Pies

The tests done by Sanjeev (sp?) on Advanced Aquaurest show that there is approx 25% more light (PAR) for the SE 400s over 250DEs. I went though this when deciding lighting on my own tank, and my posts are still about on the AA website talking about lighting choice. I think the 250DE being better is more wishfull thinking than anything else. Reflectors make a HUGE difference too, with the small box reflectors on DE bulbs often producing more light at the hot spot but having far less coverage. Pie

I'm at: 5x 400watt MH (11hr day) 2x 250 watt MH (10hrs day) 4x 85 watt T5 (13hrs day) 1x Iwaki 100 1/2 horse power (24/7) 3x Ehiem 1262 ? (15hrs approx a day) 1x Ehiem 1060 (24hrs a day) 4x 300watt Heaters (unknown, less than 2hrs a day I guess) 3x 6100 Tunze Stream (24hrs day) Don't tell me :oops:

I think it the public interest, this thread should be stopped. I don't think any of us really want to know the answer or more accuratly most of us don't want anyone else that may live in our homes to know the answer. Pie

Looks good. Is the tank as blue as it looked in the photo? That Pearl Bubble of yours is MASSIVE. I think I have that acro frag you have. Mine is purple, with purple/white tips and white polyps. Very nice looking. Are you still using the miricle mud? Whats the verdict? More pics! Pie

We are doing architechture for Voice over ADSL now, no need for any upgrades other the soft upgrades for the BINC and DSLAM for QOS. No VoIP product in the market for xDSL until mid 06. Who is doing testing of the vdsl/adsl2? Pie

Havn't seen any plans for Telecom to do any mass rollouts of anything in the next 12 months. They are forever upgrading the VCRSs and DSLAMs for all sorts of tasks but I wouldn't hold out for much more than what you already have for quite some time. Prices were looking to drop, but with our friend the bit torrent slowing distroying the internet its unlikley to happen until bandwith issues are resolved. The only thing stopping Telecom/TCL providing more bandwith to the residential market is simply bandwith issues, getting fat pipes is available to most of us now (for mega dollars on xDSL). So until there is a major upgrade in available bandwith or the RIAA stops tools like Bit Torrent things are unlikley to change for us. Pie

Why waste $160 dollars knowing your spending too much on power. Ignorance is bliss (+ I can buy a few corals for $160). Pie

We are doing some cool stuff with T3g at work, its pretty swanky. 10mb at home

25 degrees is the same temprature I keep my reef to keep corals, its FAR to hot and very un-natural. I don't think there would be a place in NZ that ever get warmer than 22 degrees. I am sure than can survive short periods at this temprature, but not sustainable. Keeping them to warm will kill them, this is a fact, and the reason why its so hard to keep rockpool tanks. As for room temprature, the World Health Organisation suggests that your house should never be cooler than 18 degree's, its unhealthy and can lead to all sorts of respitory illness's including athsma, so i'd be surprised if you place is that cold all of the time. Pie

I'd be looking at keeping the tank no warmer than 14 degrees, down to as low as 8. You will need a chiller. Pie

Funding a new tank? I'd settle with keeping my job the way todays has gone. Back hoes and rats, FFS. Pie

Hahahahaha welcome to my nightmare, spent most of the day up at Tory Street in DR mode. Todays outage has provided my team enought work to keep us going past Christmas. Poo. Pie

I don't think we do agree, hence the reason I asked. Depth should be the top-to-bottom, as that is what deep means isn't it?' If I said I swam 100 feet deep, you would assume I went down 100 feet, not swam 100 feet away from where I started. When they talk about corals being from deep water, I assume they mean how deep under water it is, not how far away it is from another point. When they say the cook straight is 100km deep, I don't assume thats how wide it is. When people use 400 watt lights to penetrate deep tanks, they don't mean wide tanks do they? Like the expression of being in deep shit, they don't mean how wide it is. LengthxWidthxHeight. Or maybee I'm wrong. Pie

Work on the sump room continues. Still needs painting etc, and a few more things to finished, but so far its working out better than expected. Interesting that it holds the heat so well, have only seen the heaters on twice since the back wall was built. I suspect heat may become a major issue in the summer, but I made space for a chiller anyway but I really have both fingers crossed that it will be un-nessessary. Given the cost of a chiller we may look at a aircon for the room insted. My refugium is loaded with about 10 brittlestarfish, conches, crabs, snails, crowies, 2 fish, 2 carpet anemones, dozens of corals and lots of other misc life. It was also mega loaded with flat worms. So on Saturday we did a water change (250 litres) and flatworm exits (Salifert) the tank. I didn't syphon out any worms before I started, as it didn't look like there were that many. Well there were millions. To kill them all I needed to quaddroople the medication. There was a film of dead flatworms accross the bottom of the tank. I had a good look last night and can't see a single worm. Also nothing was damaged or lost, or even looked stressed in the refugium. I used some filter wool once the tank was re-circulated and about 2kg of carbon. The water in my system remains crystal clear, but during the treatment it was stained yellow with all the dead flatworms. So a successfull treatment. I have enough SFWE to do another dose and will do it as soon as I see evidence of worms in my tank, but do far not a single one has been visiable. This is the 2nd time I have used SFWE without problems or losses. The tank continues to do well, things are growing and corals are looking good. Furture plans? Very little other than sit back and watch. I would love to add a ROWA reactor as some stage, but I would need to find a reasonable priced one, I have DIY jobbie at the moment, which is OK but could be better. I would like to re-build my light hood, but still not sure what it will end up being. I may look at adding a 6th 400 watter, but am not sure right now. I may also look at adding a few 3 foot T5s to run widthway accross the tank as I have minor light issues at the back of the tank (because the Sea Swirls are in the way). So thats about it. Very soon, as soon as I finish painting the in-side of the sump room I am going to start my rotifers and greenwater cultures. With the plan to try and raise some clown fry. Will keep you all posted when this starts. Have access to a few different varities of clowns too, which should be good to see. anyone who has access to marine greenwater or rotifiers drop me a line please as I can use more sources of cultures. Did water test on Sat: Salinity .025 (refractometer) PH 8.23 (pinpoint) Calcium 420 (salifert) KH 8.1 (Salifert) Magnesium 1340 (Salifert) Nitrate 0 (salifert) Phosphate 0 (salifert) Temp 26-27 (Electronic monitor) So water is looking good and little to improve. I am currently running 1 litre of carbon, 2 boxes of Phosphate absorbing resin (aquamedic). I am using RODI for freshwater top up (12L day) without Kalk, Kalk will re-commence in a few weeks when I finish paining a wall, its all fairly temporary right now. Thats me. Pie

When you say deep do you mean wide (as opposed to high)? My 5 footer is 750 wide and that was a good depth, anything over 600 is cool. If you mean high, 710 is high, my new tank is 730 and its very deep. Would have been nice to go higher, but its on the verge of impracitcal deep now. If it was an in-wall. and you had the space all around the tank you could probable go deeper, but would require some though as to how easiest to access everything. Good luck with the new tank, sounds like a fun project. Pie

I've lots corals without zeovit No going to get invloved with the debate. However I did think that the TOTM this month was fairly ordanary. Although I wounder if the photography was as much to blame as anything, I suspect the tank looks nicer than the pictures reveal. The reefslides was good though, some stunners in there. Pie

Nope. Of course you can glue it, but its not strong enough to hold any real weight. Fine for glueing overflow inside the tank where there is no pressure, don't make a glass tank with an acrlic side, this does't work. Glueing acrlic to acrlic is easy, but it bonds, so you can't EVER unglue it. Pie

The water doesn't need to cycle. Pie

Lion Fish - P. Violitans are listed as an 'unusual' species for NZ coastal waters. There is 1 report of a single fish living in the poor knights, like many of the tropical/temprate fish that end up in the knights the chances of it surviving are slim to 0. P. Violitans lives in the Kermadec islands, which is part of NZ. So technically they are already in the country naturally. Interesting that both the Poor Knights and Kermadec islands are marine reserves. So the MAF ban on species that lives there (lionfish for example) just encourages poaching. I would much rather buy a lionfish that came from the tropics through a Q facility with legit paperwork than know i've brought one that has been poached from a marine reserve. However MAF are encouraging people to poach buy having unreasonable rules. Why ban the importation of a common fish thats already here? Pie

I agree, the planet is fuxored anyway. Lets just go hard while its still here. Pie

RnB - Couldn't dissargee more. Importers, bring in as much dodgy stuff as you can please, thanks. Pie

You wouln't get out of bed for less than $60hr? Damn I am in the wrong business. I would kill people for $60hr. $30 is an insult? Damn any of you guys got any work going? Pie

Go with the Steel, prime against rust. Mine is almost a year in, not a hint of rust and not spilled a drop yet (upstairs). I am using 3x Ehiem 1262s (3200 liter hr) for closed loops, 1 IWAKI 100 (return x2 sea swirls) and 3 6100 Streams. At the moment, I don't think the Streams are nessesary and I have more than enough flow without them, however as the corals grow they will become more valuable. 900mm wide, I think is a 'funny' size. I started with 900 but ended up with 950. 950 allows for a 3 foot tube to be run width ways, 900 is just under 3 foot. That was my thinking for the width. Pie

You can laminate them together yourself. We did, using standard tank silicone (about 8 tubes!). The problem was one of compression, we have everything we could stacked on it, in hindsight we should have put the glass on the ground and driven a car over it. No problem drilling it, just takes so much longer.... As for the costs, hehehehe welcome to the club. Everything costs about 2x more than you planed. The funny thing is I know this so I factor it in, and still it doubbles! Depending on the tank size, I would STRONGLY reccomend using a steel frame of wood. Also will probably be cheaper, steel as not as expensive as people think. Steel will be much stronger (more of a concern latterly than just holding the weight though). Sounds like a fun project, good luck. Pie

Rubidor - Its inert. Tell MAF to pull their heads in. Pie