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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

No substrate - bad idea?

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22 Jan 2013 14:28 #1 by Ski (Alan McGee)
Hi guys,

Have a 7' * 2' * 2' tank ordered and thinking of using no substrate so it's easy and quick to vacuum up the fish waste.

Is this a bad idea though because i'll only have beneficial bacteria in the filter?

Is there usually a lot of bb in the substrate?

Going to be using a FX5 and will have big messy fish in there - arowana, oscar etc.

Thanks for the help

Alan

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22 Jan 2013 15:30 #2 by JohnH (John)
Alan,
You'll have noticed already that many 'large' fishkeepers (that's keepers of large fish, although some large keepers like large fish, as do some smaller lads - I'm a little on the large size, but prefer smaller fish :side: [what a load of nonsense]) do not have substrate - mainly for, I suspect, the reason you aren't keen to be using it.
So, as you suggest, all of the bacteria - well, much of it anyhow, will be within the filter - but this is a large filter so it ought to be sufficient.
However, I suspect the best man to advise you with certainty will be Mr IGM - he'll be popping up from time to time and queries like this will be 'right up his street'.

John

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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22 Jan 2013 15:35 #3 by Ski (Alan McGee)
Great thanks for that John.

Yeah it's a tricky one to weigh up - bb vs being able to keep the tank really clean

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22 Jan 2013 17:18 #4 by sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
if using no substrate i'd suggest painting the base of your tank black, most of my tanks only have 1mm at most of sand on the bottom the reason for this is fish need to be able to orientate themselves in a tank hence when no substrate is used i have seen fish panic and try to escape through the bottom of the tank and injure themselves by doing it, a painted black of sand colour on the base would stop this if you are going for no substrate.
Just my 2 cents
Seamus

Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild

currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick

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23 Jan 2013 09:38 #5 by Ski (Alan McGee)
Didn't think of that Seamus. Thanks for that

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