Pies

Chimera - your on the wrong track man. 6feet per second is the optimal flow velocity if being fed by gravity, but we are not talking about gravity, we are talking about a big ass motor pushing water against (and faster) than gravity. Remeber the old experiment from school, all things fall at the same speed 'maximum velocity' (only impacted by friction). Pie

Ahhh I thought Bay was a typo, we call the 'bay' fronted ones 'bevelled'. Pie

Whos not using a 200L barrel for storage of there top-off water Pie

Well duh. Smaller pipe = less water, larger pipe = more water flow. Not rocket science. Smaller pipe = more head pressure, larger pipe = less head pressure. Pie

hehehehe. Put it in context, we were talking about PH changing between day and night. "I go to work during the day and sleep at night" "vampires can't come out during the day" "not enough light at night need to do it during the day. Context. Pie

Yeah I looked into it. Reef has a very good skimmer made. The reality is many of us have looked at it. The closer you get to actually doing it, the more expensive it gets. Plumbing, needle wheel pumps or venturis. There are some good value new and 2nd hand skimmers availabe here in NZ, infact I suspect the prices you can get for items like this from members of this board i don't you could do better anywhere else in the world. I'm not convinced you could build a skimmer for less, certainly not a comparable skimmer. good luck either way. Pie

PEEJANE - Having built my own tanks in the past, I would agree its not hard. However the reality is its probably just as cheap to have one made by a 'professional'. Bow-front tanks are expensive (bowed glass is expensive) and the bracing etc is a little tricky. I wouldn't attempt it myself. Too much to go wront. Building 'normal' tanks is easy, but again i'd get it done by someone else. Its an awkward and frustrating job. Pie

Use a peristolic pump. Easy, works perfectly. Pie

Nope distilled wate would be the ultimate, its just expensive. Not sure where you have heard it can leech stuff from the tank but its complete noncence. Pie

Hence the reason I said as a'general rule'. Whos using mechanical and biological filteration in their sumps? Certainly not me. ??? I have never seen anything from IWAKI or anyone else other than Dolphin (different style of pump) saying 'NEVER enlarge or restrict' Now havn't we been through this before? The larger the plumbing, the more water will flow. E.g. if you have an IWAKI 100 (like me) with a 25mm output, it will work better with larger plumbing (say 40mm) than it will with 25mm plumbing. We found lots of calculators on the net that showed the formulas for this, so not sure where Chimera is going with this. Pie

To most of us Day means Day. Pie

Hi Helifax Its easier than you think. You can find graphs for most pumps to find out how much water they pump at a given head height. E.g. an Ehiem 1262 may have a flow of 2200 lph at 4 foot head. so if you are pumping water up 4 feet, its a safe bet you are getting approx 2200 litres per hour through the sump. 4 major things to consider when buying a sump return pump: 1 - How high do you need to pump? Some pumps arn't presure rated, so they work great at circulation (e.g. power heads) but are no good for anything else. In my situatuon I am pumping about 10 feet, which ruled out most of the hobby pumps (ehiem etc). 2 - Reliability! Pumps can be expensive. However in the marine/sump environment you will problably have your heaters, skimmers etc in the sump. So if your return pump fails, you tank will not get heated, filtered or even oxygenated. The return pump is one of the most important pieces of my system, I belive its the single most important piece of equipment. 3 - Circulation. How much water do you need to put through the sump? Depends, but the general rule is as much as possible. You return pump can also be used to provide circulation to the tank, so often more circulation is better. With people often aiming to turn their tank volume over between 10 and 100 times an hour. 4 - Noise. My pump is noisey. Its in a sound-controlled room in the garage so I don't care. But if it was in my lounge or bedroom it would be very distracting. Other things come into consideration to - price, internal vs. external, power consumption etc. Good luck Pie

Thats interesting. Mine drops to about 8.02 during the night, as soon as the halides come on it moves up to about 8.28 and holds until the lights go off again. I wouldn't think it would be going up/down during lights on? Or is it because your dosing kalk during the day? Pie

I have seen in electroic catelogs (Jacar?) sensor 'float' switches. They don't actualy get sub merged but otherwise work the same. Cost about $45.00. Also search RC for the DIY topoff system. Make a bracket, feed water through air hose via gravity. The bracket has a 'hinge' attachment with a float on it (piece of polystyrene). As the water level rises it the hinge lifts and pinches off the air tube, thus preventing water entering the tank. I've seen lots of people doing it and swearing by it. Total cost is a bit of time, a hot glue gun and some air hose, the rest can be made with whatever your most comforable with (metal, plastic, wood - some even use mouse traps. Pie

Agree with Reef and cookie. I'd like to know where you PH is during all of this too. Not sure I would have turned of the CA reactor. As for Kalkwasser, when I was using Zeovit it was reccomended that you don't use Kalk anyway. Any visible changes yet? Notice anything different? One of the first things I noticed was that I didn't have to clean my glass as often. Every 2-3 days became every 5-7 days then every 10 or so days. Pie

A Blue hitch hiker Take a photo and send it to MAF Pie

Read through my 'first look at the new setup' thread on this forum. Pics of my overflow box, plumbing, where to drill holes the lot. Its a big thread, but it might help you out. Pie

I have some small snails, can probably give up 4-5 or something. Make the lid from perspecs? Easy to cut and shape. I have a sheet at home your welcome to enough for your lid. Cheers Pie

That is super stylie. 10/10. If you want some mushrooms, yellow polyps etc, come around, I am sure we can work something out. Pie

No. Monaro1, sorry man you are well of base. Silicone (e.g. fosrock RTV) will not adhere it PVC or rubber. It may stick a little bit not enough to hold it together. Take it from someone whos tried, it will not work. For PVC its easy, get a PVC adhesive. As for gluing rubber to PVC for a strong waterproof seal. I'm not sure. Good luck. Pie

Easy. Get some hot water, mix it with some dish washer powder (caustic soda). Note: Wear rubber gloves because it will burn. Brush it on (when hot). Leave it for a bit (minute or 2). Use a scraper (e.g. razor blade) and scrape it of. Wipe down and repeat. You will have sparkling glass within minutes. Pie

Who will get the last word in? Cause you know, whoever gets the last word in wins... I am not sure about all this anyway. I would thank the reason we (as per Bournemans reccomedation) want higer alk then nsw is to control PH shift. PH in NSW doesn't shift overnight in the ocean like it does in an aquirum. That is something else to consider with Zeovit system. Chimera (I assume) was adding kalk, which is adding CA and ALK, thus buffering PH. Also the addition of kalk at night (because its high PH) helps take the dip out of PH fluctuation. Without the addition of kalk at night or high ALK, there are few ways (reverse lighting is one) to stop huge peeks and troughs with PH. So regardless of the state of the CA and ALK, fluctuating PH is BAD and measures should be taken to avoid it. At least that from my experance and from my limited understanding of the way of things. Pie

Unless it raises you KH too high and all your acros RTN because of the effects of high KH with Zeovit systems... Pie

Dunno why, Layton is the only person I know who uses Draino. Personally putting drain cleaner in the tank sounds a little dangerous to me. I use Kalk paste, i would say its 99% effective. And I put kalk in my tank every night so i don't worry about it, I don't dose draino regulary (or at all...). Pie

Question (to wasp?). If you drop your alk down to below 8, what does this do to PH? Won't a low alk make the PH must more unstable (particulary at night?). Pie