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
Couple of different questions
- Didihno (Didihno)
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I'm running a cheap brand filter in the tank (bought from Wackers).
Its pretty powerful despite its size.
It came with a carbon sponge and a bag of carbon bits inside.
What use is carbon in a filter?
This week I'll be replacing the carbon filter inserts with nice bateria covered sponge ones from my other tank, unless I hear otherwise.
2. pH and kH. Both are high. pH is 7.8-8.0 in both tanks.
kH is around 14 in both tanks. None of the fish I have are supposed to live in such hard water or high pH, so why are they surviving? All the fish have at least doubled in size since purchase. Even a little Ram I bought as an experiment seems perky enough.
3. Plants. I have planted the big tank and they seem to be taking well.
Would it be a bad idea to put Corydoras into the planted tank?
The big Syno never seems to bother the plants.
I know that the algae eater would be a bad idea for now, maybe when the plants are well established.
4. Bogwood. What does it do to the water beside dyeing it?
Thats all for now!
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- Processor (Niall O'Leary)
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The carbon gets changed every 4 to 6 weeks or so.
As for the other questions there are better experts than me to answer them.
Processor.
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- Didihno (Didihno)
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According to this article its called 'Adsorbtion'The carbon ( and I'm open to correction) is to clean the water of smells and other yukies by absorbing them into the carbon.
The carbon gets changed every 4 to 6 weeks or so.
As for the other questions there are better experts than me to answer them.
Processor.
www.aquarticles.com/articles/management/Gussie_Filters.html
A jolly good read.
Basically it says that the carbon ain't all that important, especially at the rate my filter operates at!
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- Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
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If you are planning on putting plants in the tank you should take out the carbon. It will strip out some of the minerals that the plants need.
As for the Ph, some fish will survive and live quiet happily outside their normal range, as for the Ram, they are usually very peciliar when it comes to hard water, personally i'm surprised he's still going. He might have been bred and reared in hard water so he is a acclimatised to it since birth.
Corys love planted tanks, just make sure it is properly cycled and mature before putting them in, they don't do very well in new tanks
Bogwood will soften the water slightly, but it wouldn't have much of an effect/if any on your tank, given the high Ph at present. Some catfish like to rasp small pieces off the bogwood, it helps with their digestion. The tannins that the bogwood release are harmless to fish, if you boil it for a couple of hours before adding it to the tank it doesn't release as much.
All the best, Peter.
Smoke me a Kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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With your pH and hardness I would use CO2 as plant fert.
Bogwood will have literally no effect on your tank since your kH is so high
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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get rid of the carbon media. It will take out plant nutrients. Once activated carbon is exhausted it will start leaching all the nasties back into your tank. I only use carbon to remove medications from my tanks.
With your pH and hardness I would use CO2 as plant fert.
Bogwood will have literally no effect on your tank since your kH is so high
I don`t use it either unless removing chemicals.
Synodontis catfish thrive in hard water. Damios are as hard as nails. Cool that the Ram is still alive he must have been acclimatised to it gradually.
Ps.Danios do better in harder water as their spines will curve in softer water.
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- Didihno (Didihno)
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Not a lot I suppose.
The water is already changing colour with the tannins.
Now, I took some filter sponge from the cycled tank and put it in the second stage of the new tanks filter, replacing the baggie of carbon(bin).
I also gave the first stage of the filter a good wash in tank water but it is the black type of sponge, and this is a type of carbon too no?
I can get rid of it alltogether if required as my shipment of white filter media arrived. 100 sponges for £8 of Ebay. Can't go wrong.
All the fish are doing well. Ram and all. The Ram was a bit shy in with the Tigers at first but now he swims around and through their gang like they ain't even there.
Naturally the Ram will be brown bread by the morning!!! (touches wood)
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- KenS (Ken Simpson)
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I have a Fluval 305. It got a load of carbon with it, but haven't used any. I just added lots of ceramic and tetra bio-balls. I also have a couple of polishing pads in there to keep the water clear.
I'm in Donabate and you may have seen from a previous thread that my pH is 8.0. I have corys, honey gouramis and keyhole cichlids that all tolerate up to 8.0. I added a bristlenose plec on Saturday which is supposed to like 7.0 to 7.5. However, they are as hard as nails and should be fine as long as they are introduced gradually.
I wouldn't go for anything like Discus or fishes that like very soft water with a low pH. You are better matching your fish to your pH, rather than trying to match you pH to your fish.
Regards,
Ken.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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- Didihno (Didihno)
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The Ram is kinda plain whie colour, with a hint of orange fins.
Nice little fish, if a little boring.
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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I don't think the ram will last long. Softwater fish are not capable of calcium excreation and the calcium will eventually block the kidney tubeli.
Does this mean I am wrong about the Danios.
All my Danios succumbed to curved spines when I Discus tank. It was not a genetic deformity it just happened gradually. They were fine in my 60l tank for months.
I placed them in to a tank with a kh of 2 and a gh of 3.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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I don't see the correlation between your danios succumbing to curved spines and calcium excreation of softwater species in hard water.
I have never kept danios in a discus set up. The temperatures are much too high for danios to handle.
Curved spines can have several reasons, inbreeding (quite possible in your case if you got all your fish from the source), vitamine deficiencies (also possible) or viral (my guess) Ultimately you will never know unless you kept a few of them in the freezer and send them of to a lab to get them analysed. Which is very expensive and it's cheaper to buy several hundred danios fot the same money
Holger
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- Deeco (Deeco)
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Don't quote me on this but Danio's as far as i remember do not like soft water which which discus setup would have.
This would decrease their imune systems and cecept them to organ failures and diseases read some thing like this when was younger when i first kept them
agree with apisto temp would be to high causing exaustion
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- Anthony (Anthony)
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I did not buy them for the Discus they were in a 60l tank that I needed for fry.
I did not want to fluch them or feed o bigger cichlids so I just placed them in the tank.
It took about 6 weeks before their spines started to bend, that why I taught that the soft acidic water was causing them to soften.
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- apistodiscus (apistodiscus)
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I pretty much doubt that since they woould have to lose massive amounts of calcium and it is highly unlikely that it would happen within 6 weeks. My guess is still a viral infection.
Holger
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