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
PH levels & baking soda
) on why messing with water chemistry is not always a good idea and delve into the science of why decent water changes and good tank husbandry are the way forward for most fish that I can think of. 
You can mess with pH to get it to "that perfect reading", but doing so may mess up some equally (or more so) important water parameters that are often forgotten about in many texts on the subject.
Hitting such "perfect readings" for many fish may be short-term solution, but nothing for the long-term if everything is not stable.
There is no harm in using coral gravel etc (in fact I recommend it), there is no harm in adding a bit of bicarb (unless overdone). Just make sure that adding bicarb is not just counter-acting the effects of old water. But as you do regular water changes, then that should sort itself.
ian
Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.
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I don't agree with KenS on this
That's not a million miles away from what I was saying. pH isn't everything. Stability and good husbandry is the key.
You spotted my missing words..
....I meant on the hardening water bit in your original quote.I've seen some of Ken's malawis....very nice specimens
I've also seen many malawi keepers who focus too much on messing with that 'perfect' pH and end up having some pretty sad looking fish.
Another point that I've often said is that although it may be great to know about the water chemistry, nothing beats damn good general fish keeping.
The chemistry bit comes in when messing with water makes things go wrong (OR....to put it another way, not following general good husbandry deserves being bored stiff by listening to water chemistry stuff.
)ian
Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.
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