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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

1 week old planted tank, advice pls

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18 Mar 2012 19:41 #1 by JSleator (Jason Sleator)
Well week one down on newly planted 180L. Nail biting as it was.

My HC seems on the way out, literally overnight on friday night a good clump melted so took it out, today the melting seems to be affecting all the HC but little bits here and there as opposed to an individual plug of it. More worrying there is what im guessing is the onset of hair algae. Its not green or brown yet, more an opaque color of very fine strands on the HC and gloss. If i dodnt know id say its possible a fine hair like fungus. The gloss is fine however even tho some of this hair like stuff is on it.

Other problem is keeping the densa clippings in the aquasoil, Nightmare! they keep floating to the top.

Have co2 running and lights running 4 hrs for week one, just upped to 5 hrs yesterday.
Have done 4 x 30% water changes in the first 7 days. No ferts yet, was going to wait until week 2 complete.

Any thoughts on actions i should take on the hair algae? (assuming thats what it is)

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18 Mar 2012 20:12 #2 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: 1 week old planted tank, advice pls
Pix please.

Kev.

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18 Mar 2012 20:40 #3 by JSleator (Jason Sleator)
Hard to get a decent pic as the detail is so tiny and i dont have a macro lens, but i have managed to get 2 pics that you will have to squint at! the badly drawn white circles show the supposed algae, actually looks like a trickle of smoke from a cigarette! the badly drawn red circle shows the melting HC.

Not so bothered about loosing HC, its a difficult plant and im beginning, but really want to do all to avoid algae!!!

thanks in advance Kev.

Jason
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18 Mar 2012 20:46 - 18 Mar 2012 20:47 #4 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: 1 week old planted tank, advice pls
It's so hard to tell but in saying that, a tank of that age will show some type of Algae as a balance is achieved, to help, I would suggest you get a couple of Amano Shrimp, they will destroy Algae, I've witnessed them devour Algae right before my Eyes. If you are having trouble getting your Carpeters to stay in the Substrate, take a pinch of your Substrate and sprinkle it over the Plant but not completely covering it.

Kev.
Last edit: 18 Mar 2012 20:47 by stretnik (stretnik).

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18 Mar 2012 21:05 #5 by JSleator (Jason Sleator)
Thanks Kev. I was actually here pondering what kind of algae eaters i could risk putting in the tank so soon! Might get a few shrimp to help me out.

The pics were terrible on the uploaded version, they were a bit better in photoshop, you could actually see the strands. After a bit of googling id say its hair algae.

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19 Mar 2012 00:04 #6 by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Make sure your Co2 is about 30ppm.
I would be doing up to 90% water changes every second day until the ammonia is down to 0ppm.
Dont add any algae eaters until the ammonia is 0ppm. The shrimp will only pull up the plants before they get a chance to root.

IMO the HC Cuba is melting because the ammonia is way to high. This is also fueling the algae.
I would have the lights on for 6 hours a day.
I would also dose potassium and add easycarbo. HC loves the stuff.

Darren.

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19 Mar 2012 00:25 #7 by stretnik (stretnik)
Replied by stretnik (stretnik) on topic Re: 1 week old planted tank, advice pls
Fair play Darren.

Kev.

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19 Mar 2012 00:26 #8 by NosIreland (Andrius Kozeniauskas)
It's hard to advise when no information is provided about substrate and water.
Why so much water was changed?
Why no ferts added?
Have you measured your water?
How much light do you have?

You'll get some HC melting initially(especially if it's emerged grown).

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19 Mar 2012 11:27 #9 by JSleator (Jason Sleator)
Wow guys, thanks for all the direction!

@nosireland:

Substrate is ADA Amazonia with a bit of power sand underneath, fairly heavily planted with some fast growers

Im changing water to keep ammonia diluted, and make things difficult for algae. I did one on Saturday night so doing another tonight.

Not adding ferts for first 2 weeks as the amazonia as i believe it is rich, also was suggested to me and made sense as i dont have any experience to go on.

Water measurements after 1 week (all parameters dropped from initial testing 24hrs after set up)
PH 6 (co2 on during reading)
Ammonia 8ppm
Nitrite 1ppm
Nitrate 80ppm
And still waiting for my drop checker to arrive so dont know co2, i suspect im dosing heavy enough tho

Light is 2 x 45w t5 so got 2w per gallon

@Draco: This was actually something i had been thinking about, the best hours of light, very interesting. At present i have light coming on 6pm to 11pm, with co2 coming on 1hr before and off 30 mins before lights out. I intend to add 1hr of light working backwards until u reach 10 hrs of light starting at 1pm.

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