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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

planted tank

  • alf (alf)
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27 Jan 2011 18:02 - 28 Jan 2011 09:03 #1 by alf (alf)
planted tank was created by alf (alf)





just finished planting my big tank ,tank size 5x2x2 feet.
not finished yet few things I'm not happy with
few things to move around but getting there just thought I'd share
some pics as I go.
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Last edit: 28 Jan 2011 09:03 by alf (alf).

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27 Jan 2011 18:38 #2 by Ieva star (Ieva Fogta)
Alf u have it looking good well done cheers Johney

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27 Jan 2011 18:45 #3 by alan.s (alan)
Replied by alan.s (alan) on topic Re: planted tank
Looks great fair play!

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27 Jan 2011 19:06 #4 by des (des)
Replied by des (des) on topic Re: planted tank
very nice Alf
very natural looking



Des

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27 Jan 2011 21:19 #5 by alf (alf)
Replied by alf (alf) on topic Re: planted tank
the s##t has just hit the fan
unplugged my NEW fx5 for a few mins while I was moving some plants
plugged it back in and it wont come on :(
and it's only 4 months old too

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28 Jan 2011 00:26 #6 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: planted tank
very nice. whats the one with the round leaves on the right side just in front of the wood?
also what variety of grass is that?

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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28 Jan 2011 00:51 #7 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
How do you view the pictures?

When i click on them the whole screen goes blank.

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28 Jan 2011 00:55 #8 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: planted tank
click the link instead

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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28 Jan 2011 09:15 #9 by alf (alf)
Replied by alf (alf) on topic Re: planted tank

very nice. whats the one with the round leaves on the right side just in front of the wood?
also what variety of grass is that?

The one in front of the wood is Hydrocotyle Leucocephala
the other is Echinodorus Tennellus I think

The FX5 kicked back in last night after about an hour happy days :)

Al

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28 Jan 2011 11:40 #10 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: planted tank
it happens to my fluval internal sometimes, i think its just limescale build up on the impellar i usually just remove and scrub it a bit then it works fine. dunnno how easy it'd be on an fx5 tho..

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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20 Feb 2011 21:47 #11 by alf (alf)
Replied by alf (alf) on topic Re: planted tank





Few weeks on all going well made some changes
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20 Feb 2011 21:57 #12 by SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
Looks great alf nice job, what's the name of the plant in the last photo on the right the one that touches the top of the water
Is it hard to keep?




Mark

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20 Feb 2011 22:29 #13 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: planted tank
FX5 have a circuit board in the pump housing, your Filter should, of it's own accord, shut down to allow for a release of bubbles and then restart a few minutes later, by interrupting the cycle embedded in the circuitry you will find it needs to reset itself which can take a while.

Kev.

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20 Feb 2011 22:44 #14 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: planted tank
looking great

@ mark: its a lotus/lilly quite readily availabe and very easy to grow once it gets established it fires pads up to the surface very often - i got 2-3 shooting up a week before it all got eaten

just mind the shading it puts over other plants (put low light plants around it)

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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20 Feb 2011 22:47 #15 by SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
Cheers joey I think they look good I'll have to get some. Oh what fish was eating them?

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21 Feb 2011 11:13 #16 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: planted tank
diamond sharks aka lemon barbs. together wiht a severum and leporinus they brutalised many euros worth of plants
also clown loaches would punch holes in them - they seem to have a thing for broad leaved plants

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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21 Feb 2011 15:00 #18 by Xaribdis (Lorcan O' Brien)

Looks great alf nice job, what's the name of the plant in the last photo on the right the one that touches the top of the water
Is it hard to keep?




Mark


Think that's Nymphaea stellata. I accidentally got one in a mail order. It looked nothing more than a big walnut- no leaves, no roots. Dropped it into my tank and within two days there was growth. Within a week it was a large plant and within a fortnight I was cutting back lilly pads at the top of my tank. Terrific growth and a fantastic looking plant. If the lilly pads are cut back you will get a bushier plant. If they are left to grow, most growth will be put into reaching the surface and they will quickly take over the top of the tank. I was getting a certain amount of algae on slow-growing plans in the tank, but the Lilly seems to be able to out-compete for nutrients if regularly pruned and now the issue has largely gone away.

Anywho, great looking tank, fair play a dhuit.

L

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05 Jul 2011 17:01 #19 by alf (alf)
Replied by alf (alf) on topic Re: planted tank

six months on now and going well
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05 Jul 2011 19:17 #20 by joey (joe watson)
Replied by joey (joe watson) on topic Re: planted tank
looking great, everything is coming on very strong. what is the carpet plant in the middle foreground? are you running co2?

Location: Portlaoise, Midlands

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05 Jul 2011 23:29 #21 by A1_aquarist (Aidan Dalton.)
Looking good Al,by the way the sagitarria plant i got off ya is growing great,formed a nice carpet in foreground.Cheers. Aidan. :)

No mouth bigger than the smallest fish in tank.

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06 Jul 2011 12:34 #22 by alf (alf)
Replied by alf (alf) on topic Re: planted tank
yeah I use Co2 Joey and Aiden named the plant above nice grass and grows quick.
Was thinking about selling it tbh want to try something bigger.

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06 Jul 2011 18:32 #23 by BlueRam (Sean Crowe)
looks well mate ill be starting something the same my self in a rio 180 with co2

good luck sean

Sean Crowe

ITFS Member

Location: Navan

Always Remember Surviving Is Not Thriving

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01 Sep 2011 21:19 #24 by alf (alf)
Replied by alf (alf) on topic Re: planted tank









posted these pics on a different thread but wanted to update this one too
big difference in the tank now from when I started this thread

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02 Sep 2011 08:51 #25 by Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
Great stuff Al, tank looks savage. Glad to see that stuff worked on the algae problem.

Jay

Location: Finglas, North Dublin.

Life
may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.

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02 Sep 2011 09:27 - 02 Sep 2011 09:31 #26 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: planted tank

diamond sharks aka lemon barbs. together wiht a severum and leporinus they brutalised many euros worth of plants
also clown loaches would punch holes in them - they seem to have a thing for broad leaved plants


This usually happens because loaches are usually trying to pluck Snails etc from the leaf and unfortunately the little piece of leaf the Snail is on comes with it.

I love the Lily plant and always remove the extended leaves before they reach the surface, it keeps the plant bushier but only do it when the plant is established, you don't want to starve a new plant.

NOW FOR THE BAD NEWS!

All those Fish bar the Loaches depend to a very high degree on vegetable matter so it's Fish or plants :(

Kev.
Last edit: 02 Sep 2011 09:31 by stretnik (stretnik).

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