Pies

? Diatom is a type of algae. If its not what is it? Pie PS: Best plave to get RODI is the net. Spinedoc brought a 6 stage of EBAY, brand new less than $300NZ delivered.

Bourneman Corals at the top. Tullock 'natural reef aquairums' 2nd. The rest I have read and own I wouldn't overly reccomend. Piemania

Nope, I mean 5 Litre. Pies

I have a 1/2 litre bottle (jbl) for my freshwater, at a rate of 1 bubble every 2 seconds it lasts about 3 weeks, maybee a little less. Costs $10 to fill, cash (BOC gas). On my CA reactor I use a 5L bottle, which at 1 bubble a second lasts about 10 months, last fill cost $9+gst (BOC gas). Pies

Chimera - My refugium is loaded with pods, they crawl on the glass, allover the overflows, they are everywhere. I have mysiid shrimp swiming in and around all my rockwork, they are visible during the day and the night. People who have seen this can attest to it. Now my tank doesn't even come close to the life that I see in the refugium. I know (educated guess) that it feeds the tank. I would be surprised if 1% of the total 'pod' population in my tank gets to the overflow before being consumed by the fish/coral. The refugium (latin for 'place of refuge') can't be providing a very good service if you are going to skim everything out before it hits the tank. Now I know you want it to be OK, but it won't be. It makes no sense to have the skimmer after the refugium. The skimmer will be removing the pods and plankton (for lack of a better description) from the refugium before it hits the tank. This is a poor design concept and the question would be is there any point in having a refugium if you are going to skim all of the goodness it does out. Don't put your skimmer after your refugium. Pie

Completely dissagree. I have read countless amounts on this and its counter productive to have the skimmer after the refugium. This is why so many people have above tank small refugiums as some (www.thereefweb.com) have shown that even the return pump can kill a larger proportion of pods/mysidds from the refugium (gets worse the smaller the pump is). Makes complete sense. Piemania

Where is the skimmer? Not much point in running the refugium into the skimmer, you will skim out all of the goodness. Pie

Suphew is correct, if its not a closed loop then pressure will depend on the height of the return hole. Sea Swirl would be a good recomendation for the return pipe, and they are easy to adapt for reverse syphon if you think its nessessary. Pie

Why do you want to turn it over? I just leave mine (approx 2inch thich), seems fine, looks clean and white. Its full of life (lots of little tube thingies etc), I think if you get a sand sifting goby they 'kill' the sandbed? But they are nice looking fish. Pieman

Cracker - your tank appears to be a stunner, would love to see more of it and know more about it. Good work! Pies

I'd go for a 1400 litre tank and 2 sumps equalling over 1000 litres Pies

I always run carbon. I use 1/2 litre changed every 3-4 weeks. Its the same carbon i've been using for over 15 months on the same rotation and I still have over half a sack left. I did a 320 litre water change today so will see if that helps at all. Nothing is stinging the corals, its widespread accross the tank effect any and all xenia and like corals, regardless of position either in sump or display. I have given a piece to Suphew to see if it recovers in his tank (which is how I got this originally - I purchased it from Reef, went great for agaes then started to do this (15 months ago), gave what survived to JetSkiSteve who kept it for me and gave it back in great condition. It was small when I got it, but grew into over 10x its delivered size before crashing Pies

Well its interesting but this post will put the Saltwater section of this message board ahead of all of the other sections of this board! We have more topics & more posts & the largest threads (and probably more banned threads and more banned people too!) than any of the other sections! We are the most popular kids in school. Who would have thought that the saltwater would generate so much interest compared to freshwater. Since we started using this board we helped spawn (punn intended) the DIY section and the 'members tanks' sections too, those pots should have been ours! Go the Reef Keepers, Marine Keepers & Salties. Piezilla

Beachy - There is lots of marketing with fish trade light bulbs. Lots of information on Advanced Aquairust Online about who re-badged what bulbs etc. The bottom line is ANY fluro within the 6000-7200 Kelvin light spectrum will be ideal. I personally use 6500k bulbs from Osram on my freshwater tank, the 4 footers cost about $9ea. There is no advantage to using the $30-$70 pet-store brands at all. Regardless of description 'daylight' 'dayglow' 'natural' 'evening' etc the most important factor is the KELVIN rating, 6000-7200 is where you need to be, NOTHING else is usefull (not really true, advanced plant keepers and people showing of certain fish colours may choose different lighting for this reason), stick to what i've said and you can't go wrong. Any electrical store will stock these bulbs, and if you ask them about Kelvins they will know exactly what your talking about. Piemania

My new tank gets a bit of natural sunlight in the mornings for a few hours each day. The corals that get the direct natural sunlight look no different than they did in the tank before that had no natural sunlight. Either it makes NO difference or my artificial lighting is equal or superior to what it gets from out sun. Pie

My star polyps remain unchanged and are as healthy and good looking as ever. Its the Xenia/Calvera etc thats dieing. Cracker - I feed several foods to the tank, Salifert, Kent phyto, cyclopsezee. Doesn't/hasn't made a lick of difference. Its not a feeding issue and has nothing to do with my tank being too clean. My tank is dirty, its a dirty dirty beast. I am convinced its a water paramater issues, either too many poisons from corals waring (I have several largish acro colonies fighting) or most likley something in the water has been depleted. Or the cleaning of my CA reactor has made a difference. I am at a loss as too any other cause. Doing BIG waterchange tommorow, we will see what happens but from what i've read, when its dead its dead. Pieola

Hiding the heaters and extra water volume alone would be worth the effort IMO. Piemania

No dig taken Like I said I wouldn't reccomend my actions, but it hasn't effected my one iota. If I was offering advice I would point them to your advice. Piemania

Durso is the secret to silence. As for silence in the sump, its all got to do with flow and water fall, the less water falls the quieter it will be. Not sure if there is much you can do about keeping the return pump and skimmers pumps quiet though, certaily nothing I can do about mine other than the obvious building a box to contain them and the noise. But wait, mine is in the garage, who cares Pie

I am using a mixture of both. I wait between 10-20 seconds before running live tank water though em. I wouldn't advise that it what you should do, but it is what I do do. I use Natural Sea Water anyway so whats a bit of solvent going to do? smells the same as desiel anyway Pie

I didn't think it was a risk, I thought it was a sure thing? You often see these fish in reef tanks as juv. but how many adults you see in established reef tanks? None. Then you get to a question, what do you do? Do you sacrifice all of your coral to keep the fish? Unlikley. So you will either have to kill it (hey! Then you could put another juv. in) or find a home for a large non-reef-safe fish, just like all those big fish like plicostomas, pacu etc I see everytime I visit our local fish shops. Nice looking fish though. Pie

I'm interested to see how my tangs get along as the get larger, who will win? Blue eye vs. Yellow vs. Blue vs. Sohal vs. Salifin vs. PBT There can be only one. (god I hope not) Pie PS: Considering adding a purple and kole too:)

I saw a Clown Tang in the display tank at Jansens 3 Kings last week. Pie

Are you on a budget? How big is your tank? The purple or the kole are much nicer. The kole can be stunning and the comb mouth makes them worthy of consideration, my Blue Eye is a great fish for hovering up algae. Piemania

If you read the info on UR/RC about copperbands there are lots of stories about them nipping corals but no-one has actually seen it or owned one themselfs. I think its a myth, I know people with CBB over 5 years old in reefs no problems. Reefs comments are right, they are medium/difficult to keep but the problem most people have is sticking them in reeftanks with too many other agressive fish and they shy away, don't get a chance. They also eat all the little worms and feather dusters, crabs etc which I think is a big negitive. Chimera - Bangaii are easy if you get a healthy specimen, if they live past the first month you should be good. I have 2, both are over 18 months old. Sailfin tang, easy (as easy as all tangs) get large. Mine is a bueat. PBT - Mine is almost a month old, fighting with whitespot. They are considered medium/hard, so far no problems here except it got picked on by the yellow tang and blue tang for a few days, but now all is well (I have 6 tangs). No experance with angels. Good luck Pieola