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
apologies and hello
- umm (karen baker)
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Filled it slowly over the weekend, very scary looking at all that water(850 litres) just sitting behind 4 sheets of glass, had visions of the tank bursting and me being washed out to sea. lol.
So far so good though. will be ready to start putting the plants in in a couple of weeks and the fish then when i have it cycled. will cycling it with fish food work or is the tank to big for that? dont really want to have ammonia in house with young kids about and dont really want to use fish either. any suggestions ?
sorry for long winded post with 3 young kids my conversations during the day are usually about thomas the tank engine or barbie

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- Valerie (Valerie)
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Welcome to the forum!
Wow, 850l. - it's a HUGE tank!!! As far as cycling it, I would personally use some hardy fish. Clean dechlorinated water does not contain either ammonia or nitrite, the volume is big and some little fishes wouldn't suffer in there while working for you. The important thing is to monitor your parameters and change some water if needs be. It might help developing the beneficial bacteria a wee bit faster.
Some other people indeed prefer the ammonia route. But it is a dangerous product to have in the house indeed.
There are some products that are supposed to encourage the bacterias' development. Some other people might be able to advise you better on this one.
Do you know what you are going to put in this tank? Be careful, some people might be contacting you about tankbusters they might have.


Anyway, best of luck with your new project. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to post, I'm sure someone will be able to help you.
Valerie
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- Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
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Get some hardy fish like Danios to start it off. Do a 10% water change every week and slowly increase the stocking after 3 or 4 weeks.
The bigger the tank the easier it is as long as you don't rush things.
Good luck.
Smoke me a Kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.
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do it is not my choice method i use a frozen prawn in a cooking diffuser they are metal container used to allow flavour in to a meal also for tea.
this in the tank will allow the prawn to decay and create ammonia quickly it is quicker than the food method alone. when the ammonia has spiked and is falling to safe level then add fish.
you want the good bacteria to do the work not you, one problem with trying to keep levels safe for fish is that water changes also remove ammonia which the bacteria needs. thus the bacteria colony may not be sufficient to do the job correctly.
the tank will run correctly but may become victium of new tank syndrome later. thus i always suggest that the ammonia be allowed to max then fall before adding fish(hardy). thus given the fish an improving environment.
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- umm (karen baker)
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- Daragh_Owens (Daragh Owens)
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Remember your bottom dwellers too, you could have half a dozen or more small L numbers and a couple of shoals of different corys, good large shoals of 10 or 12.
Your weekly water changes will use more water than a lot of peoples entire tank

Regarding cycling, I would agree on not using ammonia or any of the commercial products. Either of the othe suggestions are good of the contents of a mature filter could be squeezed in to kick start the bacteria and then use fish to keep up the supplies of ammonia.
Lets know how you decide to stock it and post a few photos or a video.
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- umm (karen baker)
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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- umm (karen baker)
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- Peter OB (Peter O'Brien)
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In such a big tank i'd go for it, they would look amazing.
Smoke me a Kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast.
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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