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
water ph
- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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- JohnH (John)
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The thing is , the gravel is is increasing the ph of my water and I am wondering will it become inert
Damian,
You probably don't have lime-free gravel, identifying this this was previously covered in another post.
If you are thinking of making a change it's fairly simple nowadays to get gravel which is lime-free - thus making it inert from the outset, I would suggest you replace your existing gravel with lime-free stuff and that will save having to wait for your gravel to become inert (if ever!).
Your bogwood would help to lower the pH if the lime content in your gravel wasn't high, but from what you say I think it must be pretty high in lime content. Also, do you have rocks? - Some rocks are forever leaching lime and will have a similar effect.
HTH
John :roll:
Location:
N. Tipp
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
ITFS member.
It's a long way to Tipperary.
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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I had a similar problem which coincided with me adding a sandstone decoration a few months back. My pH was around 7.6 out of the tap but rose to 8.2 after a couple of days.
I was convinced it was the decoaration, but when I took it out, I still had the problem. Turned out that my pH out of the tap has risen, but needed a couple of days before the true pH could be read.
To be sure, I took two buckets of water. Added the sandstone decoration to one and just water in the other. I tested the pH in each bucket on a daily basis. By the end of 5 days, the pH was the exact same in each bucket so I was sure that the decoration wasn't causing my problem.
Regards,
Ken.
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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gravel contains calcium which I believe raises the ph. is there any way to stop this ? maybe boiling the gravel ?
@Ken , checked the water at tap is about bang on 7 , after 1 night in my tank it is over 8.
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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boiling won't help. New inert gravel is your only option. Pain in the backside but next time you know to check for hardness builders before you use any new gravel :oops:
Holger
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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If your tank is planted, you can trying adding CO2. That's what I do. Brings my pH down from 7.8 to 6.8 using a DIY system. Practically costs me nothing to set up and run.
If I were you, I'd swap out the substrate. It saves a lot of messing around and constant water monitoring. Particularly if you have fish that are very sensitive to changes in pH. You could try swithing out a small amount at a time over a few weeks.
Regards,
Ken.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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The trick is to keep the water stable.
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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dont want to head down the sand road again...
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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To reduce the effort to swap your current substrate to sand, why not syphon it out over a couple of evenings and dump in sand?
Daragh
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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A fish net is the best. Straight in to a bin.
The sand I have is easy to clean. Two or three rinses under the tap and it done.
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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Don`t do decimals.


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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Try it. Take Anto up on his offer.
Daragh
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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is that Woodies own brand playsand or the stuff you can buy in any garden centre?
Have to set up a tank in my dentists office and don't want to be at that for days on end.
Holger
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Daragh
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- Acara (Dave Walters)
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They told me so :twisted:
always on the lookout for interesting corys.pm me if you know off any!
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- Damian_Ireland (Damian_Ireland)
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