Pies

More pictures: Christmas tree worm looking healthy and a lovley colour. Nice leather slowly getting larger. Sinulara dura loving its new spot. Xenia debate (are you reading Carla?). Here is an original piece from JetSkiSteve, white flesh & brown polyps. Is it the same as this Xenia with white flesh and brown polyps with white stripes? Also notice the white Xenia to the left? I think this is 3 different Xenias, definatly 2. Anyone else with pics of there Xenia to share? Brown leather or Gorgonian? Pies

You probably can't have too much light, but there are many factors to consider. I am using 400s, 400s cost more to run but the bulbs are cheaper. Bigger bulbs create more heat. Some corals like more light than other corals etc. How high is your rock structure. Pie

DapDap. I see your in Wellington too, there are a few of us (10ish) with tanks etc. Maybee we should hook up at some stage, have a look at each others systesms etc. Water change the nirtates will take a lot of big water changes, but you will get there. Just try feeding a little less perhapps? Not sure how big your system is, how much rock, how big the skimmer etc but all of these things help. I have 0 nitrates (0 on the test kit...). Big skimmer, lots of rock, water changes, low bio load from fish and little feeding is what I am doing. YMMV Good luck Pies

Damsels are aggressive fish, been attacked by many when diving. Worth noting that clowns are also damsels. Percs and ocelleris (sp? False Percs) seem to be the more mild mannered of any of them though. Let them work it out, 4 foot is not overly large, may just not work out, hard to know. Sump for the Starki is proably the best bet. Good luck catching it, you may need to invest in a trap. Good luck Pie

Thanks wasp. It was added to my tank December 2003, so well over the 1 year hump. Its also survived a tank move. When planing the new tank it was always the highest priority to find the perfect spot for it, hence the bommie. So far its walked around the bommie several times, but seems to have setteled. I am hoping it will enjoy the new 400watt 20ks, seems to so far. Cheers pie

Wasp - Re-read your post. I thought you were saying a MH every 2 feet eg. a 4 footer only needing one, with 2 feet free each side. Different anemones will require different conditions. My H. Magnificia sits high in the tank, under a couple a 400 watter, other anemones I have are surviving under overhangs or right on the bottom of the tank near the end (lowest light area in my tank). So different species require different conditions, which really comes as no surprise. Everything I have read about anemones saying pristine water conditions, extremely high light and good water flow, which I belive I have all of these. So far my anemones look good and none have died, nor have any split. Feeding the anemone is an interesting one, I do NOT feed mine, ever. Although I have seen the clownfish taking food and putting it in its mouth. So shouldn't say its never fed. Some people feed whole lance fish and scollops etc, I do not do this, although I did it for a few months at the start. Pie

Wasp I don't think that is quite right, too little light. That would mean on a 6 foot tank you would need only 2 MHs, but on my 7 footer I use 4 and am considering 5. My 5 footer had 2, really needed 3. suphew is setting up a 3 footer with 2, Layton has 3 on his 5 footer, steve with 2 on his 4 footer etc. i had a 3 footer and a single blub was not enough light. Just my thoughts. Pieman

Run out of Co2 last night to run the CA reactor so took my 3.5 litre bottle to BOC today to get refilled. $9.80. Not bad. hooked back up again and running. Lasted over 12 months. Pie

Streams 'may' help improve some coral growth, a chiller may save your tank from crashing. The hottest month of the year on average is Febuary. Hrmmm what to do.... Pie

My tank crept up to 28 the other day, target of 25. No fans, 2500 litres of water, 6 halides. Which reminds me I must put the sump on a reverse cycle. Jane calls us fish nerds. I don't consider myself a geek, although I do run a team of geeks, so maybee that makes me the geek master, as oposed to master geek Pieek

My tank is without polished edges. Hardly worth paying the price when typically only 2 edges are visible, and using a surround hides them anyway (as bill said). I also asked a question about polished edges a whole back in regards to tank strength, Warrens reply was more strength without them (the iregular surface is better for the silicone to adhere to or some such). Take the cheap glass and go for it. Why stop at 4 foot? Go big, go hard Good luck Pie

Well normally I wouldn't open my home to strangers, but since your a female i'll send you a key, whats your address? Ohhh and measurements? /end bad joke. Thanks for the compliments. The tank is still new and too me still looks very 'new'. But its comming along well and as always, the photos do not do it justice. I was in Palmerston North today, not too far away at all. You are more than welcome to come over for a coffee or a beer and look for yourself. I am trying to re-coop some of the setup and running costs so I charge a mere $1,750.00 admission and am happy to work out a group concession There is no-one in Wellington doing marines. Close to 75% of my setup came from Alois, the rest from stores in Auckland or '2nd hand' through people like JetSkiSteve who is always stocking up on frags to send to me. Its a pain not having a local store, but retail prices don't excite me too much anyway (don't get me started). Hope to see you soon. Piemania

Good work on the swapping/sharing. 10/10

I highly reccomend anyone who swims at a pool that provides poo nets should stop doing so, now. Pie

I know the E.Bourneman book says these corals live in sandy bottoms but I often wounder if thats typo. I have seen thousands (maybee 10s of thousands) of fungia corals in several different countries and everytime they are on the rocky reef, not once have I seen them on the sand, never. Just laying about sitting on the rocky rocks of the reef. fyi. Pies

Just to be the king of contriversy (sp?) it should be noted that 99% of the reef parts that I have dived dont have sand. Just rocks for as far as the eye can see. So sand free may be more 'realistic' than with sand, if you get what I mean? Still sand looks good, rock doesn't. What would look good is if you had a really deep tank so could have DRB (Deep Rock Bed) so the floor of the tank was all reef rock, with sand at the bottom of that where you couldn't see it. Then the fish could swim through the bottom of the tank and corals could grow in the substrate. UBER. Pie

The original Berlin method (LR + Skimmer & no biological filters) is sand bed less. Personally I think bare bottomed tanks look ugly. From reading stuff by Eric Bourneman it goes in cycles. There are poeple out there who just won't leave their tank alone. Sand one week, bare bottomed the next, different skimmer every 6 months, supliments, no supliments, UV, no UV, ozone, no ozone etc etc etc. Lots of people with acrylic tanks don't use sand beds and the look of a bare bottomed tank is better than one of a heavly scratched tank. I read a lot, and I havn't noticed any trends, some do have BB, most don't. Havn't seen a mass exodis of people dumping their sand beds in the places I visit. Pie

chimera - I can click the links and view full screen, but we knew that. I am talking about the photos linked and embedded in my post, they are smaller than they should be. Pie

Shame you can't turn it off! I am running my desktop at 1600x1200 and I have to squint to see those pics...

Fay - Yeah its expensive. I have factored bulb replacement costs into my overall costs and its the reason I went for 4x 400 watt over 6x 250 watt. similar power costs, but bulb replacement would have killed me. At least all of my bulbs are new right now, 9 months of worry free lighting Good luck Pieman

Chimera - Glad the photos helped. Its not my browser. Layton - Riddle me this. If the Javascript is resizing the photos how does that help people with slower connections as the source files remain the same size? Doesn't make sense to me, just means you have to wait longer to download larger pics and then once its loaded, the FNZAS web page scales them down anyway. I think. Purple acro is doing really well, you wouldn't belive how large its grown. ITs holding great colour and still grows quick. Easily grown large enough to frag. A frag exchange sounds great, I have space for a few corals at the moment. I'll PM you and sort something out. You don't want a bird nosed wrassee do you? Pie

Similar to this? I have zillions, I consider them postive. Pie

Big changes at the moment around lighting. I've now got my last 2 400 watters and installed them tonight. This photo shows the temp setup: 250watt 10k DE, 250watt 10k DE, 400watt 20kBLUE SE, 400watt 20kBLUE SE. Suplimented by 4 85 watt T5s 2x Narva Blue 2x 6500 White. This photo shows the final setup: 400watt 20BLUE SE, 4000watt 20k SE, 400watt 20kBLUE SE, 400watt 20kBLUE SE. Suplimented by 4 85 watt T5s 2x Narva Blue 2x 6500 White. Although its hard to explain, the BLUEs now look far more WHITE than the WHITES ever did. I used to explain the 10k BLVs I was using as 'crisp white' I would now describe them as 'yellow'. Interesting the white 6500 T5s I would have described as 'mildly yellow' I would now describe as 'nicotine teeth yellow'. Chimera I hope that helps. Pie EDIT: These pictures are 1280x[aspect] but I am only seeing them 600 wide, visit the hosted site for higher res. Anyone know why this is doing this?

I've posted photos on my 'first look thread', shouldn't take over this one. Drifty I am using single ended bulbs so no need for cover glass as the outer sheild is the 'cover' glass. NOTE: You must use cover glass for doubble ended Metal Halides. My reflector - VERY DIY at the moment. Its a bent stainless steel reflector 2 metres long. There are some pictures of it on an earlier thread I had running about lighting. If you can't find it let me know and i'll search around. Pretty ordenarty stuff but its all I can do (afford) right now. Pie

You will regret not drilling the tank, this is something I can garantee. Drilling a tank is not hard, if your glazer won't do it try a tiler or buy a bit of ebay and do it yourself. We drilled an existing tank last weekend, took less than 10 minutes and couldn't have been any easier. Through the base of a 10mm tank. It was dissapointingly easy. As for the drilling causing fatal damage to the tank see my remark above. Not drilling is the mistake. YMMV. pie