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
Mail - ordering plants from the UK
- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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I'm going to need a large amount of fast-growing stem plants to cycle a new tank in a hurry and Greenline would seem to be the cheapest way to do this @ 30 quid for a tank load of plants.
I've used JavaOnline before but the green mush I recieved wouldn't pass as value for money no matter how cheap they were....
Thanks,
Andy
170L Bowfront Community Tank : Heavily planted : CO2 : T5 lighting
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- CJackson (Frank Farrell)
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You probably know this already, but adding a large amount of fast growing stem plants won't speed up the cycle. If you are getting them to use up ammonia then that will happen, which is probably what you are aiming for, but that causes the cycle to happen more slowly as there is less ammonia for the bacteria to use.
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- Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
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Maybe you caught them on a bad day.
Smoke me a Kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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I'll have plenty of ammonia from the ADA Aquasoil II so the bacteria will be well fed.
Mass planting from the start does help to cycle to substrate though so that will help. I think I'll order one of the soft water collections from green line and see how they work out.
This new tank is only a step on the way to my 5x2x2 (feet) room divider so I'll need a lot of plants soon. I may as well start growing them now!
@Peter OB: I'm prepared to give java the benefit of the doubt as most people seem happy with them. Not one of the plants I ordered from them survived more than a week. It was early in my plant-grwing career so I suspect that was a contributing factor somehow!
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- phildevan2 (jimmy martin)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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Darren
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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I have an established tank here running two decent filters. A fluval 105 and an AquaEl of some kind. I have a Eheim 2026 on order.
I'll set-up the new tank using the Fluval or the AquaEL (assuming I can transport one cross-country without killing it).
I put the 2026 on my existing tank for a couple of weeks until I have to move my existing tank too. This way I'll end up with 2 seeded and matured filters to use on the new tank. The existing tank won't be used for a while.
170L Bowfront Community Tank : Heavily planted : CO2 : T5 lighting
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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You wont be sorry you went for the aquasoil. The mulm under this will start off the biological activities in the substrate.
Plenty of water changes starting off will help keep the algae away.
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I ordered stuff from Java before and it was a disaster, I waited nearly a month for the plants to arrive, and it took several irate emails, they were in good condition when they did arrive though, it seems that my order got caught up in a computer glitch somewhere. When they were sent eventually I got them within a few days.
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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If it suits you to order at the sam etime, let me know and I can throw yours on with my order?
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I was more curious about Greenline, I could never work out the delivery pricing to Ireland, the website information is a little ambiguous, it mentions a figure of £3.50 (I think) and then mentions another figure of £9.95, but cant really figure out which one it is you are meant to pay. It would make small orders expensive anyway if it was the higher figure.
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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I'd like to try some Blyxa Japonica in my new tank once it's set up. Greenline stock it but don't seem to promise live delivery due to it's fragile nature, or something. The postage is the same up to a certain weight (1kg, I think) so we can always combine an order to save money, if it suits.
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It does need a fair bit of light though and CO2, at least 2WPG or it just dies back totally never to reappear again:huh:
I will check out Wackers tomorrow, thanks for the tip off.
Got some nice Cryptocoryne balansae in aquatic village last week so it ain't all bad!
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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I will check out Wackers tomorrow, thanks for the tip off.
Don't bother. I called in as I was passing to check and they've nothing coming in this week. They do have a few nice crypts left but they're not in great condition.
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- CJackson (Frank Farrell)
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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- AndyT (Andy Taylor)
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Highly recommended. Great customer service in terms of tracking numbers etc.
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For anyone thinking of using Greenline.......... I ordered plants on Monday morning, they arrived in Galway this morning safe and well. Postage was 9.95.
Highly recommended. Great customer service in terms of tracking numbers etc.
Thanks for the info Andy it sounds like a great option now that I know how much it costs, 3 days is a great service, hard to beat that.
I think I will try an order in the next week or so.
On a totally unrelated note but interesting nonetheless (if your a nerd:huh:

Not a lot of people know that!!!


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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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They had some goods still on offer even up to this weekend but it was the E tennellus I was really interested in and they had none left in stock, the rest on offer was just a hotch potch of different leftovers so I never made an order. Hate that, back to the old green tennellus so:S
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- slavik (Slavik Pieniuk)
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