Feelers

As a layman who doesnt know much about the background of any of the people you guys are discussing - or their tanks, I wasnt very impressed by his writing. He starts out attacking the other guys methods - and then is guilty of exactly the same things.

I thought algae was supposed to go nuts with natural lighting - maybe the light could be filtered a little or something to tone it down a bit?

Doesnt that mean that they DO use instant ocean, well at least that they use a prouduct that is available at pet stores - and most often instant ocean for other aquariums. Its crazy how many fish they have in that one tank.

And they dont use sea water, they use instant ocean Thats a pretty big expense I imagine!!! http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/11 ... index.html

It was pretty hard to make out what he was doing, and it did sound like he was cramming them all in there from what I could make out from his first comments.

Hey simfish very nice. I remember as a kid we used to have one of those Kuhli Loach's and we thought it was dead, but a year later found it in the middle of the night going nuts swimming from let to right around the tank. Cool fish though. We has lots of gravel and I think it just dug around during the day. From that link aqua posted it sounds like you need a few of them to get them to come out of hiding.

Hey guys, not normally a fresh water poster, but I am interested in setting up a planted tank sometime in the future, maybe with a few discus or something -maybe some killies 8) . I often hear people mention certain styles of planted tanks, but I havent found an online site that lists them. Basicially I like the black tank look with very bright green plants, something along the lines of www.nature-aquarium.com. Basicially I would just like to have a look at all the types of planted tanks so I can get some ideas, so if you guys know of some good sites you could suggest it would be much appreciated . Thanks guys, there are some nice tanks on this site too! Simfish's new additon is looking good. Hopefully I will be following in his footsteps next year sometime.

They kinda seem like odd pricing, having a normal ticket at one third of the season price.

Thats not that bad, you get to see whales -and whale tours here cost about the same I think? Season tickets are pretty cheap too, remembering that the aquarium cost more than 200 million US dollars. That site seems to have lots of facts that are different from the official site - for example three million gallons of water seems to have dissappeared.

Its lucky that everyone thought they were bidding for 50kg! It probably would have gone even higher. $3.10 per kg is pretty cheap!! Im surprised not many people were interested. I've just made my rocks, it should be interesting to see how they turn out.

I think this is because water quality varies- the maximum allowable health limits are very lax compared to what reefers need. Phospherous I think is quite high in lots of tap water.

So is that a special species that's super blue or is it just well looked after?

Just randomly found this place was opening on 23 November, its huge!! The biggest tank is 6.2 million gallons(23million L) for a whale shark. 100,000 animals and 12,000 square foot of veiwing windows. The big tanks' window is 2 foot thick and weight 185 tonnes. Very cool. http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/

What about cooking your rocks with vodka added? With no lighting there wouldnt be any algae, so the only eaters of the ethanol would be the bacteria - speeding up their job. You could even skim the cooking vat. How many people cook their base rock? I thought it was fairly common to just chuck it in (slowly adding more over time).

I think you just chuck it in if its clean- , but I think you have to add it slowly so that there isnt a bacterial bloom. This is just from what I have read - wait from a reply from one of the resident experts(as above) - I wouldnt want to destroy your tank 8) Yeah that Phil guy drove you up $100 I asked the post office about shipping something that size, he asked what it was for and I got a few weird stares when I said rocks!!! Not the most user friendly when it comes to shipping.

Cooking is only for live rock I think, as it gets rid of the biological waste stored within the rock. I was looking at that auction too , to start with it was even worth the postage to the south island.

Isnt it good to have that bloom? Since hazymranch has no livestock its not really a problem. That would have pulled out all the phosphates ect that were present in the bloom. I thought that having a cloudy tank was a common effect with vodka, and thats why heavy skimming is a necessity. The way I see it the more blooms the better, at least thats what I can gather from the theory behind it. A tank with no livestock is perfect - the more algae you create by throwing in empty carbs- the more the algae pulls crap outa the water. This is assuming that algae has significant amounts of phospherous / nitrates ect in its system?

Skytubes would make your electricy bills way cheaper. Is there a reason why not any people have them? (other than the obvious set up logistics)

So who has actually listed their tanks? I have, reef has........ why has pies not shown his tank yet? Or Layton?

He hardly talked about adding vodka- it was a sand bed discussion mainly. I'm still gonna go with a dsb in the fuge, I have heard differing suggestions about the depth though - he uses 6, I have heard one guy say 6 minimum - 8 or more optimal, then the norm seems to be 4:o . I might go with 6, I dont have to worry that much about the legendary timebomb thing.

Seio 620's :lol: :lol: :lol: (I was joking slappers) 8)

Just looked the model up online and..... "Power Consumption 320W". I thought these things used 1500W - obviously from reading some calculations similar to yours, so I'm stoked my power bill isn't gonna be huge. What would be the best way to insulate the tank and sump? I was thinking about surrounding it with polystyrine except for the front of the sump(and the display obviously). Anyone had an aqua one chiller before? I dont spose anyone can tell me how many btu they are?

It doesnt matter but the recommended dosages here are at 40% I believe. So just add 2x as much if you have 20%

The bigger chiller that petplanet sells that can drop a 400L 15 degrees is only 400W. Since it would hardly be on it probably wouldnt use very much. I think Ive decided I'm gonna get one for my octo - I'll be running the tank at ~12C.

I dont think Ive seen anyone with a butterfly fish. Is there a reason there aren't any? -eat corals or something? I remember when I was snorkeling in Rarotonga I saw some racoon butterfly fish, they look awesome.