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
do I need to change water again?
- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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I added fish(3 'large' chiclids and 2 'small' chiclids) to my tank on sunday. I did a water test today and came up with the following:
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.3
Nitrate: 50
Ph: 8
the fish seem happy, I presume those reads are not great, but should I change water ASAPor can it wait?
thanks
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- mrsFishpatrick (Astrid Fitzpatrick)
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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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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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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Nitrite : 0.5(chart jumps from 0.3 to 0.8 but color was right in between)
Nitrate : 20
change more water?!
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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I just did another 20% water change. fingers crossed!
I dont understand the fish, the yellow labs are keeping the same color but the 2 blue fella's(zebra mpanga's i believe) are going from really vibrant to dull and back to vibrant.
oh and all are hidding also?
thanks
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i would consider small daily changes for a few days just to help the cycle was not fully completed and the colonies were not quite up to speed. thus small daily changes will aid this i would add the bio supplement and check your readings daily
if nitrite is less than two skip that day after a few days thing will come to normal.
remember there is always some ammonia, nitrite and nitrate present to low to register this feeds your bacteria and we remove nitrate by water changes At the moment your bacteria needs a little help but this must not totally remove all as the bacteria needs food to!
Mickey
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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still @0.5 for nitrite( thats an estimate as the color is in between 0.3 and 0.8) -
Just realised my maths might be out, did 20LTRs last 2 nights, on a 180LTR tanks thats only 10%

should I do a 20% today?
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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You need to do a partial water change, reduce feeding and keep an eye on the fish that they arent gasping at the surface and dont have rapid gill movement.
Gavin
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yes i would do a 20% change now and i said yesterday i would do small changes every day for a while so if you do about 40ltrs now and 10 ltrs for a few days while the bacteria grows this should bring everything to correct levels watch for the rises in nitrate
and keep us posted
mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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i would do a 25% change tomorrow! have you checked the water from the tap?
Mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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As Mickey said Id do another 20% or so tomorrow. That Nitrite needs to come down. If you want I can give you some water from my establised tanks. I could also give you a squeeze of one of the filters to help yours.
Gavin
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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still not great,but its heading in right direction
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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yes that is good going in the right way! when it gets below .2 i would skip a water change and and see what happens if it stay below .2 at this point your nitrate should be rising. plants will help remove that but keep it in check.
As Gavin say this wont happen in a day but your are going in the right direction.
Mickey
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0.1 ( almost there!!

Nitrate: 10(shouldnt this be rising now?)
PH: 8.0
Thanks to all here that provided me with help!!
Mickey, no waterchange tonight?
Thanks
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yes that is good to see! yes i would expect nitrate to rise but when a tank is running correctly this will happen slowly at the moment your is running correctly for your stock level and feeding would appear to be correct by these readings.
Do you have plants they would use up some of the nitrate for you which would explain the slow rise rate! a small water change to night and i would leave it till Friday.
mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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- dolf_peeters (Dolf Peeters)
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did read again just now:
Nitrite: 0.1
Nitrate: 10
Did no change last night, should I change water today? and how much?
ta
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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If you want some of the plants I have then you can have some from me. They will help with the nitrate.
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