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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- Ieva star (Ieva Fogta)
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- alan.s (alan)
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very natural looking
Des
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- alf (alf)
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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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- joey (joe watson)
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also what variety of grass is that?
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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When i click on them the whole screen goes blank.
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- alf (alf)
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The one in front of the wood is Hydrocotyle Leucocephalavery 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 other is Echinodorus Tennellus I think
The FX5 kicked back in last night after about an hour happy days

Al
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- joey (joe watson)
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- alf (alf)
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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Is it hard to keep?
Mark
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Kev.
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- joey (joe watson)
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@ 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)
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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- joey (joe watson)
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also clown loaches would punch holes in them - they seem to have a thing for broad leaved plants
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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- Xaribdis (Lorcan O' Brien)
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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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- alf (alf)
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- joey (joe watson)
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- A1_aquarist (Aidan Dalton.)
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No mouth bigger than the smallest fish in tank.
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- alf (alf)
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Was thinking about selling it tbh want to try something bigger.
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- BlueRam (Sean Crowe)
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good luck sean
Sean Crowe
ITFS Member
Location: Navan
Always Remember Surviving Is Not Thriving
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- alf (alf)
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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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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- stretnik (stretnik)
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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.
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