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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

RO water for plants.

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14 Jun 2005 12:25 #1 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Is it ok to use RO water with plants, or would i have to use some thing with it to give the plants what they need?

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14 Jun 2005 14:42 #2 by ()
Replied by () on topic Re: RO water for plants.

Is it ok to use RO water with plants, or would i have to use some thing with it to give the plants what they need?


I think plants need some of the minerals and electrolytes that RO removes. My boyfs heavily planted tank uses filtered tapwater. He adds electro-right and leaf zone after water changing also. Here's a photo: www.pollybean.com/images/Fish-Tank_LG.jpg

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  • conor-mr2 (conor-mr2)
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15 Jun 2005 15:53 #3 by conor-mr2 (conor-mr2)
Replied by conor-mr2 (conor-mr2) on topic Re: RO water for plants.
nice setup. Although I can spot a bit of algae on the leaves there

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  • Paula (Paula)
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16 Jun 2005 08:41 #4 by Paula (Paula)
Replied by Paula (Paula) on topic Re: RO water for plants.
>nice setup.
Thanks! :D

>Although I can spot a bit of algae on the leaves there
Yeah, the algae is a pain. Got rid of most of it with an algae remover tablet, but it also stressed out my favourite syno as the type of algae remover was unsuitable for smooth skinned fish (and didn't say so on the packet). : (

RIP Kitty

P

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17 Jun 2005 15:42 #5 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Replied by platty252 (Darren Dalton) on topic /
That is a nice setup. Sorry to hear you lost (kitty) your sinodontis

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17 Jun 2005 18:39 #6 by darragh (Darragh Sherwin)
R/O water should be fine as long as you are mixing it with some of the rejected water from the R/O Unit, as R/O water on it's own is completely devoid of any chemicals or electrolytes that help with life in the tank.

If you want plants in your tank, make sure you have a solid base of aquatic soil mixed with fertilizer powder below your gravel so that the plants can get the nutrients they need.

Consider reading any of the following books - Planted Aquarium Books, from Amazon

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20 Jun 2005 07:36 #7 by conor (conor)
Replied by conor (conor) on topic RO Water with Plants
Hi all,

The algae you are seeing looks to me like hair algae.
The only effective way to remove it is to either

1. cut all light to the tank for at least a month. The fish wont mind, but the plants will.

2. An algacide, but beware of killing your plants, and fish ;-(
Not recomended.

3. Household Bleach, but this will kill all the good bacteria aswell, and be sure to rince the tank a few times until all the bleach smell is gone.

Or my preferred way:
4. Water changes, lots and lots and lots. If there is no nitrate, then the algae dies. I had severe hair algae, and thats how I got rid of it. The fish and plants were all happy too.

Regards
Conor.

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20 Jun 2005 08:17 #8 by Paula (Paula)
Replied by Paula (Paula) on topic Re: RO water for plants.
I think more water changes is probably the best solution for me.

Thanks Conor! :)

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22 Jan 2006 20:05 #9 by conor (conor)
Replied by conor (conor) on topic Algae Eaters -> real ones!!!
New Solution for algae issues on plants:

Get some amano shrimps.
I have an office aquarium that gets overlooked most of the time. It only has a single fish and a plant.

Due to the not so frequent water changes, the nitrates are high (for one of my tanks that is), so, because of this I get hair algae.

Well, I bought 4 amano shrimps, thinking it would likely take them ages to clear so much algae. Not so, the monday after the week-end I fgound that all the algae had been eaten.

Go get some.
regards
Conor.

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23 Jan 2006 10:59 #10 by georgina (georgina)
Replied by georgina (georgina) on topic Re: RO water for plants.
My tank was being over run by algae there for a while but I cut down on the light usage (to only a couple of a hours a day), did a few water changes and invested in a golden algae eater, I've noticed a massive reduction in the algae so I'm well pleased. Its a disaster once it gets into a tank. Hopefully it'll stay away now!

G

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09 Feb 2006 06:54 #11 by monty (monty)
I've found the bristlenose to be great for algae control, but even better is a number of Oto's as they will eat the algae off the leaves too, leaving a better looking plant.

Monty.

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09 Feb 2006 17:12 #12 by Dave (Dave Fallon)
To answer the original Question, pure RO water will contain no minerals or trace elements, so minerals must be added, or mixing some of the rejected water with it, as Darragh suggested.

Qui Vivra Verra.

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  • MistressAlphaFemale (MistressAlphaFemale)
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19 Sep 2006 03:09 #13 by MistressAlphaFemale (MistressAlphaFemale)
Replied by MistressAlphaFemale (MistressAlphaFemale) on topic Re: RO water for plants.
I use RO water in all my tanks. My palnted tank also gets Seacheams Flourish, Flourish Iron (for Africian Swords and Tiger Lotus both Red and Green ) and then Fourish Exicel. I get break outs in spots. I have (down to) 4 Ottos and 2 Chinse hillstream loach. And some scrabing lol.

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