Feelers

My tank has to be full strength seawater, I might build a little plastic box so the hydrometer can be permanantly in the sump. How much for the floating ones?

I would imagine it would be luck of the draw if you get a good one or not. Maybe they could have a package deal "seio pump&swingarm hydrometer" lucky dip. If its crap I'll take it back and get a good one. Will the pet store test it with a refractometre? Is it true you can get them to test your water for free?

Haha, dont worry Ira, I wasnt the one tasting it. - as I knew what it would do. An amusing afternoon. My friends tongue actually bled He said all he could taste was bitterness for a few days. Looked very painful. Found the number for Clarkes Products - 0508 425 275.

I think im gonna go swinging arm type, I dont think my salinity has to be as accurate as you guys need. Has anyone had a good swing arm one? I figure I'll test it to make sure its close enough.

I know you can get sodium hydroxide granules from Clarkes Chemicals (Onikawa), they are based in Napier but they are in all yellow pages under chemical suppliers. Its not very expensive, $10 for about a beer cans worth of granules. Which is heaps. Dont put it on your tongue - it creates a visible hole where the burn is. - Practicle lessons from 6th form chem

So has anyone started making any rocks yet? I still have yet to start. How much would 80L of sand be? (for the mould). I need some sort of container to make it all in. I'm definately gonna cure my homemade rocks in the sea with my base rock, hopefully will make the curing process go real fast. It'll be there for a few months while I go back home. Also found out I might be able to keep more than one octopus, and that possibly I can get them from someone working at Seahorse World in Picton. Hopefully they'll get on ok, otherwise the winner will kill the loser and eat it. They try to get their arms into each others mantle and grab onto the gill structure inside the opponents head to suffocate them. Pretty savage!

Ha Wasp, you spell your name the same way as I do! Out of the twelve ways to spell it its one of the less common ones. I couldnt count the number of packages I have recieved as "Alister".

Can local coldwater anemones adjust to a tropical tank?- Some of the ones found in NZ are quite odd as far as anemones go. Got some nice photos of some I found. The wondering anemone just floats around and sticks to whatever it wants. You can actually see it "walk" up the glass probably at the pace of a snail. I went to kaikoura and we had to do a project on the dominace heirachy of anenomes - by "fighting" them. this one is the wandering one, has really weird wart things.

So still vaguely on the sand topic has anyone here used a fluidized bed filter? I'm asking again because of the torrent of sandbed discussion my original question drowned in Has anyone had any experience with them? And what would happen if you put sand in the skimmer reaction chamber? I know it's crazy - a fluidized bed protein skimmer. I might give it a jam when my tank is up and running. I spose the problem is having the sand go down the outake.

So are you sure about UV not killing them? Maybe the shell protects them, I rekon it would be worth a look. Increased light is supposed to make them go away - dont know how reliable that info is. As they are photosynthectic - so unless the shell specifically filters UV it would work. (it may do - glass is good at blocking uv I think) They are succeptable to temperature - but I dont know what you could do with that. Take the water out cook it and put it back? I would say 60C for an hour would probably kill most of them. Not the most practical - but it sounds like you have taken quite a disliking to them. Surely ozone would kill them. $900 is a lot of cash though, but there are obviously other benefits.

Whats the difference between having dead diatoms and silicon sources elsewhere in the tank? After they die they leave behind their shell, - either being skimmed or resting dead on the bottom. As far as I can geuss silicon isnt a component in anythings metabolism?,(other than diatoms) so other than causing diatom blooms, - , what other problems does silicon create? So UV wont kill diatoms? Ozone would :lol:

Wouldnt UV kills those things? With the money you guys spend on setups surely $100 would be worth the hassle

Is it true that fish are more attracted to food that has been soaked in garlic?

Diatoms are amazing animals, we got to look at their structures under an electron microscope, very cool.

I think you have to un-tick the "disable bbcode in this post" or "disable html in this post" (forget which one) box to make pictures work. Or perhaps your photoalbum isnt set to "public", otherwise we would have to log in as you to see the photos. Might be why the link didnt work.

Haha the topic of sand gets a lot of coverage here. Basicially there are a few options with sand that all have different pros and cons. You can have no sand at all - BB (barebottom), SB(shallow) DSB(deep sand bed). It all depends on what system you are after/what you want to keep. I would say come up with a basic idea of what you want, - fish only, soft corals, hard corals(sps)? I think generally noone goes straight to sps, so it sounds like you probably want to go soft corals. Have you decided if you want a sump? If you give a budget it helps, I think $5K is what(most :roll: ) people here reccommend for a good quality (sps capable) system. DIY can help out with cost alot. Make up a plan and it will make it a lot easier. I'm in the process of making my first aquarium (on minimal budget) and lots of research/reading is necessary. If you haven't found it already reefcentral.com is a very good american site. Maybe the pros here can give you some more info,

Fluidized bed filter, is basicially a chamber where a pump keeps the sand from settling on the bottom, in continious motion. Can do an enourmous bioload. http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_fbf.php

Does anyone here use a FBF? What does everyone think of them?

The guy who started this thread (duke) hasnt said anything after his intial post. 8) lol

So can you just chuck a sponge in a dead flow area of the tank?

I dont follow the bacteria in a sponge making nitrates. How is this different to large surface area fiji rock? I understand that when it gets blocked its a problem. One of the mods on tonmo has a bioball tower and washes the prefilter once a month. He hasnt washed his bioballs in 3 years. Still no problem with nitrates.

You guys could put a light at the end of the pump hose. The bugs you get at night are crazy compared to the day ones, and they will swim straight for the intake. We did this on a marine bio field trip, some really weird stuff in there, even 2 bob tailed squids. Heaps of small shrimps and crab paralarvae.

What are those SQWD things like? How much are they?

I agree with you wasp, but its better to have a laugh about it here than stab someone to death with the pectoral fin of a lionfish haha. If you voted it gives you the right to whinge all you want Despite all this I am reminded of a punk song by 'nofx'. -The idiots are taking over. He's talking about america of course, but still quite astute for a punk song!

They are two different things - I just finished a 2nd year entomology paper lol. Back swimmers actually swim on their backs, while water boatmen dont and are a little more rounded. They are actually quite hard to tell appart even when they are next to each other.