Terms of use

1. Acceptance of these terms

These Terms of Use ("Terms") form a legally binding agreement between you and the operators of AquaticForum.co.uk ("we", "us", "our", the "site" or the "forum"). By registering an account, browsing, posting, replying, reacting, following, uploading images, using any of our calculators, the UVC Bulb Finder or any other feature of the site, you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms, our privacy policy, our cookies policy and any additional forum or category rules published alongside the relevant content.

If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, you must stop using the site immediately and, if you have an account, request its deletion from your profile page or by contacting us.

2. About AquaticForum.co.uk

AquaticForum.co.uk is a community-run UK website for freshwater, marine, pond and aquascaping hobbyists. The site exists to provide a place where enthusiasts can:

• Ask and answer questions about fishkeeping and pond keeping.
• Share photos, builds, tank journals and troubleshooting advice.
• Use free reference tools such as the UVC Bulb Finder and the calculator suite.
• Read community-written guides about the hobby.

The site is provided on a best-efforts, non-commercial community basis. Any operating costs are offset by generic platform advertising only (see Section 14). We are not a retailer, reseller, affiliate, dropshipper, consultancy, veterinary service, aquatics shop or manufacturer.

3. No sales, endorsements or supplier advertising

This is the most important clarification in these Terms and it applies to every page on the site.

• We do not sell any products — no livestock, no dry goods, no equipment, no bulbs, no media, no aquascaping supplies, no pond kit, no chemicals, no food, no accessories, nothing. The site has no checkout, no basket and no order system.
• We do not advertise products on behalf of any supplier, brand, shop, manufacturer, distributor, wholesaler or retailer. No company has paid us, sponsored us or provided us with anything of value in exchange for visibility, reviews, placement, links or mentions.
• We are not an affiliate of any retailer. We do not use affiliate links, tracking links, referral codes or revenue-share arrangements with Amazon, Pets at Home, Swell UK, Maidenhead Aquatics, Charterhouse Aquatics, eBay, any manufacturer or any other commercial site. If a link to an external site ever appears, it is purely informational (e.g. linking to an official manufacturer specification sheet) and generates no revenue for us.
• Product, brand and model names used on the site are trademarks of their respective owners and are used for identification only. Their appearance in a forum post, a guide, the UVC Bulb Finder database, a calculator example or anywhere else on the site does not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, partnership, sponsorship or commercial relationship. It does not imply that the brand owner endorses, supports or is aware of this site.
• We do not accept paid reviews, sponsored posts, "seeding" products or advertorials from suppliers. Members who receive products from a supplier (for example, a small-brand "ambassador" scheme) must clearly disclose that in any post where they mention the product, in line with UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance on hidden advertising.
• We do not offer commercial consultancy, design services, installation, veterinary diagnosis or livestock health treatment. The forum is advice-based only.

If you believe that another user is using the forum to covertly promote a product, shop or service (including through undisclosed affiliate links, astroturfing, review brigading or paid endorsement), please report the post using the in-thread report tool or by contacting us — we will investigate and remove any content that breaches this section.

4. Eligibility and accounts

• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If you are between 13 and 16, we recommend that a parent or guardian reviews these Terms and our privacy policy with you.
• You must provide a valid email address. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for any activity that takes place under your account.
• Accounts are personal. You may not sell, transfer, share or rent your account, and you may not impersonate another person, business or moderator.
• You must not create multiple accounts to evade moderation, inflate engagement, vote on your own posts, post reviews of your own products, or otherwise manipulate the forum.
• We may close inactive accounts or accounts that appear to be automated (bots, scrapers, spam accounts).
• You may delete your account at any time. Deletion removes personal identifiers from your profile but — because other members have relied on your contributions — your public posts may be anonymised and retained as part of the community archive unless removal is required by law.

5. Your content and the licence you grant us

"User content" means anything you submit to the site, including posts, replies, comments, reactions, images, videos, tank journals, profile information, avatars, and any data you enter into a calculator or tool that is saved to your account.

• You retain ownership of your user content. We do not claim copyright over what you write or upload.
• You warrant that you have the right to post it — i.e. you created it yourself, or you have permission from the copyright holder, and it does not infringe anyone else's rights, privacy or trade marks.
• By posting, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sub-licensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, adapt (for formatting and moderation), translate, and distribute your user content on and in connection with the site, for as long as the site operates, plus a reasonable period afterwards for backups and archival. This licence is granted solely to allow us to operate the forum — it does not give us the right to commercialise your content independently of the site.
• You also grant other users a limited licence to view, quote and discuss your content within the forum in the normal course of community conversation.
• You remain responsible for your user content, including its accuracy, legality, and any consequences of posting it.

6. Acceptable use and prohibited conduct

You agree not to use the site to:

• Post anything unlawful under the laws of England and Wales, including content that is defamatory, threatening, harassing, discriminatory, incites hatred, or encourages violence.
• Post sexually explicit material, gore, or content that would be harmful to minors.
• Post or distribute personal information of other people without their consent (doxxing).
• Post malware, phishing links, deceptive redirects, or any link intended to compromise another user's device or accounts.
• Post spam, repeated self-promotion, chain messages, MLM pitches, crypto/NFT promotion, or undisclosed affiliate links.
• Advertise or solicit sales of livestock, hard goods, services, breeding stock, or other commercial offerings unless we have explicitly opened a classifieds area and you comply with its rules.
• Engage in vote manipulation, review brigading, reply-padding, or creating sockpuppet accounts.
• Scrape, mirror, republish or train machine-learning models on forum content in bulk without our written permission. Reasonable personal and research use of publicly visible content is not prohibited, but systematic bulk extraction is.
• Circumvent rate limits, security controls, authentication, or content moderation.
• Use the site in any way that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the service.
• Impersonate a moderator, a brand representative, a vet, or any other person.
• Post anything that breaches Google Publisher Policies or that would jeopardise the site's advertising compliance.

7. Advice disclaimer (livestock, chemistry, electrics)

The aquatics hobby involves living animals, water, electricity and chemistry. Bad advice can kill fish, flood homes or cause injury. Please read this section carefully.

• All advice posted on AquaticForum.co.uk — whether from other members, from our community-written guides, from calculator output, or from the UVC Bulb Finder tool — is general hobbyist information only. It is not, and must not be treated as, a substitute for professional veterinary, electrical, legal or financial advice.
• For sick, injured or abnormally behaving fish, consult a qualified aquatic veterinarian. Community diagnosis is opinion only.
• For mains-powered pond and aquarium equipment (pumps, heaters, lights, UVCs), comply with UK wiring regulations (BS 7671) and, where required, use a qualified electrician. We do not accept responsibility for equipment that is installed, modified, sited or maintained contrary to the manufacturer's instructions.
• For water chemistry (medications, treatments, fishless cycling ammonia, pH buffers, phosphate removers, macro/micro fertilisers, etc.), always cross-check dosing against the product label and an independent source. Calculator outputs are estimates; they assume ideal water parameters, accurate container measurements and representative product concentrations.
• Recommendations involving livestock compatibility, stocking density or tank size assume responsible long-term keeping in line with current UK welfare guidance. You are responsible for the welfare of any animals in your care under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

8. Calculators, tools and reference data

Our calculators, the UVC Bulb Finder and any other reference tool on the site are provided on a best-efforts, "as is" basis as a convenience for the community. Use them as a starting point, not a final authority.

• Bulb compatibility, product dimensions, wattages and part numbers shown in the UVC Bulb Finder are compiled from manufacturer documentation, retailer specifications and community contributions. Manufacturers change specifications without notice. Before ordering a replacement bulb, always double-check the length, base type, wattage and manufacturer part number against your physical unit and its user manual.
• Where a value is marked as "unverified", "approximate" or "best-guess", treat it as a lead, not a guarantee. Verify with the manufacturer before purchase.
• Calculator results (tank volume, pond volume, heater wattage, flow rate, sand, live rock, lighting, ammonia, dosing, potassium, pond liner) rely on the numbers you input. Garbage in, garbage out.
• We do not tell you where to buy anything; the tools exist purely to help you identify what you need.

9. Moderation and enforcement

• We and the moderators we appoint may — at our sole discretion and without prior notice — remove, hide, edit for formatting, lock, move, split, merge, unlist or de-index any content; warn, mute, temporarily suspend or permanently ban any account; and withdraw access to any feature to maintain community safety, quality, legal compliance, or advertising policy compliance.
• Moderation actions are not subject to a formal appeal process, but you may politely contact us if you believe an action was taken in error.
• We are not obliged to pre-screen or monitor content, and we are not the author of user content. However, once we are notified of content that breaches these Terms or the law, we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to it.
• Repeated, deliberate or serious breaches may result in a permanent ban and — where applicable — referral to law enforcement.

10. Third-party links, brands and content

• Links to third-party websites, videos, PDFs or manufacturer specification pages are provided for convenience only. We do not control those sites, do not endorse their content, and are not responsible for their availability, accuracy, privacy practices, or the goods/services they offer.
• Following an external link is at your own risk and is governed by the destination site's own terms and privacy policy.
• Brand, model and product names mentioned on the site remain the property of their respective owners (see Section 3).
• If you are a brand owner and you'd like to correct a factual error about one of your products on the site, please contact us. We are happy to correct verifiable inaccuracies — this is not a route to have factual, non-defamatory community commentary about your product removed.

11. Intellectual property

• The site itself — including its code, design, layout, database schema, logos, the "AquaticForum" name, our calculator formulations, the UVC Bulb Finder database structure, our curated guides, our seed/reference data and any compiled collection of community content — is protected by copyright, database rights and trade mark law, and is owned by us or licensed to us.
• You may view, cache and print pages for personal, non-commercial hobby use.
• Systematic copying, scraping, redistribution or commercial reuse of the site (including training AI/LLM models on its content) requires our prior written permission.
• User-generated content remains owned by its author under the licence granted in Section 5.

12. Copyright and takedown requests

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe content on the site infringes your copyright (or another right you hold), please send us a written notice via our contact page including:

1. Your name, address and a way to contact you.
2. Sufficient detail to identify the allegedly infringing content (URL to the post, image, or file).
3. A description of the original work you own and evidence of ownership where possible.
4. A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the rights-holder or the law.
5. A statement, under penalty of perjury or equivalent UK declaration, that the information is accurate and that you are the rights-holder or authorised to act for the rights-holder.
6. Your electronic or physical signature.

We will act on valid notices expeditiously, typically by removing or disabling access to the content. We may forward your notice to the user who posted it. Knowingly sending fraudulent takedown notices may expose you to liability.

13. Privacy and cookies

Your use of the site is also governed by our privacy policy and our cookies policy, which are incorporated into these Terms by reference. Those pages explain what personal data we collect, why, how it is stored (including our use of Supabase for authentication and data storage), and the cookies and similar technologies we use.

14. Platform advertising (no supplier promotions)

To help cover hosting and domain costs, the site may display advertising served by third-party advertising networks (for example, Google AdSense). Where ads appear:

• They are clearly labelled as advertisements or sponsored placements.
• The specific ads you see are selected by the ad network based on their own algorithms and/or your ad-personalisation preferences — we do not choose individual advertisers, negotiate with them, or receive product samples from them.
• An ad for a particular brand or product being shown on the site is not an endorsement by us and does not contradict Section 3 above. It is a generic platform placement sold by the ad network.
• You must not click ads fraudulently or in response to incentives, and you must not attempt to interact with ads in any way that would breach Google Publisher Policies or the ad network's terms.
• If you use an ad blocker, you may continue to browse the site normally.

15. No warranties

The site, its content, its calculators, its reference data and the UVC Bulb Finder are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we make no warranties or representations — express or implied — about:

• The accuracy, completeness, currency or reliability of any content or data.
• The suitability of any advice for a particular tank, pond, species, water source or installation.
• The site being uninterrupted, free from errors, free from defects, or free from viruses or other harmful components.
• The conduct of other users.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability that cannot be lawfully excluded under UK law — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

16. Limitation of liability

Subject to the final paragraph of Section 15, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

• We will not be liable to you — whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise — for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive loss or damage; any loss of profit, revenue, goodwill, data, business opportunity or anticipated savings; or any loss arising from your reliance on site content or community advice.
• Without limiting the foregoing, we are not liable for the death, illness, injury or escape of any animal; damage to any tank, pond, property or home (including flooding, fire, or electrical damage); loss of livestock or equipment; or any veterinary, repair, replacement or insurance-excess cost arising from your use of the site, community advice, calculator output, or the UVC Bulb Finder.
• Our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of the site in any twelve-month period is limited to GBP £50 (fifty pounds sterling) or the amount you have paid us in that period for access to the site, whichever is greater. Because the site is free to use, this figure is almost always £50.

17. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us, our moderators and our contractors harmless from any claim, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with:

• Your user content, including any breach of these Terms or infringement of a third party's rights.
• Your use of the site in breach of these Terms or applicable law.
• Any misrepresentation you make — for example, passing off a sponsored or affiliated recommendation as independent community advice.

18. Suspension and termination

• We may suspend or terminate your access to the site at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice. We will usually warn before a permanent ban, but we are not required to.
• You may terminate your own account at any time from your profile settings.
• Sections that by their nature should survive termination (for example, Section 5 licence, Section 11, Sections 15–17, Section 20) continue to apply after your account is closed.

19. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time — for example, to reflect changes in the law, regulatory guidance, site features, or community rules. The "Last updated" date at the top of the page will always reflect the latest version. For material changes we may also post a pinned notice on the site or email registered users. Your continued use of the site after a change means you accept the revised Terms.

20. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms, any non-contractual obligations arising out of them, and any dispute between you and us, are governed by the laws of England and Wales. You and we both submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales, except that if you are a consumer resident elsewhere in the UK you may also bring proceedings in your local courts where mandatory local consumer-protection law requires.

21. General terms

• Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the privacy policy, cookies policy and any forum rules or category-specific notices, form the entire agreement between you and us regarding the site, and supersede any prior agreement.
• Severability. If any part of these Terms is found to be unlawful, void or unenforceable, that part will be severed and the remaining provisions will continue in full force.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your rights under these Terms. We may assign our rights and obligations to an affiliate or to a successor operator of the site.
• No third-party rights. No one other than you and us has any right to enforce these Terms under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond our reasonable control (including outages at third-party providers such as Supabase or our hosting/CDN).
• Headings. Section headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation.

22. How to contact us

For questions about these Terms, takedown requests, moderation disputes, or corrections to factual information about a product in our database, please use our contact page. We aim to respond within a reasonable time, though as a community-run site we cannot guarantee a fixed SLA.