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
Tank Rebuild
- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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The sitting room needs redecorating and so dose the tank.
Here is my tank before I stripped it
Severum
Java moss tank
This was early days
I think this was my tank in full bloom
My java cave
And now i have a problem with my card reader

ill come back to this asap.
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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Seamus
Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick
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Mickey
Mickey Wallace & Cath Woods
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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- derek (Derek Doyle)
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before the days of accurate test kits the condition of the adults shells were a guide to the water hardness or lack of. as the shells become pitted and stained without sufficient hardness. (esp. calcium)
30 tanks specialise in african cichlids, angelfish and various catfish
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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A few picks
So here is my old 160L
And Here is my new 300L
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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Seamus
Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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guess i'll have to try again
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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See you tomorrow Seamus
@ Martin at least your fish got a good feed they should go again in a few weeks hopefully
Donal
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Tomorrow I can start with substrate and pick up some rocks from 1 of the diy places and plan where everything goes.
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- sheag35 (Seamus Gillespie)
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Seamus
Fishkeeping the Only way to get wet and wild
currently 25 tanks, and breeding is the aim of everything i keep
location:Limerick
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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- karlo (karlo kennedy)
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your doing some nice work
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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- Fishowner (Gavin fishowner)
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What type of fish are you putting into it and also what is the white strip that you have that separates the gravel and sand?
Gavin
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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@ fishowner the white strip is styrofoam its just in there to get the shape and will be removed before I start planting.
I will be going with dwarf cichlids as my main fish probably about 15 of them, im thinking of 20 rummy nose tetras and as it will be a heavily planted tank I will need some snail eaters and I love clown loaches so a nice group of 5 or 6 of them will also go in and possibly a hand full of shrimp so that’s the plan at the moment

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- Orca (Eoin Walsh)
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Your new tank is looking great and your pics have helped me make my mind up on going for a rio 300.I am looking to set up a malawi mbuna tank and the rio 300 is just the right size for what i want.
I wanted to keep Malawi’s but I also wanted plants and the 2 don’t mix

The Rio 300 is a nice size tank I can just about get my hand down to the bottom of it so perfect size

LB
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- auricle123 (Amanda Essen)
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Its looking great.
Does it take longer to cycle a bigger tank? What you thinking of putting in there?
It shouldnt take any longer to cycle the tank, it is a large tank but so are the filters

LB
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- duzzy1 (Martin Kennedy)
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any sign of your plants yet ???
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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any recent pics with water on board ???
any sign of your plants yet ???
Nothing new m8, the tank is now cycling just about 60L of water in it, I have the fluval 205 running and I missed a parcel today that must be my new taps for the hydro filter so I should have that running tomorrow,
I need to replace a brace on the top of the tank that the last owner decided to remove:huh: , it was plastic but I will have to try and replace with 10mm glass.
My HC was posted from Germany today so I hope to have that in a couple of days ready to plant it before the weekend then I will have a few pics
I assembled the c02 today and should put it in about a week after the plants I don’t think they will need it for the first week.
Question for anyone that’s good on lighting should I have enough light with 2 42" 40w T8’s?
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- fourmations (NIall SMyth)
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Question for anyone that’s good on lighting should I have enough light with 2 42" 40w T8’s?
this is yer man...
www.petfish.net/calculators/utankcalc.php
rgds
4
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Question for anyone that’s good on lighting should I have enough light with 2 42" 40w T8’s?
this is yer man...
www.petfish.net/calculators/utankcalc.php
rgds
4
This is what i got
The Ultimate Aquarium Calculator
Tropical Rectangular aquarium Length: 121 Centimetres Width: 51 Centimetres Depth: 62 Centimetres
Distance of light source from gravel: 82 Centimetres
Surface area: 6171 Centimetres2 Volume: 382.6 Litres Weight of water: 381.45 kgs
Max. units of fish: 202.46 Centimetres Heating required: 252.52 watts
Lighting requirements
Low light plants: 224.58 watts Low-medium light plants: 336.87 watts
Medium-bright light plants: 505.3 watts Bright light plants: 757.95 watts
The lighting is adjusted for plants - some fish prefer dark conditions, and obviously these should be kept with low-light plants. In marine waters, corals from shallow waters require a high lighting level, which may damage deep water species. These values may be taken as a guideline.
i made a mistake it looks like i need 336W

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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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Here is my tank this evening
I added some HC, what a ****** of a job obviously if I didn’t have 200L of water in the tank at the time it would have helped, but hey

I will need c02 soon all ready to go (I think)
2KG bottle
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii120/LimerickBandit/IMG_9367.jpg?t=1226704029
Regulator
This is a solenoid & A non return valve
http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii120/LimerickBandit/IMG_9383.jpg?t=1226704531
LB
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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- karlo (karlo kennedy)
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so what fish are you planning on putting in
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- LimerickBandit (Donal Doran)
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apisto pandourini X 5
apisto cacatuoides X 5
royal farlowella sturisoma X 4
clown loach X 6
rummynose X 20
BEE SHRIMP X 10
What do ye think?
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