Feelers

http://www.bio-elite.com/waterbridge.htm Only difference is they made it for the fish to travel, and so they could see them. You can do the same with just a piece of pvc. Perhaps have two for redundancy if you worried about the siphon stopping.

Haha thats awesome. :lol: Did you just happen to find a use for it or was collecting water its intended purpose?

Sweet Slappers - you think the biodigest is working? Are you still doing vokda too?

Clarks Chemicals sold me 50kg of potassium nitrate while I was in my highschool uniform. They all just gave wry smiles, the guy told me the only thing that they couldnt sell me was alcohol. - you need a permit for that.

PJ from the sounds of it your LFS isnt very good - the fact that they charge per piece instead of per kilo is probably an indicator(I've never heard of charging per piece before!) How big is your tank exaclty in Litres? (is it ~200 from memory?) The amount of rock needed is worked out in a ratio - you want between ~1pound per Gallon and ~1.5pounds per Gallon of rock. (sorry its in US terms) So in a 200L tank (52G) you'd need between 22 and 33 kg or rock. When you look at the price per kg - $15 to $20 for real "live rock" thats = between $330 and $660. For base(dead) rock its between $10 and $15, so = $220, $330. If you make it your self - using normal cement and beach sand $20 could make over 200kg. It is FAR cheaper, although obviously not as convenient.

Well if you wanna go full out tropical marine like anemones ect you need good lighting - metal halides. In saying that it is possible to go with high output flourescent tubes (t5's) but you need a heap of them and the tank cant be too deep. You'll want a good skimmer = $$$ . You'll need good water flow - $$, and you'd probably want a sump (does this have a sump?) Your best bet is to work out what you want to keep. LPS and softies are probably what most people would recommend - they are happy with tubes and arent as picky as SPS corals.

I'd imagine 4 weeks would be long enough - truth is its not a precise art. More hit n miss. If you do put it in the sea make sure it sets in the mould for at least three days (salt water will screw it up if it hasnt set properly). Remember people arent likely to take the rock . I suppose they could smash it - if you put in in a deep pool that could probably be avoided.

You can use any sand you want - coral sand is probably quite expensive relativly. When it comes to the cement - you can use nromal cement mix too, however be warned the curing time might be longer and there's all sorts of crud in many types of cement. (remember not concrete mix) If you can look for Portland type II white cement. You want cement that contains no added lime. About the curing - you are gonna have to cure it somehow. Are there no rock pools you can put it in? There must be a river or something somewhere around. Chuck all the stuff in an old washing basket or friut tray. In the bath - or in the toilet cistern. :lol: I think you will be safe dropping it in a deep rock pool. Your best best is probably barrels that overflow down into the drain. You have to cure it! Otherwise you'll end up with cementy crap in your tank that will probably kill everything, and a big line of cement scum on the glass. Seeding it's not too important - its just that if you put it in the sea it will cure and become live at the same time, and bring some biodiversity too.

That aragonite stuff is basicially white sand (coral sand) mixed with white cement mix. PJ there should be no added lime in the cement mix. If you want to know where to get the right cement I found a place up here in Chch. $50 for one bag, and thats enough to make a ton of rock. Its expensive (for cement) because it comes from Holland. I think the vinegar is just to get rid of excess crud. I'm not sure about that overnight curing thing - I cant see how that would work. I think you could try it and then put a piece in a bucket and se if anything leeches, but I doubt that it could be done in such a small time, as people I've read about do this all still have to go through the curing process. I think your best bet - is to use the mix like the link you posted - but make small slabs that are easy to carry ect and piece together to make your rock wall. That way they can be easily moved and put in a river, the sea or the bath ect to cure, but give the appearance of a solid wall when assembled. And it will become real "live rock" too, so it will do the biological filtration your tank will need (that most coldwater tanks are lacking). Which as someone said will be important for your anemones.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... t=hex+tank Is a cool rock pool look that you might like.

Ok you definately want to go with the porous rock stuff- it's part of the main filtration method for marines. Also people asked whether oystershell had phosphates in it - it doesnt. I know a reefer who has undetectable phosphates and he has oystercrete rocks. Although I used them because they were cheap. Basicially you need sand , cement and water for the simple one. You pour the mix into a sand filled box and leave it for a few days, then cure it for a while. Heres a vidoe of whats involved. http://www.garf.org/MPegs/AragocreteArch.mpg

I think I have a thread called "diy base rock " but I cant find it because the search things been down. I would go with the way the salties make rock - it will be very porous and have far more surface area than other things you could make, it will sink, and you can choose how you want it to look. However I dont know as much about fresh as salt - I dont know if the extra bacterial activity would be a good thing (I'm geussing it is?), and I suppose the rocks will have that coral rock look that all the salties go for. Whoa just found my thread....... http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/3-vt93 ... c&start=30 Here you go. There are some links that you might find useful - one dude who made amazing moulds that looked like corals ect. Check on near the bottom of that page of the thread. I will soon be getting my stuff back from the sea - so you can see how it went! It's cheap, and you can really make it how you want.

You could try that artic skimmer the jetski's selling - the deltec knockoff one. Its pretty expensive for a copycat though, I'm wanting to see how good it is.

I think he might be meaning the free sky ^ You can however get free skytv - if you have a computer with the right tv card you can get analogue sky. Or another good idea is have your friends with sky digital get another decoder box (about $8 a month) and borrow it. You can get cheap decoders for other parts of the house so you can tape two things at once ect.

Looking good wasp! Is that a diy rock wall of some kind? In the middle of the centre pic? Looks pretty big.

You can smell ethanol - but I dont think to the point that it would be obvious on someones breath, its a very loose watery smell. Its not possible to smell it with your nose very far away from the bottle - I dont think the small amounts you are adding could cause that. There are some (although very few) cheap ass vodkas that have glucose in them - just make sure its not listed in the ingrediants. Kristov 63 would be a good cheap one to use- ahhh back in the day where we got it for 8 dollars a bottle. Vodka essence is a bit of a ruse - normally its liquid glucose to act as a smoothing agent - because pure alcohol(or in many cases poorly distilled alcohol) is harsh to drink. There should be nothing else in the bottle. With vodka its just one chemical and water - with anything else there are all sorts of flavours added, which are all organics which you cant tell what will happen other than probably being bad. Most alcohols are high in sugars - fruit essences and long hydrocarbons, which wouldnt be good.

Arrrggh no editing. http://www.deltecusa.us/docs/CalciumReactors.pdf there you go

http://www.deltecusa.us/docs/CalciumReactors.pdf Hopefully that's what you're looking for.

I dont get why you cant just dump in a relativly larger dose and make it bloom in one go? There is the supposed oxygen depletion thing - but from the sounds of it thats isnt really a problem. If you have a tank with no livestock can you just lump in heaps? I think I'm gonna do that with my one when it's finally up. Seat of your pants algae removal, overindulgence in Vodka dosage is one of my specialties. :lol: I'll try it on my tank so I'll geuss we'll see.

Could you try ramming the wool in with say a screwdriver?

I'm going for a weird mix of both due to the plumbing parts I have available. I'll have a full 25mm siphon with a ball valve(that will be totally open) and a 40mm durso (without the restriction in the bulkhead). So, the "theory" will be that most of the flow will go down the 25mm, lightening the load on the 40mm which will handle the excess. I believe (although its hard to confirm from how it was worded) that the restriction isnt necessary on larger diameter pipes such as the 40mm. Since my setup has to be "octoproof" there will be fine netting over the overflow area anyway, so I wont have to worry about blockages, and 40mm is pretty big even if something gets down there. At least the "whether it works test" will be able to show if its such a bad idea for others not to try. The sacrifices I make for science. As for my creation being the bastard child of the Durso and the Cracker pipe - It'll be going by the name Crack Pipe. Word. :lol:

I think lots of tropical reef fish change colour so they ae less detectable at night. I think some butterflies go quite grey too.

Weird stuff seems to happen in farm raised animals - even normal clowns if raised from eggs will normally not have the last stripe just before the tail. They wont be GE. I rekon they look cool.

From that I dont see where it says growth rate isnt a good indicator of health -it implies that growth rates declining from over nutrification is bad. From how I read it nutrients increase growth rates till a point - and then a decline after said point. If anything it seems that they were using growth rates as a measurement of coral health.

With phytoplankton, I looked into, and I am still keen but got other projects happening - its a lot of work.