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
L.E.D. Strip Installed
- denverbre (Denver Breslin)
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I ordered some blue L.E.D. strips off fleabay last week to install into my tank for a bit of moonlight.
They came REALLY quickly so I went about getting them into the tank tonight
Easy job, would have taken no time except I had to do some running repairs to my soldering iron half way through.
Here's the seller I bought it from here
** I'm don't take any responsibility if you decide to buy from him and you get nothing in the post! I got mine so thought I'd share

Here's some photos
Quick test before going at it
The contents of the kit
Cut and stuck in strips to the canopy centre
Before (with no lights on)
After (with just L.E.D. strips on)
Fish in moonlight
Comments welcome

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- dar (darren curry)
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Check out the angling section, it is fantastic
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- Gedas (Gediminas Derkintis)
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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Mark
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good job
well done
Des
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- denverbre (Denver Breslin)
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@spidermonkey - Was going to leave them on all the time.
I have the main light set to come on for a few hours during the day, 10am - 3pm and I generally switch them on again when I get home from work.
Would leaving the LED's on the whole time upset the fish?
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- dar (darren curry)
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Check out the angling section, it is fantastic
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- SpiderMonkey (Mark O'Neill)
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Mark
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- mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
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Yep I'm with Dar on this one. My ones come on 1 hour before the main lights come on and back on for the last hour and a half at night
Mark
+1
Mick...

Follow me up to Carlow
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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How the Hell did you set this up, I know that they can be cut into lengths but it looks like you have them side by side, I'm intrigued, please explain, I had a roll of these leds with Ballast and plug so I'd really love to know how it's done.
Kev.
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- denverbre (Denver Breslin)
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@ Kev - very easily done.
1. Cut the strip into the desired lengths,
2. expose the terminals on 1 end of each strip
3. solder wire to the individual terminals and insulate well!
4 keep the head end (i.e. the end with the exposed terminals) at whichever end of the light unit you plan to run the power cable to
5. join the wires together, like to like (i.e. positives joined to positives, negatives joined to negatives)
6. solder the power adapter extension cable to the newly joined strip wires and insulate well
7. Plug into the wall, get a very long stick, goggles, flack jacket and hard hat and flick the wall switch with the long stick and wait for the BANG

I should have taken photos of the terminal end before sealing it all up but wasn't thinking and was anxious to get it back on the tank to have a goo at it.
Hope that helps! if not, give me a shout, I'm always tinkering with stuff like this so can give you a dig out if you're stuck.
D
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Thanks for the in-depth instructions but I have problems getting batteries to work in a Flashlight !lol.
Kev.
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- denverbre (Denver Breslin)
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- stretnik (stretnik)
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Kev.
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- Viperbot (Jason Hughes)
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Jay
Location: Finglas, North Dublin.
Life
may not be the party we hoped for, but while we
are here we might as well dance.
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- mickdeja (Mick Whelan)
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Mick...

Follow me up to Carlow
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- christyg (Chris Geraghty)
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- denverbre (Denver Breslin)
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Seahorse have red ones for €39. prob would have got them there but hadn't them in blue...
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- murph (Tony Murphy)
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These (the kit! about €16 in jervis or Blanch) ROCK!!!
www.maplin.co.uk/computing/cases-and-accessories/case-light
(Maplin are having a website issue so i can't do the direct link.)
One of the blue tubes over the brace bar of a 180L works wonders for things like pygmy hatchets that otherwise jump when the lights go out. The centre of the tank has a pretty good moonlight approximation, the extremities are dark. It stays on 24/7 (doesn't use much lekky, compared to the 6 T5's during the day!).
Very useful for watching catfsh getting frisky.
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- miihorseROX (chel ward)
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- miihorseROX (chel ward)
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- root (Stuart Hart)
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