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
Blackwater 450L
- Ma (mm mm)
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Filtration
Tetratec Ex 1200 and Ex 2400 both with peat bioballs and polyfibre
Lights -Dual Arcadia T5 PlantGro 54w 1200mm
Eheim dual line 400 pump
15ml Blackwater extract per litre to start it off, 5ml per 10 litres on WCs
crushed barley straw and few handfuls of clay black cones and capatta leaves
have not measured GH KH though water is soft
PH 6.2
Temprature 26c
4 Mystus leucophasis "Giant Upsidedown Asian catfish"
1 Panaque nigrolineatus L-191
2 Hypostomus sp. L-077 "Rusty Pleco"
1 Balantiocheilos melanopterus "bala Shark"
1 Epalzeorhynchus bicolor "Redtail Shark"
18 Chromobotia macracanthus "Clown Loach"
6 Botie Dario "Benghal Loach"
3 Botia modesta "Skunk Loach"
1 synodontis eupterus
1 Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps "Sailfin Pleco"
I have kept one end loach froendly with lots of aeration and flow onto a pile of granite blocks closely stacked so as not to allow other fish access. The other end is large bogwood pieces leeching pleny as I barely soacked them forst, just a quick scrub as I want this water fairly murky to suit the species kept. Both lights are brand new T5 Plant grows, so the water is blocking out a fair bit of light, job done:) No idea on survivable plants yet?????????????/////
Mark
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- Ieva star (Ieva Fogta)
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- mossy (gavin blanchfield)
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fair play
thanks for sharin
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- wolfsburg (wolfsburg)
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- Ma (mm mm)
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27 loaches means a hell of a lot of tap tap tap at feeding time, sounds like a bad tap group audition:)
mark
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Jay
Location: Finglas, North Dublin.
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may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Nice setup Mark, you have some very happy fish in there. Thats a lot of loaches in there with the gibby and the panaque. Id say keeping things clean in there is a bit of a job, even with your filtration. Keep it up though, your setups are pristine and always interesting.
Jay
Cheers matey, ditto on the Gibby, outcr@ps even the much bigger panaque. Plenty of vaccing though I return half hte water, I remove minus the waste, I am not really set up for getting the water right beofre I add it so I am keeping to small frewquest water changes my tank can buffer.
Just collected my Betta300 and sump last night for possibly my first crack at marines so I'll be picking those brains:)
One of these only €250
Mark
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- Gerry The Chip (Gerard)
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Gerry
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Jay
Location: Finglas, North Dublin.
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may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
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- Ma (mm mm)
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Congrats on goin marine mate, Jesus thats a good deal u got on the tank... 2nd hand or off the net???
Gerry
It was matey, what you cant see is some slight water damage in the bottom on the inside of the cab, have already ordered epoxy on ebay to give it a coat to prevent any more and put paid to future water damage, seriuosly, when Betta make a tank with a sump in the cabinet you would expect them to make it water tight wouldn't you.
@Jay True enough, I wont even clean it till I know where I am, let alone set it up:) I have naer a clue and have a steep learning curve ahead of me.
Mark
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Mark
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- joey (joe watson)
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also about the barley straw: i asked gavin ages ago about this for its algae/blanketweed killing capacity in ponds, but he said it rots too fast in tropical tanks and will cause problems. i'd say your best bet is running peat pellets and cattapa leaves also you can use oak leaves (there's a way to use the leaf and get your own liquor from them too) and do away with the costly blackwater additive. just a tought
you make me want to get more clowns and other loaches now, but i'm worried about space. although i have a big sump so if you dont have any water quality issues with the 2 externals maybe i can get away with it...
Location: Portlaoise, Midlands
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- Ma (mm mm)
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The straw is not for algae, and never a bit on the glass with 2 rusty in there:), it is safe and there is very little of it as you cdna see in the vid not a lot of it, I added it just to have fragments of it floating about, filter maint is regular so no worries there. Black cones and capatta leaves do a good anti fungus job.
Would prefer a sump myself in the 450 but the 2400 and 1200 have a decent output and the cannister on the 2400 is huge, 2 boxes of peat almost on one tray alone.
As for water quality, I guess good filtering, you got a sump, sorted and appropriate amount of food, if no monsterous plecos, Loaches are not too bad waste wise, then maint wont need ot be as regualr vac wise. I am pickin up a 8" and 2 5" Clown loach this week to add ot the gang. Great dish. The plan is to lower the water and add power heads and more smooth stones less clay less peat and higher temp with more protein for about 4 months and revert back to the the current setup for the rest of the year, curious to see how they behave with the transition of setups. I will be moving all other fish out and keeping only Clown loach in the tank, soon as I have space for the upsidedowners in another tank.
mark
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