!

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands
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- omen (Conor)
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- lawrenceog (Lawrence O Gorman)
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Initially all the plants showed great growth but after 3~4 weeks I found that the playsand was too fine and caused anerobic conditions in the soil. Some of the plant roots had started to rot/melt into a black smelly slime. I switched the sand with some 2mm natural gravel which is working much better, all the plants are comming back to good health. I can see the ocassional bubble from the substrate telling me im getting good gas exchange.
I reckon I didnt plant heavy enough for the plants to oxygenate the substrate and maybe put too much of a cap on the soil (an inch to an inch and a half soil capped with the same amount of playsand) but all seems good for now
It looks like ive got my combination of soil and cap sorted for the large tank. I will start the picture journal when I start the large tank set up.
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- lawrenceog (Lawrence O Gorman)
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