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
aquarist newbie
- bigchoppers (Karl Dorney)
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3 Discus
2 dwarf gourami
8 X ray tetra
2 anscistrous cory
1 red tail black shark
1 female Siemens fighting fish
2 glass shrimp
Tank Is a 60ltr Marina from maxi zoo.
I have a 125ltr Rio with no lights that I'm gonna set up and use as my main tank. Mainly discus some tetra some shrimp and whatever plants I can get to grow in the warmer water that the discus like.
Wife is preggers with 3rd child n monies tight so I'm gonna try set up the new tank on a budget. Make the stand myself and hopefully make the light unit.
Thanks again a
N I look forward to getting to know ye all

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- ger310 (Ger .)
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i hate being the bearer of bad news but you should not have a lot of them fish in that tank........i'm scratching my head here that they are alive actually..........even that 125L would be too small for them Discus......and that fighter fishes fins must be getting a lot of nips!! between the mess the Discus and Ancistrus make i can only imagine the state of your water (unless your doing 90% daily water changes)!!
Are them fish in that 60L 8 months?
Sorry for the bad news dude and good luck with the third nipper
Ger
What do you call a three legged Donkey?
A Wonkey....duh ha

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- bigchoppers (Karl Dorney)
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Discus are quite small at the minute. I know how big they can get Hence why I'm upgrading to a larger tank. What is the min size tank you'd recommend for 3 discus ?
The tank has been going for 6 months with all the fish in it. Ammonia and nitrate ,nitrites all fine. Water change once per week about 25%. All the fish seem to get along. Only the shark seems to bother the gourami. But apart from that they're all very placid. I might be able to source a 200ltr tank. But I just don't have the funds right now to drop big money in seahorse on a brand new 450 tank.
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- alan 64 (alan)
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- swai (Simon)
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Are you using an internal filter on that 60? U must need to clean it everyday!
Anyway any questions on anything just ask, a lot of members here are very knowledgeable about fish keeping.
Marino, Dublin 9
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- bigchoppers (Karl Dorney)
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My brother in law is a sparks so I can get help on wiring it all together
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- anthonyd (Anthony Debesne)
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Like swaii said try to set up the 120 l as soon as possible.
If money is tight, you can use playsand as substrate and a desk lamp for lighting the tank.
But this tank will be too small for keeping discuss, so you might have to consider getting a bigger tank or bringing them back.
Anthony
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- carlowchris (chris)
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the only thing with making a diy led light is that some of the cheap ones you see on offer,do tend to loose their intensity very quickly,it might seem like a cheep option but if your going to have to replace lighting and probly going to upgrade your tank again,i think ypur going to end up spending more money
if you dont have the money to go fpr that big expensive tank and very few of us do,you should have a look in the for sale section here and on adverts but also look at the wanted section.sometimes people are looking to downsize so you may get a swap situation.and everybody wins
good luck either way though
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- bigchoppers (Karl Dorney)
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What would be the most ideal size for discus tank. Or what ratio litres per discus ?
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- baan (Fintan Breen)
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I've a 300 litre which I'm going to put 5 discus into shortly. Apart from that, I have 20 cardinals, a few corys and kuhli loaches and two bristlenoses (and about 20 bn fry which will be leaving shortly... although I get the feeling they will be replaced!).
One thing to keep in mind with discus is that as they grow, they are round, so unlike other fish they are high as well as long and this means that need more vertical space. A 2 foot tall tank seems to be recommended.
One other thing - watch the fish you are keeping with the discus. I can image a red-tailed shark being aggressive and may spook them.
I generally don't trust calculators, but this one may help in terms of stocking and will give you some ideas re tank size and filter, etc. www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor.php ... not sure what others think of this calculator - have ye used it??
Best of luck with it.
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- bigchoppers (Karl Dorney)
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So here goes... my first attempt at a tropical discus aquarium. albeit the world smallest anyway

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- dshamrock2000 (Dave)
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- irish-zx10r (James feenan)
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james
Something fishie going on here
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- Miamiheat (Stephane Lemaire)
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240L is a minimum i would say and you can score them cheap. (wouldn't buy a new tank from shop they are too dear).
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- bigchoppers (Karl Dorney)
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