LionOfZion

Has anyone had a problem with brown'fuzz' algae, and if so how do did you get it under control? I'm busy trying to get pink and green algae established for the critters to live in, but the brown algae is apparently poisonous to alot of creatures, and is rather mor resilent than the green or pink stuff. Thanks Roy EDIT: since posting this snails have demolished most of the brown algae. The new halide lamp I purchased has sarted growing green algae everywhere, and spots of pink are starting to form near the top. So essentially nature has solved my problem for me

My set up is as follows: tank 100 litres floro light weipro hangon skimmer jebo filter pump powerhead I had a few extra attachments but I found that they didnt seem to improve the tank to much, increased the amount of cleaning I have to do, and killed all my brine shrimp .. before the fish do I have imported coral sand in the tank, but I'm going to remove that and go for native sand. I have discovered that the critters will only sit on native stuff, plus awesome stuff keeps hatching out of the native sand (I think I'm about 10% native at the oment). One funny aspect I have noticed is that the fish are terrorterial and have there own rocks, cracks and corners they protect. The coral I'm keeping in the tank, but at this point I have pulled some out and put native rocks with lgae on them to try and spawn the algae on the rocks. At this point I have a brown fluff and some green. The brown is apparently poisonous, but not to star fish and snails who are loving it. Weed is probably one of the most important bits I have noticed. For a start the fish sleep in it, and are suddenly more relaxed in the tank. And boy do things come out of the weed, current I have fan worms, anonmoes, shrimp, heaps of things I can't even recognose. The last thing I have picked up so far is the current. Its a mongrel to get right, currently in my tank I haveit real string at the top and its quite low towards the bottom. If you get a wandering anonomoe you'll be in for a fun time getting it stay still. I'm always rescuing it.

Heya, I have been plying around with native tanks for the last 6 months or so. Not to many casualites Heres a few pics of how its existing at the moment: Probbly the biggest issues I have is I don't have a proper lamp, Im just using a fluorescent one, instead of a proper daylight lamp. Its enough to keep some algae growing, and the plnts alive, BUT not enough to get a real culture of pink algae growing at this stage. I can hand feed the triple fins and rock cod (some are up around 3 inches long now and will nibble my hands when I readjust the anomoes).

I want to have a few star fishes in the tank cleaning it, and I suspet that they will need some algae growing in the tank, which in turn will need light. If I can' get farmed sea horses I will take you up on the offer to catch me some

Heya, After months (almost a year) of mucking around I finally have my native marine tank cycling. The one thing I havent done yet is set up lights to get the photosynthetic stuff growing. What sort of lights should I be going for? The tank will have rock pool type creatures in it and sea horses probably. Oh wheres the place to buy native sea horses? (will get pic up soon 100litre nano tank)

LOL not yet if at all, I going for the rock pool/shallows type of thing. It'll be a while befor eI get anything heat sensitive in the tank as well.

Hi guys, I've finally decided to get my cold water tank up and going (after procrastinating all winter). I'm upto the point where I want to start curing some rock in the tank, but I'm unsure where to go to get any. If anyone in te wellington area knows where I can get some decent coral and/or sand I'd be very appreciative. cheers Roy

Not sure if anyone else has posted this but the New Zealand geographic magazine has a really nice special on NZ marine life. March/April issue so its in store now, grabbed myself a copy today Roy

Hey, I'm about to put in an order for a new skimmer and power head and was wondering what your opions where on the items. Weipro Protein Skimmer SA2011 and AquaClear Powerhead 402 The tank has a 200 litre capacity but I intend to full it full of rocks and stuff so probably will be alot less in actuallity.

Yeah last time I saw the octopus at the airport he wasn't look to good at all, looked like he was about to die. This looks like the same octopus (size wise, I can't really tell octopus apart), if it is he's definalty looking alot better. I think he was rescued and thats how he ended up in the tank ... trying to remember the pamphlet I read ages ago.... so I doubt he was ever in good shape. I think he had a pot but he was never in it and the pot was tiny, I think he's got even less now, just a few items of 'rubbish' showing marine pollution in the wellington area. I'll try and get a pic but I rarely go to that part of town and rarely have a camera on me. The sea cucumber is impressive though, it's over 6 inchs long and probably 2 wide.

I was talking to my father last night who lives in Whitianga ( up the coromandel) and he said the lcoal water temprature was 23 degrees. Which I think is fairly warm for the ocean (particularily warmer than wellington's water) But this got me wondering about the temprature for native NZ tanks (yeah still working on my one slowly, nothing in it yet). If the water temprature gets that warm in the ocean then in the house it would be a similiar temprature. I do realise about temprature drops with thermaclines in the ocean, but does any one reacon NZ natives could handle room temprature water all year around ?

If you want to see some crays in a tank the marine conversation people have moved the octopuss from wellington airport to the reading cinema arcade in town. His tank has now been segmented into 3 sections, now housing the octupus and a big fat sea cuccumber, starfish and seahorses, and lastly 5-6 baby crayfish and some fish Im unsure about. Its definatly spurred me into the idea of splitting my tank in half and having crays and sea horses.

My tank is a 200 litre tank thats 4 feet long and about 1x1 feet deep and high. I think I will grab one big pump for now and if need I'll grab a second smaller one later. Is there much skill in setting up the current ? i.e. making sure the sea anomaes can feed and stay where you want them ?

Just wondering what everyone's opions are about whether it is better to have one power head circulating the tank or multiple smaller ones ?

I got an email reply from the NZ fisheries departmetn and basically said I can collect what I want as long as its not protected and not for commercial purposes. (and not undersized). I asked about collecting rock and sand aswell but they didnt give an answer on that.

afew good photos of nz fish: http://www.diving.co.nz/gallery/photos/index.html http://www.oceanblue.co.nz/images/PKI0001_clavalina_op.jpg http://www.sandpiper.co.nz/photo1.htm

Yeah Ive been giving it abit more thought, and I think I will start with rocks colelcted from the sea side to get the tank 'living', and then start to replace the rocks with better more porous alternatives later (piece by piece over a period of time). Does anyone know if the sand on beaches would be a high in microbial life ? , or would the turbulance of waves keep the levels quite low.

Ive recently moved to wellington, does anyone know if there is scoria in the sea around the area? or within a reasonable drive. Im planning on doing a native cold water tank so Im guessing that if I got live rock from a store it would just die anyway

Does anybody know if scoria would be okay for curing to make live rock? Also how long do you leave the rock in the ocean to cure for? oh and does anyone if gardening/hardware places readily stock it or will I have to contact a quarry?

I am writing some emails to DOC at the moment, when I get some replies I'll start another thread Roy

Any idea what would happen if you cured some rock in a coal bed and when it was in the tank some started to sprout ? Goes for other protected stuff which could appear in a the tank (I mean untentionally appear in the tank). Im guessing the best thing to do would be to release it

it referrs to black coral on the website as ' rare black coral' which would imply that it is protected. it looks to fragile ot harvest anyway. I think the best option would be to collect rocks and hope some grew out of the rock

does anyone have links to any sites with info on NZ coral?

has anyone been to the milford deep underwater observatory ? http://www.milforddeep.co.nz/gallery.htm thats the gallery for the place, real nice local native coral and stuff

Theres a guy who sells baby cray fish on trade me, I thought about putting on in the tank but it would eat eatthing else so I quickly changed my mind. I think sea urchins eat sea weed so you would have to have a ready supply of something they could eat. I suppose you could collect some of the larger kelp, chop it up and freeze it. Or even the smalelr stuff ti I suppose. But I know there is laws governing taking stuff from the shore, I know rock and sand is illegal to collect, but Im not sure how far that stretches. I'll have a browse through the MAF website in the weekend