Feelers

Hi guys, haven't been on here for a while! I made the move across to the evil side of the ditch, I'm trying to help my neighbor with her pond. Her setup is about a 2.5m x 1.5m goldfish pond, with plumbing installed. The current pump is barely flowing, so she's after a new pump. There's a biomat filter at one end which feeds into an inline submersible pump. The pump has the standard clips on it, much like the laguna pump I bought. After the pump there's a split in the pipes, one goes up the waterfall which is about 1.5m tall, and the other split feeds directly into the pond. Both have control valves, so adjusting will be easy. Are the clips on the pump a standard size? Does anyone know whether a laguna 6 equivalent will suffice? Too much? And the next question is, does anyone know a good place to get such a pump in Australia? And what's the FNZAS equivalent in OZ? Cheers guys!

With the MH's that makes it a pretty sweet deal. It needs a good cleaning, I bought a tank in similar internal condition, the algae is a put off but it's kind of like doing up a house, your trouble is worth the extra payoff.

Well both of those are originally from www.Tonmo.com. My marine Bio lecturer took the second picture, it isn't in their gallery so I'm glad I saved it. This picture seems to have multiple owners. Livingart well done on keeping them, you are the only case I've heard of other than ones run by scientists! The big one in the second photo died by the next day. There was a cool site called squidcam that had a live video feed to a squid rearing tank, run by the guy who wanted to catch giant squid.

You can keep bobtail squid, they are small and like to stay in the sand until it's dark. Keeping actual squid is much much harder, even the experts have a huge amount of trouble. You need a circular tank otherwise they crash into the walls and get "butt burn" which kills them. They also tend to have trouble feeding which makes things even more difficult. If you can keep a full size squid alive for 24 hours it's quite impressive apparently. It would be cool to have a guy like this... Check out www.tonmo.com , that's the cephalopod forum, heaps of info there.

Good thread! Very interesting stuff, Layton how do you find out things like all that Eheim/Tunze history?

I remember having glass fish as a kid - was the bright green "stripe" along the spine dye? Well from the article I read it said that they use a low intensity laser to do them which doesnt hurt the fish and that they had never had a death from using the technique, which indicates to me its ok. Whether or not that's the truth is another question. I think the laser and dyeing are two very different things, I have no qualms with things like this as long as the fish are ok, which in dyed fish it obviosuly isnt. Who came up with this weird idea anyway?

Alanmin I'm interested in your coldwater marine background. Having been to Kaikoura and seeing the diversity of life in its rock pools I'm very keen on having as big a diversity as I can my future coldwater tank. What livestock did you supply? I know there are some amazing anemones there, I managed to find 11 different species most of which were very impressive/on par with the tropicals. Are there any types of corals/sponges around?

It says he's a Deltec dealer. :lol:

I thought it didn't hurt the fish. It isn't my thing but if it doesnt hurt the fish then it's totally fine by me. From what I've read (and maybe remember) is that they use a laser much like the ones they use for removing tatoos etc, and the fish feel nothing. Don't quote me on that. :lol:

Rowa phos?

I was reading an article in Marine World the other day about darkness and how it helps fishes immune systems. The guy who discovered the importance of darkness was trying different treatments on fish and measureing responses, but as all the fish were continually stressed there was no way to tell if his treatments had any affect. From what I read it was a very very impressive change, he said it was also a much sorter recovery than would be expected. For kio karp it was 4 days darkenss before the immune system came back to normal after heavy stress events. Now perhaps some of you guys have thoughts on a "darkness treatment", say a week with a cover all around the tank? (I dont know what this would do to corals etc) If the fish has a weak immune system something like this might help tip the scales.

Here's crackers link I think... http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?p=101287 The "Cracker Pipe" :lol:

Hazzard I think a full siphon plus a backup will be the quietest. Some people have very silent dursos, but there is a higher liklyhood of having noise. I think a backup is always a good idea. What $30 worth of plumbing in a marine system. Crakcer had a good write up on this, with loads of pics etc. And I'd also like to see some pics of my former tank inhabitants, if at all possible!

Is that your site Skippy?

The New Zealand government decided to ask the royal commission to look into GE, and come up with a recommendation after looking at the possible risks and benefits of the new technology. In the meantime they put an immediate ban on it - the moratorium. Well, the commission came back, with a solution that was fair and sensible. That GE should proceed but with the necessary laws to make sure that the risks are minimized. Since its not a popular thing to do they were totally ignored. People pushed their own agendas- not based on rational science but very much on a pre-disposition of fear. I'm in a rather unusual position, in that I'm all for science and I'm all for conservation. I've pretty much given up on trying to convince people of how GE is one of the most beneficial technologies of all time, as in the end everyone will be forced to deal with it, and it will become commonplace. The New Zealand government wants GE, but they don't want to be associated with it. Right now they are spending millions of dollars in GE research, but not saying it publicly. How weird is it that I want nuclear power, GE and sustainable whaling, whilst also being anti global warming, anti bottom trawling and anti overfishing. The fact that science supports the affirmative of all the positions above, while in the populace it creates huge divisions, shows that the problem's with people, not science. I'm of a strange new generation where science is my religion, but it's not actually, if you catch my drift. :lol: I think its ironic that Green Peace will flout all the science behind global warming but totally ignore the science behind the safety of GE. The story is the same on both ends of the spectrum.

Haha. :lol: I miss Layton

Great macros PJ, and nemines that anemone/clown photo is awesome!

www.tonmo.com is the main octopus site, there's loads of info there. Supposedly the NZ species are very fond of live food which can be a hassle, but as you live next to the beach that's not a problem. Pics! About the lid, it's probably worth sorting out as quite a few people have lost them that way. Since its a rock pool octopus it's probably more comfortable out of the water than most people expect, apparently they crawl into a dark place and die in a carpet-covered furry mess. Your one is probably quite young, it will live a maxium of about 3 years, depending on the temp you keep it at. If you can put up some pictures of it's suckers and in particular the 3rd right arm going clockwise when looking from above it, I can tell you what sex it is hopefully. :lol:

Awesome! I would definitly be keen to see some photos. If he's 30 cms across, he will get much much larger. There are two species that you are likely to find here and the big one is Pinnoctopus cordiformis (formerly Octopus maorum) and from what I've seen they have awesome personalities. They can get to 20kgs plus, and suposedly can lift 20 times there own weight. If you have a chiller the cooler the water the less it will eat. At one of the aquariums down south they fed their big one 2 paddle crabs a day!

Yep hermits shed their skins. Nice anemone!, that's one of the species I was looking for but never found, despite it supposedly being a fairly common one.

I can't see anything but a dotphoto place holder? (Although now I'm writing a reply I can see them in the topic review part. ) Good stuff. 8)

It's a sweet looking tank, for 1 year it's doing very well. Nice pic of the frog spawn. You should try to persuade him onto the forums. 8)

I posted these pics a while back, I went to Kaikoura for a field trip and I got to do a mini project on which anemone wins in "fights". The most common one (the olive aneome) on the left in the top pic was the winner, followed by the cool stripey one. They were all found in rockpools, there was also a cool one that covered itself with bits of sand and broken shells. I can't wait to get my tank fired up.

If I were you - You have to sort out the nutrient problem - definitly don't use tap water as said above, you have to use RO/DI otherwise you are just "throwing fuel on the nutrient fire". Also - are you using the cannister as a form of biological filtration? - If you are; you should remove the bio media and replace it with a phosphate removing resin like rowaphos or phosorb. Cannisters with bio filtration are now known to add to nutrient problems not fix them. The live rock is all you need. You should also be doing regular water changes in addition to siphoning out the crud sitting on the sand if possible. This will help remove more waste. What skimmer are you using? - a good skimmer could make the difference you are looking for. UV will probably boost skimmer performance and I think possibly help clear things a little, but you really should focus on the problem, not the symptoms. What sand are you using? - is it crushed coral sand (ie aragonite), if its just normal beach sand it could be helping fuel diatoms. I'd put my money on your top up water - but if it's not out of the tap you have to look at where your nutrients are coming from. 8) EDIT - just read your reply about the topup water - sounds like that is probably the cause of your worries, I'm pretty sure rain water picks up enough nutrients to be a hassel, so getting a RODI unit should be above UV on your wish list.

From the sounds of it you may have one of the older books on reef keeping? I have a book that was published around 1995 and it talks as if gravel filtration is the standard(it was at the time). Since then onwards there has been a major shift in reef keeping and people have become much more successful - primarily due to the berlin method and the technological increase in skimmer performace. My suggestion is - No sand, (called bare bottom) - way easier to clean and you'll see deep sand beds cause a lot of discussion here but I still dont think someone starting out should use them. No cannister filter (unless you only run phosphate removing resin and activated carbon in it, which will help with algae etc) Get a descent skimmer - the air lift ones arent that great, they are good if you use a cork diffuser but noone really uses these any more. A good skimmer might be around $500+, but they hold their value well and are very important IMO. If you are going to have a reef tank and you want success this is the part I dont think you can skimp on. If you do decide to diy, I would suggest importing a good needle wheel pump, here's a skimmer TM made which is sweeet! http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/diy-sk ... 11994.html If your tank has optimum water conditions algae wont be able to grow, but this wont happen until the tank has matured - 6 months plus.