Feelers

Im very keen to hear about this , Did they comment on the brand name or cooling capacity?

So does anyone know anyone who has actually used an old air con unit and converted it into a chiller? I am toying with the idea, over buying a chiller. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/He ... 134028.htm Would this be an acceptable starting point? Does the math make sense? Does anyone know how much of a hassel it is to get the Ti tubing and put it in place? It would be a nice project - and I'm thinking(although not sure) that it would be able to cool alot more than a chiller of similar pricing. And lastly would it eat through power? I was assuming that it wouldnt use much power as it would be off most of the time.

Maybe thats why all the coraline went white perhaps? :lol:

I went and "stole" some sand from the beach to make the base rock for my marine tank a few weeks ago. I actually looked around trying to buy some but noone had any. For once it was nice to find something in the aquarium trade that was cheap.

Wasp do you know anything about the lighting requirements of seaweed? I imagine "real"(ie metal halides ect) lighting is required? Are there low light species? I had thought about this but had written it off. Do you think PJ will need live rock aswell? Its very hard to get quantative data on bio filtration.

Hey PENEJANE, I'm also doing the same thing as you. I wouldnt use an internal filter, I think they are too small and in a saltwater setup they need to be cleaned every few days apparantly. The rocks from the beach are sweet to put in, but remember that they wont have much surface area for filtration, even so try to get the most porus rocks you can. I dont think the lighting will matter - anything that lights up the tank and looks good will be fine. That does mean that seaweed probably isnt a good idea, I dont know its lighting requirements but I imagine it would die pretty quickly, along with any other photosynthectic organisms. Are you going to be running a skimmer? For biofiltration a cannister might be acceptable - although not the best. Perhaps an U/G filter would be a good idea - since it sounds like you are interested in fish the water parameters can be reasonably lax. Are you going to put sand in? If you put a deep enough sand bed it can provide a good deal of filtration. Do you know what you want to keep in there? Most of the rock pool animals are pretty tough I think.

Just found this: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/the-ke ... t3757.html

Im not sure - I'm just learning. Ira has a huge amount of coraline, maybe he has a secret?

Is it high Ca levals and low lighting?

Crack a few eggs in there Brian, Whats the difference between becket injectors and straight venturis?

Yeah Wasp I would be more careful with static IPs, just make sure you have a good firewall like Zonealarm. If your computer is on and permanantly connected to the net its more of a problem. I have never had any problems zonealarm gives you a read-out on activity and supposedly I had 30 high threat intrusion attempts. Dunno how much I believe that, but its more a concern if you have important stuuff on your comp. Just dont be too worried about it, and dont buy the xtra security sweep - total scam, better free virus protection on the net.

My theory was that too wet a skimmate would take out more salt and change the salinity - which wont be fixed by just adding topup water? Dunno about that though.

So Brian does that mean my "new" skimmer might be ready sometime soon?

Is there any copper in the water supply in Chch? I ask because an octo is incredibly sensitive to copper- lethal. Just wondering if I could do my top off with it - althou I will probably use distilled or something just to be sure.

Its all well to say that its usless, but as that is what the majority of reef keepers do, it makes sense to have a vague idea of things. You could go with fathoms - but its easier to go with inches. :lol: So Pies tell me, what would your standard response be if someone asked how tall you are?

From what I see online everyone uses gallons. I have even started. 79G tank with 2000gph pump, I hate to have to convert things but I dont think its gonna change any time in the near future. :evil:

Haha I like the 3d model, Yeah you could attatch a RO unit and just have that giving you well filtered water if it was needed.

Live rock is basically dead coral skeletons from reefs that is incredibly porus. It has lots of cracks and crevaces aswell. As I found out you cant find it here unless you buy it from the shops. Base rock is more easily available and you have to make it live - by putting it in someones tank or as this is for a cold water tank I would put it in the sea. I have made my own base rock, which was quite fun and ridiculously cheap and is livening up in the sea as we speak Real base rock (ie from a reef) costs about $10 -$15 a kg, and real live rock costs about $15- $20 I think. You can get some good deals though. "1 and 1.5 lbs of live rock per gallon of water" Which is about 0.12kg - 0.18kg per litre. (If I have done my math properly?) Which is about 7kg - 10.5 kg of live rock needed for a 2ft*1ft*1ft 56L tank. As for me I couldnt afford to go with the real stuff. This is the thread for the "recipe" I used. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/what-c ... t9368.html I will try to get some pics of how it went, I was quite happy, would have liked to make a bit more as I only did one batch that was a little too brittle for my liking, but still acceptable.

Although I have seen some pretty realistic looking ones - they basicially get a piece of plastic and cover it with sand then cover it with resin. Most of the people I have read about seemed pretty happy with them. Its a bit Martha Stewart if you ask me :lol:

Whats the water of Chch like? I hear its really good, but what about ph wise ect?

12'' inch dsb is the way to go. maybe it's a huge timebomb -but with a really long fuse! :lol: I'm probably gonna have a 12'' in my fuge, I dont think the guys off the speights adds would be happy with a "faux sandbed" - Susan chose it, I think it works dont you? 8)

Another cool type of tank - they dont seem to have real livestock in the photos though and lots of the pics have actually been photoshopped in. Maybe they havent built them yet? $8000 usd I think!! http://www.aquaknoxaquariums.com/ Dunno how filtration ect is supposed to work.

They have real cool stomachs that they "inject" outwards from their body onto their food. Looks very bizzare. Acually these might be different from "normal" starfish. I saw things similar to this in a diving photo from the sounds - black and white bands just like a sea snake. Wrapped around "Black coral" - does anyone know why its called black when its very clearly white?

I would imagine that distilling would be better than ro/di?

Well I havent got any yet- but I asked my marine bio lecturer and he told me to go see some guy - forgot his name, but it was fine. If you ask a lab technician named Jan I think she can show you where. I think there are taps in the 1st 2 floors of the zoo building. When I go back I'm gonna ask for a tour of the system - 35 000L or something, I didnt get a chance last semester.