Pies

Shae - Build an overflow box or weir. I prefur using an overflow box with a durso standpipe. Pictures and info on my 'first look at new setup' thread, and my other thread building a new tank with the SCWD thread. also Chimera thread on 'building a sump room' has pics of his overflow box, comb and durso. If you still don't understand search the internet for 'overflow box'. Pie

I don't think this is particualry accurate or even reccomended. Bioballs/filter wool etc will create huge aerobic bacterria counts with no anerobic bacterria, helping convert amonia and nitrite to nitrate but never prescipitating the nitrate, infact its probably inaccurate to call this system a filter as all it does is chemical conversion but removes nothing. Bio-balls or any other 'filter media' are going to cause un-nessessarly high counts of Nitrates. Best to use the sump as 'extra water volume' and a place to store equipment as stated. Baffles etc as pictured can be very usefull but is doesn't need to be that complex. On REEFCENTRAL.COM etc their are dozens if not hundreds of people using plastic containers as sumps with a submersiable pump in it. Will work just as well as a 'fancy' glass sump, be 10x cheaper and much easier to drill if you ever have to/want to. Just use a plastic bin/bucket and 'ta da' a sump is born. Good luck, doing research, listening to lots of peoples opnions and ideas before embarking on your own project is the best way to go. Good luck pie

Yep, bioball = bad. Filter wool = bad. Infact as a general rule of thumb = bad Pie

Dan. Are you sure that stand is going to be strong enough to hold all that weight? Is there a 3rd tank? That looks to be quite heavy. Are you putting down planks or something under the tanks to hole the weight? Pie

Layton - So MM is going to reduce the amount of Phosphate and Nitrate from 0 (on the test kit) to 0 (in relality?). Thus doing a better job than a system without MM? I am curious to see how it goes, but I suspect MM is a fad/phase. HOWEVER I am still quite interested in a skimmer free system. As for Brendons tank I don't know, I am in Wellington not Auckland. Perhapps someone knows if this is true? And it would be a shame, no-one has (had?) nicer hard coral colours than what I saw in Brendons tank, truley stunning. Alois - Is there an equation for how much MM/how big a sump, how much calurpa you need per volume of water? Like for my tank (1460 litre) how big a sump do I need before I can turn off the skimmer? Pie

Layton - Whats the bet? I bet I don't, nothing bold about it. My test kits for Nitrate & Phosphate (x3 resoultion) are zero according to salifert. Steve is running ZEOVIT so I think its highly likley his a zero. Zero being as low as the test kits will test.

All Welcome.

We are going to have a BBQ at my place on Sunday the 9th of January. JetSkiSteve and his wife will be in Wellington and we thought it would be a good opertunity for those of us in Wellington to meet the JAFA, talk fish and put a face to the name. Because Sunday is a school night we will start the BBQ cooking at 5:30pm. Please bring something to throw on it and something to drink. Please give me a call, PM or email if your comming so we know how many to expect. Also be a good chance to see my new tank full of water and fish for those who may be interested. Cheers Mark

Question - I thought the purpose of using a skimmer was to remove nutrients? I thought the purpose of growing calurpa was to remove nutrients? If so, how does adding MM help remove nutrients, as it adds them? Won't the skimmer just remove the nutrients the MM adds? Wouldn't you get better results growing the calurpa without the MM? Just curious, I like the idea of no skimmer but not sure how the MM system actually works when used with a skimmer or why you would use MM to grow calurpa when you can do so without the MM. Good luck with it, am very interested to see how it goes. Pieman

The are no good. They can't do the fine adjustment needed for our purposes. They are designed for comerical uses. Been though this myself. By some purpose built units from Dupla, JBL etc. Cost new less than $200 with gagues, often $120 without gagues. I got my Dupla Alpha gagues for $120 2nd hand. There where some for sale on Trademe a week or so ago (dupla alpha). The bottle needs to be a CO2 bottle. Any bottle will do, dive tank, bbq bottle anything. BUT it must be tested for C02, and if its converted it needs to be acid cleaned first. Pie

When my cleaner shrimp and boxing shrimp spawn the tank goes nuts. All my fish, clowns, bangii, dwarf angels 'pacman' around the tank until noting is left. Be surprised if there is a single baby left after 10 minutes Good luck, from what I under stand clownfish are quite easy once you have the food sorted. However no food, no chance. Pie

T5s can be found at most electrical suppliers. Trade makes the 5 foot tubes about $22ea for 6500K 'daylight' triphospher. So not too expensive at all. They are a pretty standard unit these days. Use NSW if you can source a good supply of it. I use NSW and have a huge financial investment in my tank and want nothing but the best for it, so am using NSW because I belive it better not because its cheaper. If you decide to use ASW factor in $300+ for a water filter system too. A 50 litre tank is just too small. Try and find a 4 footer if you can. Personally I struggle enough with my water paramaters with over 1000 litres of water, 50 litres of water would be a maintenance and testkit nightmare. You have been warned. Top off is very important, more important in a smaller tank. I would buy a peristolic pump and be done with it if it was me, but they are expensive ($200+). Feeding coral and anemones and target feeding. Target feeding is when you take a piece of food (say shrimp) and use tongs or a stick and feed it directly to the coral or anemone until it takes it and starts to eat it. I personally don't target feed any of my anemones or corals. The less food that goes in the tank the better. Lighting, again any electrical supplier. I would find a source of bulbs first before deciding on lighting. T5s or normal fluros will proably be OK for a shallow tank (400mm or shallower). Find the bulbs (blue 03 actinic or 6500-10000K or a mixture most likley). Then build you reflector around it. Reflectors are common and can easily be made. There may be some good deals on T5s with gull wing reflectors here if you stick about I am sure someone can do you a deal. Good luck Pie

Snaped off a few pics, thought I'd share: The anemone is closing. Not sure why it does this, but every month or so it closes up for a few hours, pisses off the clownfish no-end because they can't get into their home! All fish are accounted for so its not feeding, and its been 3 days since i've fed the tank myself. 2.5 of my 4 clowns live in this anemone, 1.5 live in some clover coral growing on some caulstrea in the sand even though there are 2 other anemones in there. What you doing? Sitting around, having a bud, watching the game. Pie

Kermit - My metal brace doesn't go past the brace, so it will connect with the glass after .5mm travel anyway. If you know what I mean? Pie

Bummer to loose any fish, Reef is right, prevention is better than cure. Once the fish is sick, I suspect its more good luck than good management for the to survive anyway. Better luck. Pie

What about freshwater rotifer cultures? You know a jar, a drop of egg juice (boiled egg through a muslin coth), left in the sun for a days until it populates? Also what about NSW? Or an established 'refugium' that loaded with pods and shrimps? There must be little critters in there for the big ones to grow into? Good luck

Kermit - I am not sure how it could pivot. Sounds like a sound enough idea, not sure if its really nessessary though, I don't really have any issues or problems with the way it is. Infact if I had to do it all over again I would do it exactly the same way again. Remember it doesn't need to hold the weight of all the water, the glass is doing that, all its doing is helping support the glass. Thanks for the ideas! Didn't quite follow what you were saying about STEVE and the new TUNZE. New TUNZE what? As for your opnion of TUNZE I would say this, they make fantastic pumps (if not well over priced), there controllers, skimmers, auto top off systems are either not very good or just way over priced. But the STREAMS get my endorsement, great pumps. Pie

Brianemone - I am completely relaxed, thankyou. Now I am confused. I added in the bit about actinics and streams to highlight how stupid it was. e.g. Heaters are used to heat the water, in nature the water is warm. What exaclty does garlic replace in nature for the fish? Pie

Updated pics of what? It looks the same as it did last time I posted a photo. PSI in the center? Not sure, but not excessive. Infact I would be quite confident in removing the center brace alltogether. When we tested the tank we tested it without the center braces on fill to the brim, didn't move a bit. But the top braces are 15mm glass and running in both directions so there is ample bracing. Pie

Wasp - I don't disagree completely. Although I would like to think that I am emulating nature as closely as possible (given the constraits). I artificially alter the chemical composition of the water to be the same as it is in nature (CA reactor, skimmer, heater etc). I don't use copper, joes juice, metheline blue, bleech or any other additives or preservitives. I too have no objections to using something that mother nature can't provide in our tanks, yet I struggle to see what garlic is providing. If you think garlic works I doubt anything I can say will change your or anyone elses mind. However I would think no-one would disagree that stressing an already sick fish further is going to help, and changing its diet to something like garlic in an instant seems very reactionary and FAD, like water beds and adding vodka to your tank. This is my objection, nothing to to with garlic itself. My point stands, stable healthy conditions will do more good than feeding garlic, dropping salinity, increasing temprature or dosing anti-whitespot fomulas. There is a time for intervention, its when you have no other options. Pie

Gregb - There is 2mm of silicone between the steel and the glass, at no point can the steel every touch the glass. As for heat expension/contraction if the steel is heated between 20-200 degree celcius it will expand less than .005mm according to the spec sheets for the grade of steel. Its marine grade and its the same sort of steel used to make guns, engine parts things like that. So the lights may heat it a little, but not enough to cause any travel. As for finger tight, the nuts a weilded to the frame, its the rods through the middle that are threaded, so finger tight was done (with locktight) when the tank was empty, but now that there is pressure on the thread, it would take some sort of industrial tool to move it. I am very happy with the way its worked out though, would never return to a glass center brace. Cheers for your imput! Pie

What a STUPID response. I've never seen a 300 watt heater but the oceans in the tropics are warm, i'ver never seen a blue actinic light hanging from the sky yet everything underwater is blue and i've never seen a TUNZE stream whilst diving yet there are still water currents. A skimmer helps the aquairist maintain the water conditions found in nature, where as garlic is a foerign substance not found in the oceans or a fishes diet naturally. Pie

Wasp - I've seen that link before. All it sais is that in theory garlic (or the ingrediants that make up gralic) could/should work based on its teristal properties. Doesn't say if it does work, how to use it, how much to use etc. I am more worried about the negitive aspects of it, given that its a change in the diet of the fish, it doesn't feel like its particulary natural (not much garlic in the ocean) and too much garlic in humans can cause sickness and nausia. Garlic away if you must, but its looks like an risk for unknown benifit. Pie

I'd like to see the science behind this statement. From everything i've read about garlic nothing compels me to belive it doesn't anything but add additional stress to the tank inhabiance. Increaseing temprature will not kill the whitespot, it will however increase the lifecyle of the parasite. Raising the temprature it popular in freshwater when medicating the tank as the cysts fall off they are killed by the medication. If your not medicating the tank it will just cause it to spread quicker. 8.8alk is OK, perhapps a little high, but lots of people belive (including eric bourneman) that running it between 8-9 is benificial. But this is talking about coral health, not fish. From what I understand the fish will be OK as long as its stable. If the alk is high, the PH will be stable, which is a good thing. Pie Pie

Ch0ris_Kerryn - I belive you may be on the way to doing more damage than the 'white spot' your fish has. Lowering salinity (hyposalinity) will help with ich, but you need to do it slowly. Dropping it more than .001 per day is dangerous and stressfull for the fish. I think you have made a mistake reacting so quickly. Also hyposalinity should really only be done in a quarantine tank, not in the main tank. Think about how much stress you have caused the blue tang and EVERYTHING else in the tank. Many fish including blue tangs live with parsites that manifest them self as white spots when the fish is stressed. When I moved my tang just recently is was COVERED in whitspots, several weeks on its as clean as a whistle. No other fish effected. If it was me I would make sure the animal is well fed, along with the rest of the tank. And insted of changing the fishs diet (garlic will no doubt be brought up, I would reccomend against it) and changing the water conditions (hyposalinity, treatments) I would look at providing as stress free environment for the fish as you can. Feed it, keep your hands out of the tank, don't add stock, keep the water paramaters spot on. With the 5 outbreaks of whitespot i've had so far, this has resloved it each and every time and so far I have lost no fish to it. Don't over react, stability is the key to avoiding fish loss. Whitespot on marines is quite different from whitespot on freshwater. So don't panic, keep calm and it will work it self out. Good luck Pie