richms

Got the one I have off trademe quite some time ago, when it was all in a smaller tank - it would be about 180mm long, most of the time just sits behind the driftwood - Has a bit of a go at the small bristlenoses that get to close but doesnt seem to be beating anything else in the tank up.

Some of the car neons have the inverter in the ciggy plug, others have it at the end of the tube, so you need to be sure your not going to remove something vital. The old alcatel DB chargers were 12 volts, and everyone knows someone that has one of those stashed away somewhere. Otherwise go check out surplustronics.co.nz for something that makes 12v - I dont know what current the car neons need but it cant be much.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... d=47014392 was offered to me for 22.50 - i need to get some for my 5.5 foot tank so I was thinking of the shorter ones and putting 2 end to end since it seems that 5 foot tubes are silly money.

Silly me, 30 watts is 3 foot - I think I will get a couple of these and give them a go. I have had 2 thorn fittings where the ballasts have cooked up and gone open circuit so I'm hesitant about cheap fittings now, but at the price I guess I can take the risk

Seems that angel237 on TM has a lot of cheap fittings for sale, has anyone bought any and stuck them in a hood? they seem a bargain compared with bunnings/ideal ones so am a bit wary before I go jumping in and getting a few. Also how long is a 30 watt tube? I havent seen them around, usually its 18 or 36w

I have just moved everything into a 1650mm tank, and its looking a bit sparse. I have a big black shark - would be about 170-200mm, and there is another on trademe going quite cheap so it sounds like the ideal way to get more happening in the tank without spending a hell of a lot. The thing is the one I have seems to be very possessive of his corner of the tank, and the 2 big plecos take the other end. What are my odds of another black shark settling in ok or is it not worth the risk?

Ideally you would want to be recovering the heat from the water going out, so if you were to run the water thru 2 pipes in contact with each other for a reasonable length it may recover some, but the problem is that plastic is pretty good at insulating heat transfer, and making one out of titanium is gonna be pricy and I dount it would recover its cost.

Mine have bread at least 3 times over the last 6 months or so despite the totally mankey water they were in and dodgey heater meaning the temperature was going all over the place. There were plenty of caves in the tank for them to use, and now I think backk there was often one of them hiding in them which they didnt do when I first got them.

The 05s are up on hagens UK site, not the US one because they are not released there yet. - http://www.hagen.com/uk/aquatic/addinfo/fluval_05.html I looked at the 05, and couldnt really see any improvement over the 04s that would make it worth getting, I have a 404 and a 204 on tanks here and they are faultless as far as I am concerned, and I would not hesitate to get one again. The only usefull change I can see is the intake strainer, and thats easy enough to change for something of your choosing anyway.

I have seen battery operated airpumps around, you could put the media in a bucket with theh airstone under it to keep movement going thru it. I get the long extension cable out to the car and into the inverter if I think it was going to be a long powercut. Unfortunatly whenever I have called up for an update they have said they had no info, so I have hooked all the filters upand then about 10 mins later the powers come back on.

The circuit breakers in the powerstrips are usually junk, I had one that was tripping all the time with just a 1200 watt room heater and a PC on it, busted it open before I threw it out and the breaker was rated to 8 amps... go figure. Anyway, a normal kiwi powerplug is pretty crap, if there is any corosion on the pins or the socket they will have higher resistance and get very warm. You can look at the plug but you have no idea what the condition of the wall outlet or the sockets in the plugboard are like. If its around high humidity you have even less certanty that the sockets are going the be ok. You can always change the wall outlet out for a new double one (assuming its your house) so you know that its in good condition. When everything is running even if its well under the maximum check the plugs for being warm, pull them out and see if the pins are warm, Apparanly one of the leading causes of housefires are the cheap nasty powerstrips being overloaded a friend was saying he was told when he went to do his electrical saftey cource for his work, I would believe that after having a couple of mine discolour around the pins when running largish things (microwave oven)

The cheap bunnings gennys are crap, but ideal for this sort of thing. Just be sure to use a surge protector or 3 on the output for when the govener dies and it revs up to 350 volts. The big problem I have is the fuel storage since its 2 stroke I would either have to mix when I add fuel or have some pre-mixed stuff sitting around going stale with nothing else but a weedeater to put it in.

Perhaps you could mod some car boot stays in place to help with the lifting?

Minimizes the surface area tho, which is what counts at the end of it. when the pores of the noodles are full of goldfish poo it doesnt work as well. I was really aprihensive about the amonia level the first time I did it, but the "spike" was a barely differnt from the first square of the test sheet about a day after I did it so nothing to worry about. just makes me feel better to know that its all clean in there.

I have done likewise in my 404, new noodles start in the top basket, and each sponge wash I move them down one and replace the top ones with ones that I have cleaned really well. If you let the sponges get too blocked up then the crap will clog up the baskets starting at the bottom which is my reasoning for having the cleanest at the top so at least thats still working. The stuff I take out of the bottom I wash under the tap, let dry out totally then repeat the process a couple of times, ends up pretty clean and then ready for when I do the next sponge clean. I accumulate it and wash it a twice a year or so. Noodles are good because if you do neglect it and they clocg up there is still gaps, where as the small ball like stuff tends to block right up and not let much water thru.

I would put the plugboard inside the cupboard and just knock a 60mm hole out the back allowing you to poke the plugs thru. On the side as you drew it means that any water that runs down the side will go straight into it, which is a bad thing. You can get plugboards designed for computers that have some outlets spaced furthur apart then normal to account for wall warts that are oh-so-common on computers and cellphone chargers etc, that will accomodate the timer nicely. Also dont touch the $3 plugboards, they are crap - often if you put a plug in at not quite the right angle there will be a crunch and that socket will no longer hold a plug in properly. HPM ones seem ok and arent a hell of a lot more then the "elto" trash

The problem is that most electricians are cheap and put a single 40 amp RCD upstream of all the breakers for the house except the range and the hot water. The better ones are the RCBOs which are an RCD and circuit breaker in one and protect a single circuit only. We used to have 3 RCBOs here on the 2 bathrooms and one other recently installed circuit, but when we had a sparky upgrade the supply to the kitchen he took them out and put a single 40 amp one in (how 40 amps is enough for a whole house escapes me) - anyway the thing tripped all the damn time for no reason since it was a 30ma trip one running a whole house - duh. anyway, talking to another electrician ended up that we didnt need to RCD everything, just the new circuits so we put the rest of the house back on no rcd and put the RCBOs back in on the circuits that needed them. I have one plug at each tank on each bathroom circuit since they are rarely loaded to 20 amps unlike the kitchen circuit. Dont bother with the cheap way of doing it, you will only get fed up with the nusuance trips of the main RCD and theres a much higher chance of the tank losing power. RCBOs are only about $80 a piece from a wholesaler with a discount. If I was to do it again I may just get the RCD power points, but still the idea of having them under a tank is a little sketchy since they may get wet there.

Welcome to the home of the future, 1985 edition. The pink uplights are what really do it for me. Shame this forum doesnt have the vomiting emoticon or I would use it.

I prefer the idea of many smaller heaters - a sort or RAID of heaters. That way one sticking on will have a slower rate of overheating, and one dying will have a slower rate of cooling. I have 1 200 and 2 100s in the tank rather then a 350 which I think was the calculated wattage I needed. I have gone to the effort of pulling 2 power circuits to my tropical tank so when the *(^&*(^(*ing RCDs pop for no good reason only half the heaters go off, meaning so long as it stays warm inside (which it should) I will most likly never dip below 26

Before I go and try it and possibly smoke my pumps, how well do they cope with the squarewave power out of UPS's and inverters? I know that things with a capacitive powersupply (bug zapper) tend to blow up because of the very high amount of harmonics, I was thinking that a simple induction motor would be OK since the inductiveness of the windings would not draw excessive current like the capacitive powersupplies. But isnt there a starting capacitor and winding in these cheap little singlephase motors? Will that be ok. ideally looking for sucess/failure stories, and if sucess how much power is lost when running on battery.

Also, you dont really want to use the black irrigation tubing upstream of the valve, or really have the filter upstream either. That irrigation gears not designed for the 800 odd kPa that you will get out of the tap. Also add hose clamps to the final one, otherwise the hose will work off the barbs. Dont bother with the ratchet ones that are in the irrigation area, get proper ones with the screw

If I run a second overflow it will be a drain rather then back to the other tank, if its got to that level somethings gone terribly wrong. Plus thats my drain for doing gravel vacs, would just put a barbed fitting on it to push the end of the gravel vac onto. Would just have a 600mm tank in the bedroom so doesnt need massive flow, few 100 litres/hour if that if I put a heater in it I figure.

If its the clip together galvanised one I am thinking of, the shelves are mdf. By the time you seal them you may as well have bought marine ply and cut it to size, so in essence you are getting an expensive frame. I would rather have something welded then clipped together

I have always wanted to have a tank in the bedroom upstairs, but dont like the idea of having to do waterchanges etc in the bedroom. What I was thinking after reading chimera's thread with his sump room (in its entirity!) is using the tank downstairs as a sump for the upstairs one, or else sharing a sump downstairs for both the downstairs and upstairs tanks. This would leave me with only having to use a drain when doing a gravel vac upstairs, which I can run at the same time in the wall as I run the overflow and return lines from the tank. Other then needing a pump that can generate a reasonable flow at 3m odd of head, is there any glaringly obvious reason not to do this that I am overlooking (besides the shared infection risk etc) quite keen on it as it will minimise noise in the bedroom since there will be no pumps, possibly just a heater but even thats potentially redundant with one in downstairs.

Just to bump this thread, me too, in beach haven with only a couple of tanks at the moment, aspirations for more however.