×
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

One rock changing the chemistry

More
03 Jan 2015 21:46 #1 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)
I have a 190L tank with 7 Thorichthys ellioti, 11 diamond tetras, a L066 plec and a Sturisoma aureum. I did a test of the GH and pH this evening (the first I've done since I set it up) and it turns out the GH is 320 and the pH is 7.8-8.0

Now, there's a few pieces of various bogwoods and some rocks, mostly basalt, and the substrate is silver sand. But there's one rock, about 15 inches long and very heavy, that I suspected was some sort of limestone. I put it in reckoning it'd make the water a little alkaline and somewhat hard, perfect for CA cichlids.

I have two questions -
1) Is it possible that one rock altered the chemistry so much in 6 or so weeks? I thought rocks were less effective at that than sand/gravel
and
2) Will that kind of pH and hardness affect the tetras and plecs? At the moment they are all thriving, indeed everything is generally looking stunning :cool:

Note: I've just finished running a course of OrganicAqua on the tank, but I don't think that would affect these results.

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
03 Jan 2015 23:12 #2 by Jim (Jim Lawlor)
That's all "fairly hard" and "fairly high" but won't much effect your fish - stability is more important.

Of more concern is, if the rock raised your ph & GH (& by how much - what's the readings of the water you put in?) - how much higher will it go ?

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
03 Jan 2015 23:55 #3 by LemonJelly (Johnny Cowley)

That's all "fairly hard" and "fairly high" but won't much effect your fish - stability is more important.

Of more concern is, if the rock raised your ph & GH (& by how much - what's the readings of the water you put in?) - how much higher will it go ?


The water comes out of the tap at about 7.0-7.2 and last time I checked the hardness was nothing too crazy either. The pH wasn't so much of a shock as the hardness. My cave tank has a silver sand/river gravel mix (pieces of limestone and marble in that) and the pH is around 7.6 while the hardness is around 120-140. I expected it to be the more dramatic of the two tanks!

As you say, I'll have to keep an eye on the stability. I think what made me believe the chemistry was going to be nearer to neutral was that I thought the water looked quite amber, almost heading towards a blackwater setup. When I took some out and placed it in a glass, it was almost as clear as tapwater. I think itt only looked dark because there's only a 9W light on the tank.

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you.They're freeing your soul."

Please Log in to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.040 seconds
Powered by Kunena Forum