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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

changing substrate

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19 Feb 2014 10:15 #1 by Paul Healy (paul healy)
So when I started I naturally just dropped in a a load of different sand and substrate and stuck a load of plants in ,now I have co2 and a bit more knowledge and I am thinking of changing all the substrate in the tank.Any ideas on what substrate to use and has anyone ever done this without emptying the aquarium???? its 260 ltrs and i never have any sick fish and don't want to disturb the balance I have but the plants are not really doing as well as they could and I have a nagging feeling its my early mistakes coming back to haunt me.

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19 Feb 2014 13:50 #2 by newbejkjimk (damien kelly)
Hi Paul I imagine it would be difficult to change the sand without emptying the tank and even more difficult to put new substrate in.
I recently changed the substrate and housed the fish in a plastic container with heater and filter then transferred them back later that day all done just a word of warning keep an eye on ammonia levels as a lot of good bacteria live in the substrate that you are taking out.
jim

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19 Feb 2014 14:44 #3 by Paul Healy (paul healy)
I am thinking of taking the substrate out little by little one jug a day so not to shock the water and i have a smaller tank i can put the fish into but i might not replace the fish and then when there are only a few left do it then.

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19 Feb 2014 14:54 #4 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)
I've done it twice with no ill effects. Each time i removed the substrate while doing water changes with a hose. It normally took 3-4 water changes

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

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19 Feb 2014 16:05 #5 by Paul Healy (paul healy)
yeah that sounds good I think il start to do it that way thanks

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20 Feb 2014 22:56 #6 by Jim (Jim Lawlor)
Replied by Jim (Jim Lawlor) on topic changing substrate
Hi Paul,
I've done the same - got all the substrate out using a hose as part of a water change - had a bare tank for a while, but added back in the new substrate in very small doses.

the one thing I found was to wash the hell out of the new substrate so that theres very litte disturbance when putting into an already full tank. I used a cut-up 500ml bottle to get small loads all the way to the bottom and pour it out very gently onto the bottom, away from the filer outlets (you can move it around later, once its stable)

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