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 Conditioner do we need it?
- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Now that I have changed to a 300L tank I have been thinking that im going to need twice as much Water Conditioner and the stuff costs enough, so im wondering is it really important? And is there anyone here that dose not use it?
LB
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another option is rain water but then you are having to consider what is on the roof you get your run off from.
i would suggest nutrafin water conditioner available in 2 liters and treats 14000liters better than taking any chances
do others may have better ideas
mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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i'll get onto Gavin for you and see if he can get in the 5ltr packs of it works out half the price, it did for me when i got the 5ltr easylife for €60, would have cost over €130 if i'd kept on buying it in 500ml btls.. i find it great to take out all the crap the council put in our water supplies... either use this or invest in a decent ro unit, but even then you'll have to fork out on products to remineralise the water
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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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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Chlorine and chloramines are still used in Dublin.
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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As for an RO unit that might be an option too as I will probably be looking at mineralizing the water anyway for a planted tank.
I guess the biggest issues are the chlorine and chloramines but may be issues too with metals in the water.
As Mickey said aerating the water is one option as this would gas off the chlorine and as platty said the chloramines is Chlorine and ammonia so if the bond is broken between them then we have 2 things that we have already dealt with so it should be possible to do without Water Conditioner? Was there Water Conditioner 20 or 30 years ago?
LB
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- Johnmorrin (John Morrin)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Dose anyone know of a product that might do this?
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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A dechlorinator is about the best option. There is one called something like Amaqul. A very small amount treats a lot of water so it works out the cheapest. Someone here should know the name i just cant think of it at the moment.
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- tm2204 (Thomas Maguire)
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So a product to break the bond between the ammonia & chlorine might be cheaper?
Dose anyone know of a product that might do this?
Yep, API Tapwater Conditioner. It's not expensive, you use 1 DROP per GALLON of water and i've used it for years and it's spot on. Not expensive either.
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- Loggser (Loggser)
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i would suggest nutrafin water conditioner available in 2 liters and treats 14000liters better than taking any chances
do others may have better ideas
mickey
I was just gonna put up a post asking a question like this.
I did a 50% water change earlier tonight and used the last of the water treatments that I got when I bought the tank.
2 large 500ml bottles of King British Safe water(ammonia&nitrite remover) & Safe Guard(chlorine&chloramines remover). Now been looking around at prices to buy more and seen a guy on ebay selling 2 litre bottles way cheaper but shipping from the UK outways the savings.
Was gonna ask anywhere in Dublin to buy these or similar in bulk?
2 Litre or 5 Litre sounds good.
Can yis pass on details of where they're available?
Cheers in advance

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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Or is Conditioner used in ponds?
If it is I would think it would be produced for much larger volumes of water.
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I got mine in Petstop. but any of the sponsors can get some added to their next orders. just ask!
pond treatment can be used it is just working out the correct dosage for most tanks is a pain. but i have used it with the same results when stuck
Mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- Loggser (Loggser)
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Must be bigger volume bottles available thus cheaper in the long run out there.
Lots of folks have multiple tanks on here, thats a lot of water changes.
Where do you get yours? Best prices etc?
Anybody?

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- arabesque (Mick Veale)
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the reason is you use 10 times less of it per water change..
A bottle will last you a year.
Use 1 capful (5 mL) for each 200 L (50 gallons*) of new water.
or 1ml for 40 litres!!!
www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Prime.html
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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- arabesque (Mick Veale)
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- platty252 (Darren Dalton)
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I must change the picture to something else.
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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www.zooplus.ie/shop/fish/pond/water_treatments/30200
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- arabesque (Mick Veale)
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10 ml per 30 Liter it wouldnt last long...
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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