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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

Rainwater

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30 May 2011 18:27 #1 by Sofiztikated (Kenny Gibson)
Howdy all.

Just for a bit of discussion, does anyone use rainwater to top up/fill their tanks? I'll be the first one to say that I haven't looked into it, it just popped into my head there, and thought it might make an interesting topic.

Seeing as we get a fair bit of rain here, and the proposed water charges/meters, will/does anyone see themselves using rainwater in their tanks.

What would be the best way of collection? Water butt at the bottom of a downpipe? What about other debris and such (bird poop) that would get washed down it?

Would the water in the butt go stagnant?

What about pollution? I know in the Big Smoke you would have to deal with more rainfall pollution that the likes of myself in the Stix, but even as I look outside at the moment, the windows are stained with a lot of sand/ash (stupid Icelandic volcanoes :cheer: )

Surely the chemistry of rainwater should match what comes out of your taps pretty closely, obviously without the added clorine and fluoride, surely that should be of some benefit to fish?

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30 May 2011 19:01 - 30 May 2011 19:06 #2 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Rainwater
Judging by the severe shortage of precipitation this year so far and don't think for one moment that the extreme weather earlier this year produced any decent quantity in Water, I would not be in the slightest way, be dependent on it, maybe OK for nano set-ups etc. Arabu, Adrian uses it for Discus and Altum Angels but if the Weather continues as it is you will be pushed to do it uninterrupted, just my €0.2 worth.

Rainwater is totally different to Tap water, especially the water is collected after a short period to allow suspended particulates to be flushed out of the polluted Air it passes through, then, this Water will be very clean and akin to reverse osmosis except that things like Sulphur dioxide will cause it to be slightly more acidic.

Winter collected Rain will most definitely have higher levels of pollutants including Vehicle emissions due to these being found closer to the Ground due to the colder temps.

Kev.
Last edit: 30 May 2011 19:06 by stretnik (stretnik).

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30 May 2011 19:54 #3 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
And the tap water would also have a composition depending upon the rock or other landscape that it passes over from rain to being in the reservoir to the tap.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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30 May 2011 20:48 #4 by manius112 (Mariusz Kaminski)
I would recommend to collect a bit of water first and have tested before ya gonna thing about whole system.
Im breeding shrimps myself and because loud of shrimps keepers in Europe keep them in rain water I was going to do for my farm but Its 3th time now when I tested rain water and my GH-5, KH-3, Ph-7,5!!!, Fe-0, NO2-0, NO3-0.
I live in ballybrack so only one can explain rain water being so hard. probably all salt from sea blow by wind and washed by rain cost all trouble.

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30 May 2011 21:11 #5 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Rainwater
PH, KH and GH can be altered by the surface the rain is collected from like Cement Tiles on the Roof, the tiles over years can disintegrate and end up in a Water butt and release Lime etc which will affect the contents, the Water butt should be cleaned once in a while to remove mineral build up on the bottom. This won't happen with blue Slate but I'm not sure what is contained in the minerals on Bituminous felt on Sheds etc.



Kev.

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30 May 2011 21:12 #6 by Sofiztikated (Kenny Gibson)

Judging by the severe shortage of precipitation this year so far and don't think for one moment that the extreme weather earlier this year produced any decent quantity in Water, I would not be in the slightest way, be dependent on it, maybe OK for nano set-ups etc. Arabu, Adrian uses it for Discus and Altum Angels but if the Weather continues as it is you will be pushed to do it uninterrupted, just my €0.2 worth.

Rainwater is totally different to Tap water, especially the water is collected after a short period to allow suspended particulates to be flushed out of the polluted Air it passes through, then, this Water will be very clean and akin to reverse osmosis except that things like Sulphur dioxide will cause it to be slightly more acidic.

Winter collected Rain will most definitely have higher levels of pollutants including Vehicle emissions due to these being found closer to the Ground due to the colder temps.

Kev.


So rainwater is cleaner? Sorry, tired brain not work good. If I worked this out right, after a short sit, the collected rainwater will have less polutants, bad sulphur making it more acidic? Would a combination of rainwater, being more acidic, and tap water here being limey, would that balance out? Or am I getting it wrong, and would it make the water even more acidic?

Would the composition of the water butt have any effect on the water? Wood/Plastic/Metal?

The quantity of rain is something I never really looked at, at the moment, it just seems like it's always raining.

Apologies for any waffle or spelling, just quite tired at the moment.

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30 May 2011 21:19 #7 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: Rainwater
If the Rain is allowed to fall for say fifteen Minutes, it should flush the majority of the baddies out, after this, any water collected should be cleaner but if this is done in Winter where more Fossil fuels are burned the rain is likely to contain Sulphur dioxide which, when mixed with water, will alter the ph. I'd suggest RO mixed with Tap water, it really is the safest bet.

Kev.

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