Pies

Thats forfreshwater/kalkwasser top off. I have a plastic 44 gallon drum on the other side of the wall as my kalk stirer. Pie

Started working on the back wall of the sump room now that the sump etc is in place. Lots of help from Suphew. Great result in the end but a long frustrating day, a few mistakes, and lots a 'massaging' things into place. Couldn't be much happer now that its up, but under estimated how difficult it was going to be. Here is a pic of the new sump, which has worked out so much better than I had hoped. Its the first time i've had lots of spare room in a sump, and I am so glad I made it this size and not any higher (its as long and as wide as possibe). Coral wise everything is the tank is going great, good colour (at least by my standards), great growth. The tank is starting to look a little more mature and setteled, going to be great watching it over the next 6 months. This acro has being growing awesomly: I think the same acro, but from a different source. Although it has grown slightly thicker: Same coral but close up, showing polyps and skeleton: Baby Fungia corals Fat: Loves comming to the front of the glass and following me back and forth when I have the camera out: Its hard to image a healther specimin: Peral Bubble going great considering the current in the tank: Same deal for this green bubble: So another day tommorow finishing the sump room, 1st coats of plaster etc. Also some other housekeeping to do then tidy the garage before Jane gets back from conference Pies

Really? The Salifert stuff looks like rust, kinda. The ROWA looks like plastic beads from what i've seen and the Aquamedic stuff looks like Zeolite rock (Small grain 4-8mm). I've got access to lots of rust

They do? WTF? Or have a missed something?

If it starts rusting? Isn't thata give in? Pie

Cool. The south pacific is the diamond crown in diving circules. Fiji is the soft coral capital of the world If you can I would STRONGLY reccomend Dive Kandavu on Kadavu island in Fiji. Small resort (max 7 couples), no shops nothing but real Fiji life and diving both in typical Fiji waters + the Great Astrolab Reef. 10/10. The resort caters to American Tourists (a plus for you, not such a plus for us . My partner is similar to you, she is a competant but not 'hard core' diver. but she loved it in Fiji, lots of reef diving, easy diving with lots to see. many shark dives and just an awesome spot. PM me your email if your interested, I am sure we still have contact names and numbers for them and I can send you some pics both above and bellow water. Pie

Steve - Are you a scuba diver? If so I know of several great places in Fiji that are worth the effort. Pie

I see the current bidder is none other than Reefs mate Dave. One thing we can be certain of, he won't be buying it. Nothing like a good honest auction Pies

By a hole bit of Ebay for $10.00 and do it yourself or get a dremal into play and do it yourself. In the end for $12 its hardly worth the effort for them anyway. Be drama for them if they broke it. Pies

Absoulty not. Remove the rubber 'rings', silicone has trouble fixing to rubber and doesn't bond to it correctly. Remove the rings, just use silicone, also means less places for leakage. Screw them 'hand tight'. Make sure the the nut goes on the 'outside' and the screw goes in the 'wet' side, this is optimal to reduce leeking. Also remember that when your fixing your PP threads to use LOTs of thread tape, LOTS and LOTS. so much you can barely see the thread. Good luck Pie

Straps - There is no doubt that we all have much to learn, I for one would love to learn more. However from the information i've seen things I have already learned apply, those water paramaters are unhealthy. We are all trying to offer advice based on our own experance and things we have already learned. One of those things I have learned would be that if I had nitrates over 100 in my own tank I would consider it a failure. I've seen my fish flop around on the carpet for a while without dieing. However being alive, and being heatly and happy and different things. Don't underestimate an animals will to survive. Anyone who suggested keeping animals in conditions as described as a good idea or even OK is off base and should be ignored. Pie

Its from Marnine Depot, its like 'great white shark' or 'magnavore' can't remember which. Its very suckymoto. Pies

I have some red ones but unfortunatly mine have blue spots Pies

I'ts so strong I am worried about it wearing the glass thin. Pies

If MAF come to my house i'm screwed. I like to feed my lionfish with painted apple moths and release my Koi Carp into the Hutt River when they get to big. Pies

I just brought a MEGA MAGNANET to clean the front glass of my tank, and honestly my tank has never looked better. Pies

I have that 'gorgonian' too. Although I am not sure it is a gorgonian, I think it may actually be a leather coral of some sort. 2 reasons why this probably isn't a big deal. 1, because of the head height you are pumping water, you will find that when the pump has no water source, air will be drawn in, this means it cannot pump water back upstairs and the pipe is full of water, water will be pushed up the pipe a little, the fall back into the pump, so it goes up and down in the pipe keeping the pump wet. 2 the Iwaki pumps have a thermal cutoff anyway, so even if it does run dry the pump will turn it self off before any damage can be done. My new sump system easily handels my water volume without the need for syphon holes in the sea swirls ALSO. Won't increasing the size of the center baffle make the problem worse? What you need to do it decrease the size of the baffles to allow for less water in the sump to begin with, remember the only reason it can run dry is if you a loosing water (sump not big enough). Run less water in the sump, this more water capacity in the power outage. Pie

What is the pump? If its a Ehiem they have a threaded in/out. so you can remove the ehiem fitting and fix a normal pressure pipe fitting, then use a glued/threaded hansen bayonet fixing. If its not an Ehiem, go get one pie

Chimera - increasing the shutter speed will just make the photo darker, there is a lot more to it than that. More pics, they look good to me. Pie

Baby goni! Congrats. That is interesting that the numbers are do high our populations are similar. Explains why whenever someone comes to my house they say "ohh my god I have never seen anything like that before in my whole life", because there are none around Reef vs. Saltwater vs. Marine. Saltwater and Marine are interchaneable, they are describing the same thing. A reef is a 'subset' of the marine/saltwater, a reef describing that the tank holds both fish and coral or just coral. Coral have far more demanding requirements than fish as a general rule. Marine/saltwater tanks are not much more expensive to setup than display quality freshwater tanks. Reef tanks however require a bit more care (money). Pie

Livestock is held a 'private/commercial' facilities, often back garage type facilities. Not big, not flash, probalby cater to 20-30 boxes of live goods. From the private facilities the fish are then sold on to the pet stores. Some of the importers (Aqanet) will sell directly to locations without pet-store support (like here in Wellington, where their are no stores supporting the marine hobby) and assuming the volume is worth-while (typically 1+ full boxes). Drygoods are here, and easily available, often with a wait though not a great amount of stock held on big ticket items. One thing about price in NZ is the NZ dollar. Our dollar is fairly week in the grand scheme of things, and is about as high as its ever been right now. If you in NZ and spending US/UK currancy its a pretty attractive place to be. MAF has restrictions on importation here in NZ, and many animals are banned like Lionfish etc. Basically we have 'a list' and if its not on the list, its not allowed in. In my opnion though, its not a big problem for us. A few people here have commented on no 'stunning/rare' items being allowed in. No doubt that Hawaii (US dollar) and carabian (US dollar) cost a lot more than indo/pacific stuff. However for me, I can't think of little thats not available here, you may just have to wait for it to turn up. I have looked for all sorts of things, and to be honest have not found anything out-of-reach. The hobby is growing a little here too. Lots more competetion than ever before, more people importing etc so prices have dropped over the past 12 months. That aside its not a cheap hobby. Marinedepot.com is a popular place for us to purchase stuff and is often half the price or better than NZ availability for many items. The frag market is picking up too, many of us sharing corals to reduce startup prices for new reefkeepers. I live in Wellington, the NZ capitol city. Population of the region abut 400,000. I know of less than 10 marine tanks here, this will no doubt increase if a pet store starts supporting the hobby though. Cheers Pies

Just to throw my own oar into the mix. I am with the majority on this, those number's are hard to belive. KH, CA & MG are all bound to each other, however I didn't think it was really possible to have such a high KH with such a low PH. Doesn't feel right. Test kits have a limited life span, perhapps they need replacing. Water changes. There was a tank on RC recently (mojoreef's) who's only water change was 30L a year (replacing skim-mate). However their is an update on the thread showing that he started doing 10% monthly water changes and noticed a major increase in growth and colour of corals and behavior of the fish, and made it clear that he would no longer advocate not doing water changes. Also note it was a big tank, over 500 gallons I think. Water changes 2. Richard Durso (of standpipe fame) had an awesome tank, with corals sexually reproducing etc. He also was an advocate of no water changes, having grown some stunning corals in his tank. He broke his tank down last year when he moved home. He has sited several times that the reason he doesn't do water changes is one of cost, he is tight with money you see. He has said that he feels the tank woudl beifit from more water changes but its not nessessary. Again this is a larger than normal tank (over 400 gallons *i think*). the water paramaters of the tank Mitch is talking about are appauling and if ever there was a reason to do a water change, 160 nitrate is it. Pies

I used to have this problem a lot with my old tank. My advice would be to replace the speay bar with something purpose made from glued pressure pipe with a screw fitting and a hansen bayonet fitting at the end. Might cost $20-30 but at least you will sleep easy. Also good work on the RCD, goes to show they are worth the money. You will never know if it would have caused a much bigger problem, electricuted you or caused a fire or even distroyed some expensive pump or ballast or something. Pie

I skim fairly 'dry', in that I get mega thick stinky skimate. I get a 3/4 full cup a week, I am forced to drain it or clean in every sunday, or by Tuesday it overflows. Go the skimmer. I am going to look at setting up some mechnical filteration this week. Just run some 1 micron filter wool for 2 days once every few weeks. Pies

Welcome to the NZ scene. Many of us have followed your tank over the last few years and its obviously a real labour of love. Well done and keep the info comming. If you get down to Wellington you are welcome to visit me and I am sure many of the other reef keepers here in the NZ capital would love the opertunity to meet with you. Napier is a lovely place, as is much of New Zealand so I am sure you will enjoy your time here. Cheers Pie