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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

planning permission granted

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19 Jun 2016 19:28 #151 by robert (robert carter)
Just fished out about 30 koi fry from the sump , so made up a grill of fine mesh to cover the weir , so hopefull that should stop any further escapes

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20 Jun 2016 03:15 #152 by paulv (paul vickers)
I had same problem with a young snake head escaping through the sump outlets so I covered mine with an old sock. Strange but worked.

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22 Jun 2016 22:26 - 22 Jun 2016 22:29 #153 by robert (robert carter)
Well after the good water test yesterday think i will take out the internal power filter in the tank and let the sump look after things filtration wise , so guess this about wrapps up this project . Can i say a massive thanks to all those that helped along the way, from pushing me to a sump , to painting the back of the tank and all the other help and advise given . One final thank you and thats to Bart who built the tank spent hours with me setting it up, and the numerous follow up visits to the house , and of coarse to the wife who gave the planning permission and surported the project . Now all that remain is to think of a new project , but guess planning permission for another tank is a non runner .ps i will post pictures of the journey once i can get my mates help .
Last edit: 22 Jun 2016 22:29 by robert (robert carter). Reason: added sentance

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24 Jun 2016 10:52 #154 by robert (robert carter)
just when things seem to be sorted and going good , got up this morning 50% of the fry dead on further investigation have white spot in the tank ,just dosed with ws3 . I would think I will lose everything in the tank ,luckerly I have about 20 fry in the 10 gal breeding tank in the bedroom . just checked water levels the big tank ammonia nil , nitrate nil. just don't seem to have any luck with this tank

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24 Jun 2016 11:00 #155 by fishmad1234 (Craig Coyle)
What's the temperature in the tank Robert is it in a place near a window where the temperature could be effected by sun light or the fact has been very warm lately.


Regards
Craig

at the end of the day it becomes nite

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24 Jun 2016 12:00 #156 by robert (robert carter)
temp 22.1 deg c , at present ,the tank is in the alcove beside the window ,but there is a large car port outside so it does get any real sunlight , just wondering maybe I didn't completely clear the last outbreak of white spot a month ago . I tell you am getting really fed up with this tank . no problems with pond or other 3 tanks . can actually see the white spot on the fry

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24 Jun 2016 12:15 #157 by fishmad1234 (Craig Coyle)
Maybe the sump hasent been cycled properly or isn't mature or the meds you put in caused a crash or to crash further then when you removed the internal filter the sump couldn't handle the bio load and crashed again.


Regards
Craig

at the end of the day it becomes nite

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24 Jun 2016 12:27 #158 by robert (robert carter)
water tests this morning are all zero , wondering when the internal was removed did I get oxygen depletion causing stress on the fish and then white spot . am loosing fish by the minute ,have put back the internal with the venturi running . my guess is that I will loose the entire batch of fry . the fry in the other tank are fine ,so its not the fish .

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24 Jun 2016 12:49 #159 by Jonlate (Jon Late)
What setting is your return pump on.
You have a Blau one don't you?
What percentage is it on?

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24 Jun 2016 14:31 #160 by robert (robert carter)
its the 3000ltr and set at 95% . this setting run the system totally silent apart from I have the return at surface level to oxyegenate

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24 Jun 2016 17:21 #161 by Jonlate (Jon Late)
And at that speed does it go over and under the different sections right?
In other words it's not just flooding over the top of all of them and missing out your filtration completely?

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24 Jun 2016 19:59 #162 by robert (robert carter)
Bart built the sump and its perfect . Section 1 . Water enters sump into settlement chamber over top of baffle down throught layers of foam of different coarseness , under baffle up through first section of biohome ,over baffle down through second section of biohome, under baffle up through sheets of filter floss ,thought poly filter, ( which has been removed while treating tank for whitespot) over baffle into return pump section which also has two bags of ammonia remover in it . Section 1 and last section have air stones in them . These were put into the sump as i believe the biohome requires good oxyegenation . I did also have an internal filter in the tank with a venturi on it until last tuesday . This has now been put back into the tank . My take on things is by removing this filter oxygen levels fell this stressed the fry and hence white spot outbreak . Reckon that at the present rate i will get wiped out,fry are far from hardy . Just trying to come up with a plan b .

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25 Jun 2016 14:05 #163 by robert (robert carter)
Got up this morning and the remanding fry were dead, took some dead fish and water sample down to Darren in seahorsre , water tested perfect , he checked some of the dead fish under the miroscope and nothing showed up , . So in the middle of stripping the tank , washed the gravel in tank water drained and filled a few times until clean , all plants in the tank dumped . All sponges and filter floss in the sump also dumped. Now in the prosess of refilling the tank with a massive dose (like 15 times normal) of potassium permananate to sterilise every thing . Will run this for 24 hrs then remove it with constant water changes . , restart the tank using organic aqua and a couple of cheap goldfish and run it for a few days and observe . So if you look at the webcam you will see a tank full of purple water .

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26 Jun 2016 08:43 #164 by paulv (paul vickers)
Sorry to hear you lost all the fish, it's turned out to be a very problematic tank, as I suggested earlier, to empty and totally clean the tank restart with OA, you should not have any more trouble. You can stock the tank fully now, run it on OA for 2 months allowing the filter bacteria to mature, or just keep it on OA. Don't forget OA needs high level of oxygen and open space for gasses to escape, keep your sump open top. Best of luck this time.

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26 Jun 2016 15:55 #165 by robert (robert carter)
Ran the tank for 24hrs with a massive dose of potasium permanganate , spent this pm cleaning out and washing the tank and sump out .will reuse the Biohome media but sponges and floss have been replaced have refilled it now , put in a start up kit of organic aqua , and added 8 small koi from Newlands ,not Japanese but nice fish all the same at a very keen price . so will leave it for a week to see how things go ,only downside is that water test arnt accurate using OA .

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26 Jun 2016 16:50 #166 by irish-zx10r (James feenan)
i missed that start of this did u breed the koi or buy the koi as fry i hear there are very hard to breed and grow out

Something fishie going on here

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26 Jun 2016 17:00 #167 by robert (robert carter)
My son got me 100 3cm fry from a guy on done deal based in baldoyle , i put most of them in the new coldwater tank ,and about 20 in a 10gal i have in the bedroom . The ones in the new tank were good for about 4 days and then started dieing, in 48hrs i lost the lot . But no losses in the other tank .this new tank has been a real problem just couldnt keep fish alive in it . So hence the reason to strip it and sterilise it . Running now on organic aqua with 8 small koi in it , so time will tell . Totally unknown as to what was going on, as water tests were good . So fingers crossed this time

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26 Jun 2016 18:52 - 26 Jun 2016 18:54 #168 by alan 64 (alan)
Robert the thing with the oa is it will work so u stop stressing and leave the oa to do its job now and do not do any more than a 10% weekly water change with it just do a quick syphon and add ur weekly dose of the oa liquid and the fish will be fine, i got some of the koi in newlands they are decent fish
Last edit: 26 Jun 2016 18:54 by alan 64 (alan). Reason: spel

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26 Jun 2016 20:48 #169 by paulv (paul vickers)

Robert the thing with the oa is it will work so u stop stressing and leave the oa to do its job now and do not do any more than a 10% weekly water change with it just do a quick syphon and add ur weekly dose of the oa liquid and the fish will be fine, i got some of the koi in newlands they are decent fish

+1 on that. Just top up what ever water evaporates and do a monthly maintenance routine. I was very scared and apprehensive when I first used oa, that was 4 years ago now. Judge your water quality by your fish's health rather than testing

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26 Jun 2016 20:51 #170 by robert (robert carter)
Hi Alan , thats what i am going to do but probaly leave the first water change for two weeks . Gavin had some nice small koi there today ,he said you were over. If you feed them a decent food they will colour up well . I often wonder is the word japanese in koi sales just a reason to inflate prices . Certainly both isreali and uk koi quality has improved a lot over resent years . However the japs certainly get the red in their fish redder .

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26 Jun 2016 21:19 #171 by alan 64 (alan)
Whats the best stuff to feed these guys at the moment in ur opinion robert

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26 Jun 2016 21:28 #172 by robert (robert carter)
I am feeding the new ones , well will start tomorrow on new life spectrum , it has garlic in it and it certainly seams to prevent whitespot . When they get a bit bigger i have some 62% protin jap food i got while in Bangor its 3 mm pellets so a bit big for the moment. I use nls in the tropical tank and never had whitespot , its not the cheepest but last a good while the tropicals go wild for it .

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26 Jun 2016 22:54 #173 by alan 64 (alan)
Cool so any quality pellet will do i reckon, i have lots of discus pellets there which i have been feeding everything on so i might try them on that for now as i need to use some up anyways

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26 Jun 2016 22:57 #174 by alan 64 (alan)
Tetra discus pellets is what i have there

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26 Jun 2016 23:08 #175 by FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
Hi guys,

Roberts your heart must be broken at this stage but it's great to see that you are still fighting!! Can I ask what OA is?

Was in Newlands myself today and they had some nice small koi, ended up coming out with four, they went into my 240l tank to be beefed up a bit before going into the pond. Very nice and Gavin is a nice chap to deal with! Did the rounds, sea horse had nothing and the two guys in Petco were more interested in watching the match so they can keep what they had!

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27 Jun 2016 01:25 #176 by FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
Well didn't I speak too soon, got home just there from a late shift to find one of the koi had got wedged in between three rocks and he's now fairly lathargic, hoping he's just winded for want of a word, he's now in the hospital tank.....

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27 Jun 2016 04:36 #177 by robert (robert carter)
OA is organic aqua , its a product that i got from seahorse , their is a thread here on the forum about it . Basicly it enables you to fill a new tank add OA and put your fish in right away ,no need to cycle the tank , they say you only do a water change every 4 weeks , this is the first time i have used it so will see how it goes . Sorry about the new koi you got , they do go a bit mad in a new enviroment . I always leave the lights off for 24 hrs after adding new fish and dont feed until the following day . Hope the fishis ok ..have a look at the thread on OA . Robert

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27 Jun 2016 09:01 #178 by paulv (paul vickers)
FR85 use API melafix to treat the trapped fish. It's great for any wounds and bruises.

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27 Jun 2016 12:39 #179 by FR85 (Gavin O'Sullivan)
Poor guy didn't make it, floating this morning.....

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27 Jun 2016 12:59 #180 by robert (robert carter)
sorry to hear about the fish , if your like me I really hate losing fish

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