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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

Upgrading to a new tank - the adventure begins ;)

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23 Apr 2016 09:35 - 23 Apr 2016 10:28 #181 by robert (robert carter)
Have seen a product similar to this in a ball shape for tropical and coldwater tank its suppose to be brilliant and they say nearly does away with the need for water changes . To me it just seems to good to be true . I supose the only way would be to try it. Just checked the product i was referring to is an EcoBio block
Last edit: 23 Apr 2016 10:28 by robert (robert carter). Reason: added sentance

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23 Apr 2016 15:43 #182 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey Robert

It might well be the same one, this is not only for marine but for freshwater and ponds as well, they sell them is ball shape, squares, blocks etc

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23 Apr 2016 16:33 #183 by robert (robert carter)
I wonder are they any good , but not cheap

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27 Apr 2016 14:08 #184 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey guys

Not much has happened since. Tank is empty again and being filled up with new RO water. This is not necessary although it is advisable and since water charges are fixed in Ireland and it only took 24 hours to fill my tank I decided to go ahead and do it.

Silicate leves were down to around 1.5 ppm, they were >6 ppm on saturday, 3 ppm on monday. Ideally you want it to be around 0.4-0.6 ppm. The reactor with the silicate/phosphate remover seems to be working really well in lowering those levels. So far no major algae problems.

Anyway, as new water is coming in I suspect level will be below 1 ppm as long as I keep running the reactor, then I will add the salt and wait for 2-3 days for the system to stabilize before starting the cycling process.

In the meanwhile I have received this

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They will go in my refugium until the scrubber is ready, then I will see what I will do with them.

They are Kessil LEDs H150. They are specific for plant grow, the magenta version is a general purpose grow light with a specific emphasis on the flowering stage. Ideally you want the purple version but they have been discontinued now for a few years. The only difference between them two is that this one has a bit more red spectrum. I can't wait to test them.

They are fairly cheap (around 100 dollars) but they were expensive to bring over as they only sell them in the states (afaik).

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28 Apr 2016 22:27 #185 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Hey man any chance you have any of the mesh stuff left over, can pay you for it, thinking it might work for my gyre pump so would only need a small piece

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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28 Apr 2016 22:42 #186 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey Jeff

I think I still have some, let me see, otherwise I also have another type of mesh a bit thicker that might also do.

I will ignore the part where you offer to pay ;)

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29 Apr 2016 15:02 #187 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Haha sorry don't like asking for free stuff

If you have anything that may work I'd really appreciate it, thanks Alex

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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29 Apr 2016 15:41 #188 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Ok so I have some thicker mesh similar to the one you saw but with a bit less space between

This will require cleaning every now and then but you are a clean addict so I am sure you will be fine.

Other people use black foam and wrap it around, dont have any of that! :cheer:

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29 Apr 2016 18:43 #189 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
:laugh: :laugh: :P cheers mate as long as the holes dont restrict it in any way it will work, foam would not work for these pumps at all, are you around tomorrow

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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29 Apr 2016 18:45 #190 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
I will

Foam will work perfect! Coralvue even sell them specific for the maxspect gyre



link

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29 Apr 2016 19:06 #191 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Apologies never new they were out although I'd say it be a pain trying to keep it clean
If I would have a look at the mesh tomorrow that would be cool
I have a match in the morning should be back for lunch I can give you a buzz see if ur around

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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01 May 2016 12:05 #192 by carlowchris (chris)
Just on the sunject of the gyres...it looks like from the pics your gyres are going to be mounted vertical where mine is horizontal. ...whys that???is it better to have them vertical? ??

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01 May 2016 12:48 #193 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Heya

The placement of the gyres was recomended by the guy from korallentwelt. I was a bit skeptical at first but I did some research and apparently to gyres on opposite sides in vertical position is the best setup. It is also not bad to run 1 vertical and 1 horizontal so you can cover the entire surface area of the aquarium

Horizontal gyres produce a lot of water agitation which translates is water evaporation. So it is something to be aware off/.

I have another gyre (not the maxspect) which might go horizontal if I need more flow , we will see

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01 May 2016 13:15 #194 by jeff (Jeff Scully)
Seen this set up yesterday lads and Holy jasus did I want to bring it home with me, I would love to be the one stocking it with corals and then enjoying what fish gets what cave and hideouts
Fantastic job Alex it definitely has me thinking of the way I want to scape my next tank well done :cool:

And thanks again for the Mesh I will be having ago of that in a while

Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth.

A life making mistakes is not only more honourable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing at all.

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02 May 2016 14:47 #195 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Thanks Jeff for your kind words. Hope the mesh does the trick for you ;)

I decided to do a small video to show the sump flow and how much water is moving at the moment. Hard to say what amount of flow is "flowing" at the moment, I would say around 5000-6000 lph, plus around 1500 lph going through the UV back into the sump refugium. The sump is pretty silent, the noise you hear is the wife tiding up stuff in the kitchen behind me.



Also if you notice in the video I finished the piping, I have two pumps at the minute, two blau dc pumps, 3k and 12 k, 3k feeding the reactor, 12 k feeding the tank and the UV. I used unions to connect the pipe to the pump and put a silicone mat to reduce vibration, so far is ok but I might cut the pipe and add a silicone tube in between to remove vibration entirely (I dont notice any right now but I feel more comfortable having that flexible tube in between.

Took a couple of pictures of the tank and sump, it is pretty much finished, it is only missing the back side covers and the black bacground on the left side glass and I think that's pretty much it. Cable are tidy and the only thing missing in the sump is the skimmer, 3 probes and 1 long reactor, and that's pretty much done.

Might start adding the salt this weekend so bacteria can start to grow and help me bring down those silicates!

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I like the way the sump looks, every thing looks tidy and relatively easy to access. Plenty of space for work and it doesnt feel too tight!

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02 May 2016 17:16 #196 by robert (robert carter)
A fantasic piece of work , everything so tidy

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02 May 2016 18:07 - 02 May 2016 18:10 #197 by carlowchris (chris)
Very nice B) B) :whistle:

If ya ever get bored one day ..you can come round mine and rearrange my cabinet ;)

Jesus that's dead silent.....very impressed :whistle:
Last edit: 02 May 2016 18:10 by carlowchris (chris).

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02 May 2016 19:14 #198 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Thanks Rob, how is your tank coming along?

Chris, It has taken me almost 5 months to get this far... if you are willing to wait that long I dont mind lol

Quick update, salt is in and so is the skimmer, I turned it on to let it break by not putting the collection cup and allowing it to overflow for a couple of days. After 20 minutes I came back to find a lot of brown stuff on the surface of the sump so I decided to put the collection cup as it seems that the skimmer is ready to skim.

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The Skimmer performance seems very impressive, running the pump at the minimum setting at the moment, I was surprised it would create foam in such an early stage.

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I still need to fine tune it but I will let it break for a week before worrying about this.

Still plenty of space around the sump area even with the skimmer in. Also, all the Apex probes are in (Conductivity, pH, Temperature and ORP).

And believe it or not and after so much complaining about Seneye's devices I bought a new one during the weekend (my old one broke). The reason why is no other than to use the built in PAR monitor which is pretty decent and cheap if compared to other similar ones out there. This part will be very important when I place my corals. I did a quick test and with the 8 T5s and LEDs at 60% I am getting PAR readings of around 750 on the top of the tank, 460 at the bottom, waaaay too much light tbh so I am guessing that I will need to run the LEDs at around 30%, which means that they should last longer! ;) I will do a full review of the lights on a separate thread one day

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02 May 2016 20:14 #199 by robert (robert carter)
Hoping to have the cabinet this week to enstall and level and possibly the tank the following week

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03 May 2016 12:54 #200 by Jonlate (Jon Late)
Everything's looking good Alex, well done.

Can you just tell me, is your sump overhanging the cabinet base at the back? It just looks like it does in one of the photos, but it might just be the angle.
If it does, what does that look like from the side?

I think you will win the most high tec tank in Ireland at the moment!!

Keep the story happening, where will you end up buying corals from? Will that require a second mortgage?, :)

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03 May 2016 22:26 #201 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hi Jonathan

Yes the sump is right underneath the overflow. I did this on purpuse as when you run a bean animal overflow it is best to run the pipe in a straight line (not only for bean animals design but also for any full siphon drain type) as it will ensure you have no air in the pipes.

I dont have a proper picture showing the side of the tank, this is all I can find

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The sump is not hanging over the edge though, the cabinet was designed so the sump will rest on it as well.

Yeah can't wait to put stuff in, LPS and fish first, then in a few months some SPSs. Give me time to save! lol

The only place I can get them from will be SH, but before I can put corals in I need to set up a quarantine tank beside the DT where corals will spend a month or two while I make sure no nasty creatures are hiding in them!

On a side note, chaeto was added today as well as some arag-live Caribsea sand. That stuff is excellent, but it dirties the tank a lot, that means I will need to clean everything once the sand settles as every single stuff is now covered with white stuff :(

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anyway it will all be worth it. So far levels are good, bit of ammonia (0.05), nitrates 1 ppm, phosphates around 0.5, so nothing to worry about, silicates are still high but they will come down once the bacteria settles and I start skimming again. Also the silicate reducer will help as well.

Its half way there, probably needs another half day.

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04 May 2016 11:23 #202 by Jonlate (Jon Late)
Yes, I remember now. Your overflow is built into the back of the tank, so of course it has to come down like that.
Can't wait to visit it one day. :woohoo:

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06 May 2016 15:36 - 06 May 2016 15:37 #203 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Jon you will be more than welcome :)

Not much happening these days, just cycling the aquarium, no lights, nothing but live sand, chaeto and some added bacteria, levels are as expected, phosphates relatively low so far and ammonia under control, /nitrates below 1 atm.

I am waiting for more sand to come in specific for the Jawfish as well as some bacteria to add to the tank to boost the population/culture, in the meanwhile I decided to install the webcam, initially it was going to go outside but I decided I would put in in the sump so I can monitor things such as skimmer cup level, power state, leaks, water levels, etc.

I like it so far, here is a snapshot.

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The video feed is in HD and can be monitored from abroad.

I can rotate the camera everywhere so from it I can see the state of the pumps, circuit boxes etc. I think it will come handy when I am away as for instance, if I see that the collection cup is filling up I can remotely switch the skimmer off (although it does have a sensor that will automatically turn it off in the event of the cup filling up but just in case I also have this option)

I have other a second one for the outside that will be only active while I am away.
Last edit: 06 May 2016 15:37 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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06 May 2016 20:01 #204 by Jonlate (Jon Late)
Hey, can we all have the web address of your web cam? Then we can all look in and see what your tank is up to!!
Just make sure the sound it turned off.

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08 May 2016 08:08 #205 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Heya

I dont have DDNS set up yet, might do it at some point though. So at the moment the only live feed is either via a dynamic IP address or using my mobile. This Keekoon cameras have a P2P website exclusive to this manufacturer where all cameras are automatically shared, you need to know the camera SSID and password but that's pretty much all you need.

I havent figure out what the url is for this website, the mobile app automatically does this for you so from my mobile I can always connect to my cam but from the normal browser I can't (unless I set up DDNS).

To be honest, I am more than happy with just using the mobile app, so far I am finding the camera quite useful, mostly to check the skimmer cup and water levels. Another one is on its way now, not sure where exactly I will be placing it, this one will probably be on only while I am abroad. I dont mind someone hacking into my sump camera but I wouldnt like someone hacking into my DP tank camera where he can potentially see me walking around half naked... imagine poor hacker... lol

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08 May 2016 08:45 #206 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Actually just for the crack I created a ddns account

Here is the link

bohrio.ddns.net:9991/index.asp

username: guest
password: fish4ever

Have a go, there are no lights in the sump at the moment, i might turn them on so you get a better picture

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08 May 2016 08:59 #207 by Jonlate (Jon Late)
That actually quite cool. I couldn't get a picture via my iPad on the iPad setting, but it came up well on the android setting on the iPad! (probably due to my internet being bad)
I could sit here for hours now watching you work away, changing things, etc.
Another useless gadget some would say. :P

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08 May 2016 09:11 #208 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Lol

I dont think I wont be doing any maintenance today, will probably just add some marino stable as I do every day to keep the kH/pH leveled but that's about it.

At the minute the tank is going to stay as it is, no lights for another week, then, start witn only blue lights for another 4 weeks, when diatoms appear then I will introduce some animals probably a seahare and a few snails, crabs and then that's pretty much it, Julio the jawfish will be going in first but I need to wait for my caribsea special sand to arrive hopefully next week!

The person who build the reef ceramics is a marine biologist and wrote a book about how to start up a tank, what to look for, etc. It is interesting to read, explain what nitrates, phosphates, silicates etc are and how the affect your aquarium and how to interpreter readings.

Also explains how to avoid algae blooms, cyano etc. Seems it is working for him and so it is for me (so far).

Almost no diatmos so far, barely a couple of tiny spots almost invisible. The tank has been running for almost 4 weeks now and still no major issues with algae. He explains for instnace that diatoms are essential to a marine/reef aquarium, as it is the basic food supply for the most simple life in the aquarium and extremelly important to the food chain. They are necessary in a marine ecosystem, you just need to keep them in check, he explains how to do this by limiting nutrients by introducing competitors (such as macro algae).

Also talks on how Nitratos on their on are not bad, even very high values are ok as long as phosphates are low, he also says that aquarium need phosphates and that removing phosphates completely is almost impossible which is good as they are needed. Same thing with silicates, high silicates are not a problem as long as phosphates are low, etc etc etc.

Very interesting again, as I said, I am following it to the letter.

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14 May 2016 17:12 #209 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Just a quick update, tanks lights came on yesterday for the first time as my silicates and phosphates are going down (silicates around 1.2 and phosphates around 0.13 (hard to tell I need to do a high sensitive po test).

Anyway, today and as my refugium is starting to look a bit messy I got a sea hare, two mexican turbo snails and a couple of black hermits. Also put some of the live rock from the jawfish tank and some caulerpa in the display tank to help with nitrates and phosphates (although Nitrates are below 2ppm at the moment).

Also added two corals that were not very happy on the other two tanks, a small torch and a green one that I can't remember the name. All looking good so far, no ammonia, orp over 300 and increasing. Very happy so far, no signs of dino in the DT so far, but some should come out within the next few days if I am not incorrect. I will move the sea hare to the DT once this happens.

Some pics below, sorry for the bad quality, I will make a better effort in the future when I start using my good camera

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19 May 2016 12:25 - 19 May 2016 12:28 #210 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez)
Hey guys

So not much has happened since my last post. I moved the live rock to the sump, added a skunk shrimp, my two clowns and Julio the jawfish.

I also had to add the anemone as she was not very happy in the previous tank.

Is not doing well as the lighting was quite low, so I have increased it this morning after I took a few pictures. We will see if she is happier after that, she was getting pretty low par tbh, around 30, after I increased the lighting (to around 200 at peak) she should be happier.

Water levels are good, ammonia is almost 0, nitrates around 6 ppm which is perfect as I want to keep the levels between 5-10 ppm, Kh ~10, orp 320ish, and phosphates around 0.05. So all looking good.

Diatoms are under control so far, very few of them at the top of the middle structure where lighting is strongest, I suspect I will be seeing more now that I have increased the lighting. So I will be moving the sea hare and clean up crew as soon as I see it growing, but so far I am very happy

Few pics before I increased the light levels (hence why corals such as the elegance and the tree coral are not the happiest, also, there are no white leds on at the moment, and I know my elegance loves white spectrum so I dont expect her to be happy until I turn them on in about 3 weeks.

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Also I am very happy with the gyre, currently running at around 50% in pulse mode and generating good flow as you can see if you have a look at the video below. The duncan seem to like this gentle flow. This is in the opposite side of the tank.

Also, as I said, Julio's sand arrived on monday, it has a very nice texture, it a mixture of fine grain (very fine) and bits of corals, shells, etc. I looks really nice in the tank IMO. Here is a picture of him in his burrow where he seems to be quite happy


He wonders around the tank a lot, more and more since he has realized there is nothing in it to be threatened by. Hopefully he will not be too angry when I start to put more fish in.
Last edit: 19 May 2016 12:28 by Bohrio (Alex Rodriguez).

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