Pies

Cool thanks James. How about a few pics of the sump with the skimmer and CA reactor? Pie

Grow the calurpa to remove nutrients. However you do realise that you will actually have to remove the calurpa for this to work? If you feed it to the fish it stays in the system. Definatly cyno on the bottom of the tank. We all (most) of us have some cyno. I've seen lots of cyno on the reefs. My new theory, if you don't have cyno your tank is unhealthy. Pie

I don't see any problems either. Pull out the Calurpa and should be sweet Go the small tanks! Pies

Best NZ isn't much of a testiment though...

Mine is 730 so should't be a problem then :> Yeah thats what I was saying about marine depot. They have maginet cleaners $90usd but designed for 12mm glass. Wood finish (oak!) and floating. Sounds expensive but could be worth it as I have burned a few $50 magfloats and on my 3rd cheapo (lost half of one somewhere, am curious if it turns up in my tank, maybee it sunk). Pie

Yah I would just clip out a bigger bit then make a comb out of plastic or whatever. Thats the problem with glass, fairly unforgiving. I don't like acrilic tanks, but an accrilic sump would be awesome. Hrmmm I need a hole here *zip* done Piemania

Yeah I was talking about glass cleaner! Flaoting cleaner too eh Steve?

Thanks Steve! I have contacted Marine Depot about purchasing an Iwaki 100, but suspect it will take weeks to arrive. All the plumbing is in, I am ready to go. Damn pump letting me down. I did some tests, I think its pumping water to within about an inch of where I want it to pump I think i could build up some 'ghetto' system to force the water higher, but its just not worth it. Chimera? You have a spare car? Can I have 2 of the window motors please ) Am also tempted to get one of those 'UBER' maginets they sell. Made of 'rare' earth magnets etc. $90 USD seems steep, but I have killed a few maginets, they don't last forever in saltwater. I will post some pics tonight, the weather is AWESOME out here, so if I can I will pop out tonight and get some more water. Pie

It requires drilling holes through my ceiling so will be making sure it works 100% before doing anything to drastic Hopefully it will work out. Suphew, where to from here? Pie

Nah just need the therm so I know what temp the tank is until I get them connected together then the temp controller can take over. I got cheap glass one from a pet shop. Briananemone - Quite right, other than being 12V it could work really well. Lets look into it further

Hey man. No problems on the mushie rock, i'll get you some mushrooms when I pull apart some of these tanks anyway. As for the window wiper motor. How would it 'stop' once it had lifted/dropped the lights? Forgive my ignorance I am not very mechnically minded. Pie

I'd like to see a glass cutter remove 5mm of glass from a glued overflow though. Pics. I think you may need to cut more off Chimera. Id dremmal it off if you only want a little shaved out. Pie

Heya Warren. Yes its comming along very well and has taken some time but its all starting to shape up nicely. Most of the really hard stuff is done (Except how to life the lights) so its all aquascaping and coral placement for the most part. Then move onto building the sump room when time & money permits. The tank is now about 1/2 full and looking really good. I have put maybee 40kg of rock in, only bigger pieces, so my 'stand alone' sump and my tank sump are now empty of large pieces. Over the next few days I will work on emptying the frag growout tank of its bigger pieces of rock if I can. Then its rig up some lights so I can have some coral survive in the big tank and if possible i'd like to empty the whole tank. But this is all relient on me being able to share water between the 2 systems. I also noticed a few mushrooms on a rock I introduced last night, so I might take it out and leave it on the lawn for a few days in the hope of them dieing. I have tried Kalking them but no joy, they are impossible to kill. Apstasia. I have no apstasia in my tanks that I know of. And I have EVERY intention of keeping it that way. So I have the rock spaced out at the moment, and will be keeping a watchfull eye on it. I have got a few majarno anemones (maybee as many as 20 now?) in my frag tank. These things have to go, so it may take longer to empty the frag tank anyway based on how hard it is to kill these damn things. If I get a chance, I may head out to the ocean again today and get another 200 litres of water to add to the tank. This will be approaching the 'lower' part of my over flow system and just about give me enough water to circulate the system as soon as a pump arrives. Pie

Chimera - Wanna do me a favor? How about snapping some pics of the sump room, all the plumbing etc for me? Just email it though if you like, need some ideas before I start mine. Please include how you ended up with the skimmer and ca reactor etc. Cheer

Yeah man, I would just leave it. Make sure you have some rock or whatever in there to provide some still spots but I really don't think its all that important. I mean lots of people run there tanks without a refugium at all with great results. In fact I think unless its big (50% the size of the display or larger) it probably doesn't make different anyway? If it was me, i'd just leave it as it. Pie

Steve, if your happy to do that would be great! Layton - Not much to see downstairs other that whats already been posted + 2 pipes. I am working with Suphew at the moment on the design for the sump room, but having to think about drainige, skimmer placement, if we should move the sink etc. Gonna take a while to know exactly what it is I need. At least its summer so I have a few months to get it sorted before winter. I don't want any more power bills like the ones I had this winter. 4x 300watt heaters running 24/7. Sure my garage was warm...

Sweet! I LOVE that bird wrasse! More pics? Pie

Chimera - Personally I think you should just leave it the way it is. Lots of theorys about how much flow is best for the refugium, but lots of people I know including myself just have the water roaring through there and it makes NO difference at all. You can use clever baffles and dividers to seperate off smaller sections if you want some low flow areas. My refugium is a 4 foot fishtank, cut in half (long ways) with about 6,000 litres and hr moving through it. Its LOADED with copepods, mysiids, worms and other critters. There is rock in there to provide some dead spots as shelter. I don't see any advantage to doing this as all. Why do you need to turn off your pumps to do a water change? Can't you just bleed off a little water until you have dumped as much as you want? Pieman

Well got the reef racks all finished. Took much longer than I thought it would but looks good and am very happy with it. Hooked up my IWAKI pump, with a sticker that says Max Head 13.4 feet. But I couldn't get it to pump water upstairs no matter how hard I tried. Not sure what is going on here but one thing for sure, I am going to need a new pumps sooner rather than later I also went out and got some water My parents and there dog are staying here at the moment so was a good excuse to head out to the beach with the dog. Water was crystal clear and quite warm (16deg). So after fluffing around with the Iwaki, I poured it into the tank. Its holding water, YAY! Went out again this monring. Tank is approx 1/3 full. Enough to fill past the first teir of the reef rack, but below the 2nd. I also threw in about 30 glass shrimps. I figured that they will help with any cycle, and hopefully breed some plankton like food into the tank for when I introduce corals. Many of the shrimp are currently loaded with eggs. I got my 3foot holding tank of rock upstairs too. So I can finally turn of that tank (yay!). Also chucked its heater into the upstairs tank, so have 2 running now. I suspect there is only 400 litres of water in the tank at the moment, so should be more than enough for this time of year. need to go to the petstore tommorow and get a thermomotor, I can't find any around here ANYWHERE! So things are really progressing here now, but no return pump is a real headache. I hope to get the Iwaki ordered Monday or Tuesday but it will take weeks for it to arrive I am sure. Pics comming when I get a chance. Pie

I use a 21'' screen too, damn those are some small pictures! hehehe Looks like a good setup, what a godsend being able to cut your own holes reliably. Well done. If your ever in Wellington do sing out, always welcome people over to chat fish for a bit Pie

Heya Drifty. The eggcrate is fairly strong but does require some support, which is what the 50mm downpipe 'legs' do. I just added legs until when I put weight onto the crate it doesn't bend so much it can break, the weight should be pretty evenly spread out and once there is water in there the rock weights 'less' too. I have every confidence its going to be just fine. Pie

Organise a discount and throw and Iwaki100 on the list Wouldn't the 40 have been idea for the closed loop as its 0 head? Lots of holes, lots of time to drill em Yeah you need maximum water flow, not point in having the rack then filling the space with solid legs. I am soooo close to water, scarey Pie

Yes a very similar system in the existing tank which worked out very well. The mistakes I made was not glueing the legs to the bottom of the tank. I also made it a little big and it was annoying as I could see the rack from certain angles. I am going to try my best to make it invisitble this time. It woked perfectly last time, no grunge on the sand bed, fish would hide under there if scared. Hope this works out Pie

Cheers sounds like excellent advice! Don't suppose you want to come to Wellington and do a hole for me? Pie

WTF are you on about? Pie