sharronpaul

So how did you go with the installation of the bracing?

Hi Shilo, Welcome to the site. Theres some great people here, who will happily answer all sorts of questions. Enjoy!

We have a 1800x435x435 tank in 6mm, with "euro" bracing top and bottom, and it is fine. Very strong, filled to within 3cm of the top, and houses a swiftly-growing arowana and a big plec. From what I can see of the response from the seller, ours is built similar to theirs. Our house is very busy, with four children aged 3.5 to 12, and the tank is always getting tapped or knocked or having stuff put on the top of it. It's been up a while now, and no problems. Warrens calculator says a safety factor of 2.25. However, it's not like it's struck with a hammer on a daily basis or anything , and I wouldn't want to go much higher in 6mm especially over such a length or it would be messy.

What I've done with our six-footer (with euro braciong) is drill holes close to the corners (but still far enough away so there is some structural component to the strip ), and one along the back around the centre, so it's no hassle to get devices/filter spray bars etc in the tank. Rogan, if you would like some glass strips cut for euro bracing, sing out and I'll see what I have left. It'll be 6mm, though that won't present a problem. Also I have the glass drill bit to drill the holes in the strips if you need.

Hi Mike, good to see you here. Tell us a little about yourself, like what tank you have, fish, setup in general, and what you'd like to achieve with your tank(s). A Rogan says, you're more than welcome to join the WBAS. We're a new club with a strong core and a bunch of guys who love fish. The next meeting is in Te Puke, but it's only 25 minutes from here, and we might be persuaded to give you a lift as long as you can bear being in the car with a whole bunck of noisy kids.

Your LFS should be able to get them in for you. From what I understand, the aqua one AR620 tanks use a 23.5" tube instead of a 24", sounds like this might fit. Kongs list a few, and at your LFS will probably be around $15 to $30 depending on the colour.

Just like to say thankyou to all who attended, a big thankyou to those who made the day happen, and a HUGE thankyou to Peter and Shiela for giving the day an awesome focus with a great presentation. :hail:

mmm .... pizza ....

There has to be a Paul from hamilton, and then will be everything but east.... Maybe a Paul from the Mount.... :lol:

:oops: sorry, pm'd you now.

Forgot to say.... The venue is kiddy friendly. There is a playground over the road at the school, and plenty of areas for them to run around. :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: I'm sure they'd love the pizzas too

Awesome to hear you're coming, Paul. I'll PM you with directions.

I think they've been smoking what they've made with the isopropanol. :lol:

:lol: That would be telling :lol: Crude has stabilised at around $60/barrel. OPEC won't let it get over this, long term, as it encourages alternatives such as solar, electric, alternatives (biodiesel/ethanol) etc. etc. So, in the long term, it won't get much more expensive than it was a few months ago. Those who said it would be $2 by christmas will be sadly mistaken. My two cents.

Most locally produced ethanol is made from whey, costs next to nothing to produce. Pretty much you're paying for handling and storage. $160 seems a bit excessive. Last time I checked, a 20L cube was well under that. Think of it this way. Oil companies are planning to have ethanol blends with petrol by 2009. It's already made in huge quantities for the RTD liquor industry, and for export, by an otherwise worthless byproduct of the dairy industry. It would be hopelessly uneconomic to blend fuels with ethanol if it was going to cost $8 per litre for the ethanol.

I know. I was talking to the chaps at the front counter. It costs $79 plus gst for a 20L cube, and they will sell it to me with a purchase order from my company, as long as it is a registered company with a GST number. I work for one of the "big four" oil companies, and also have a small company of my own that is useful for things such as this.

We sell both at work, for the iso you need a purchase order from a GST-registered company, but methanol they sell to all and sundry. Not sure about ethanol, it doesn't really have an application in fuels at the moment. In a couple of years or so, we'll probably be dedicate one of our small tanks (1,800,000L) to it and it'll be easy to get a "sample" that needs to be sent away for testing..... (picture of salties laying on the ground comatose under the sample tap) :lol:

What about methanol? it's just one step down the evoloutionary ladder from ethanol and is cheaper again than iso.

Can someone please tell me why vodka is used over isopropyl? I'm not a salty but have been reading the threads for a little while and am curious. However, I'm a little confused - vodka is such a a noble liquid to be given to fish, and costing maybe $30 a litre, and a 20L cube of isopropyl costing under $100?

We had maybe a hundred juvenile pearl gourami in with our turtles, they loved it and kept the tank nice and clean. I cut down the turtes feed for a while and the number of gouramis slowly dwindled...... turtles can be quick when they want to be. One thing I have noticed in the past is the filters can pick up alot of the white wispy shedding and this has blocked impellers and sponges on some of our filters. With a recirculating/canister affair, I guess lines would have to be cleaned regularly as well, or the shedding would build up? So to answer your question, fish are fine with turtles, could be a dodgy batch of neons from the importer?

Thats weird... it looks and entirely different colour - much more purple.

So what K rating is a 965?

Forgot to say - and you sort of covered it, Sharn - if anyone is coming from afar, let us know and unless you are a drooling axe-wielding maniac someone in the local fish club should be able to find you somewhere to sleep for the night

Just like to announce the next meeting of the Western Bay club. This time we have a superb guest speaker, Peter Cottle. Peter Cottle travels the world and catches live fish, you can see an article by him in your latest Aquarium World on danios. Peter will be doing a presentation with around 120 pictures on his latest trip. Peter is one of those once in a lifetime opportunity speakers. The meeting is on Saturday 28th October, 3pm, at City Church Tauranga, 252 Otumoetai Rd, Tauranga. All welcome - no entry charge but a gold coin donation towards Peters costs would be appreciated I'm sure. Carpool and make the trip! Shared dinner to follow, consisting of Dominos Pizza, which will cost $5 per head. Great Opportunity - don't miss it!

We played with the fluros in our office a little while back, went from 840 tubes (cool white?) to 865 tubes (daylight - 10000k?) to 965 tubes (a purple colour - guess around 14-16k). A 50/50 combination of 865 and 965 works best for us.