camnbron

Hi Jezza, I agree with what adoge is saying about the temperature. Me love fishy is on to is stocking wise for your tank size. I would consider a bristlenose for your bottom feeder as they don't grow really big. I like the GBA ones as they are a neat colour and look. Keep away from the plecostomus species like the goldspot and red spots as they can get big - a common mistake by people. For a "single show fish" consider a Male siamese fighter fish - you can get some neat coloured ones, but they don't like having other males in the tank so just one. Not too sure for schooling fish. Neon tetras are readily available and relatively cheap, tetras in general are good.

How much bubble algae have you got? I had a little initially and also later had some on a piece of live rock from another reefers tank. In both instances I manually removed the bubble algae using a very small flat head screwdriver and netting the floaters. If you do this, you have to be careful not to burst the bubbles as this will help it spread.

To me it is understandable why there is a lag between shipments. Exporters have limits on what the can export. The importer brings in stock, it has to go in quarantine for a set period of time. The stock the is onsold to the shops and they are limited by what they can hold. They then have them sitting in the tanks until all of us keen as beans people buy them. The shops wouldn't be hounding the importer until most of their stock is sold, then the importer wouldn't be hounding the exporter until most of the shops start hounding them. The exporter can't supply the importer unless they have quota left. Hence the lag IMO On the zoas front, one of the colonies I got from Wonderworlds last month is changing from having outer brown frills/fronds(?) to a green matching the centre, and another colony has the centre taking on a skin/nipple pink look.

Question (for clarification): You say that you have tested the water for 2 days running and the ph is 9.5+, have you changed any water? What I would do in this situation would be to perform some large waterchanges, syphoning the water through the substrate. Obviously there are no livestock in the aquarium so big temperature and ph swings aren't a concern.

Rated for tanks up to 500L. Should do the job I had the same one on my 240L tank, was really good, but I removed the bioball do-dackies and replaced them with more noodles.

Good to see Bud is a down to earth celebrity and signs his own autographs.

Hmm, do you have in writing that your wife told you to go and buy a big tank? You wouldn't want to disappoint her by getting an "average" size tank now would you? Maybe like an Aquaone Royale 120.... or an Aquagrande 180... Just say that you're not to good convering imperial measurements to metric!!

If you are going to go with an aquaone and considering the CF1000, my recommendation would be to spend the little bit extra to get the CF1200. Thats what I did when I had my freshwater tank last year (240L planted tropical), go that little bit larger if you can. I found it to be a good filter unit.

For my MCE600: I had mine a 2 oclock but I just have it fully open now. For cup location mines about half way Pretty sure there aren't any skimming improvement Mods you can do. There are a couple of mods people have done for noise reduction though: If you have an older skimmer it may have the black rubber bushes on the impellor shaft in the pump, these go loose over time. There is a kit you can get that has replacment bushes (better material) and some new strips for the bottom of the pump (vibratio reduction). Some people have just wraped the black bushes in thread tape and rubbertape around the pump housing and find it does the same job. The other mod is to put an elbow and a bit of pipe on the outlet to reduce the splashing noise. Do you remove and clean you pump often? I do this around every 3 months. Works better when pump not restricted

Current lighting setup is: 150W Metal halide 14k USHIO/BLV Nepturion 150W Metal halide 20k Coralux both with osram electronic ballasts 54W T5 powerglo 54W T5 marineglo both off electronic ballast with individual reflectors 2 strips of 12 blue LEDs with custom reflectors "for ambience" Kind of.. My rose BTA is hogging centre stage, the zenia should not be where it is, the soft corals I intend to find new homes, there are some mushrooms in stupid places.... Intention is to have a tidy up in the near future Tested once per month and readings have always been low, although like you have pointed out the bright green algae on the bottom is present and pre-RO unit there was a handful of hair algae present. So PO4 and Nitrate will be there, just not in a measureable state. I expect this to improve over time with manual removal of what is left and the other improvements I have made/am making. I understand that the my sps would tend to be brown due to too much nutrients in the tank and lack of light - hence my move to a RO unit and the addition of the T5's. I do see colouration on the montipora's red on the plating and green on the branching not vivid though. I also believe my cleanup crew (Bicolour blenny, yellow eye kole tang, lemon peel mimic tang + snails) are assisting in improving the tanks overall condition. I selected those tangs because of their smaller tank requirements and their grazing habits. The blenny is fairly good too and he cracks me up, nosey little dude Cheers Westy, tried to tie the look in with the home theater system cabinet. YeeHah! Best I get my A into G and get ready.

Reef, I have another question regarding your photos. Do you have any advice on taking photos? What time of day - sunlight glare? Lighting on the tank - all lights on? Do you use the macro funtion much? or is it possible to just take cut and zoom in on a specific coral later Cheers for any help.

The trial was a raging success, I've removed the foam from the doors as my sump and overflow are so quiet now. With the full syphon as the primary I have no bubbles entering the sump, I have also put some filterwool under the return pump to isolate it from the sump and this has also helped. My tank has changed since the last post. This is a picture from last month: I have since added two 4ft T5 tubes (1x Marineglo 1x powerglo)with remote electronic ballast and individual reflectors Once my tank has adjusted to these I will add a new picture. After doing a little bit of research I have decided to adopt the Zeovit system, however, I am currently awaiting my shipment to arrive, so it will be interesting to see how that works out. I would like to see less poo brown coloured corals! Also after plodding along with rainwater for top-up water, I have invested in a RO system (since end of december). I have gone with the GE Merlin Reverse osmosis system so we can use it also - its a point of use so no need for a storage container under the sink. My next hardware step I am looking at is a computer - I like the look and functions that the Profilux plus II is capable of - but am awaiting feedback from other people who have them.

Hey Reef, are those pics from your tank, stock you have imported or are they just random ones from the net? I like the white speckled Bubble tip anenome (BTA): Is it classed as a rose BTA or something else?

Dont forget the vodka!! Oh and the mushrooms. Mind you its much easier than trying to pronounce the scientific names

This post is off the masa site by an American member (so American dollars): This post is from a topic titled "rare tangs" I guess that only makes the problem worse - they can get their stock so much cheaper because they get so much more stock than us. This then makes the stock more accessable to more people meaning they get more stock etc and the cycle continues..... There are some companies in around the world that are trying to commercially breed marine fish but like has been commented it not easy

I maintain the equipment for the place that makes a product, that is used by other places to make the boxes or cladding for boxes or stuff to put in boxes. And that product is packaged in the shape of a box.

I wouldn't have the foggiest idea. If you search for seahorse with the search function, there are some members with established tanks to compare against. I think this seahorse.org site might be of use to you too: http://www.seahorse.org/index.shtml

Its a blood or fire shrimp (Lysmata debelius) by the looks of it. Wonderworlds have 1 left (I got the other one!). Seen my one have a go at cleaning the mimic tang the other day. He's funny - gets all excited when I feed the fish and roars our from under his ledge looking for food, likes to eat bits of snapper.

If you are keen, my suggestion would be to do these things before you get a couple of seahorses: 1. Do some research on them - books and internet 2. Buy/setup a tank and equipment required for them 3. Put the tank through its "cycle", testing to ensure it is complete While it is cycling contact the Local Fish Store that you last saw seahorses at and ask them to get them in for you. Hopefully when your tank is ready the seahorses will be available for you to take home.

Well went to the redwoods for a ride got absolutely lost (never been there before), but it was fun. Somehow I ended up in wonderworlds on the way home, where after staring for over 1/2 an hour at the 6 mandarins which were split into 2 groups, I chose the one that I found to be the healthier and more dominent of its group. On the downside, I forgot my camera, however, I did take mental pictures but unfortunately my drawing abilities are not that flash. Anyway, somehow yesterday I missed the tank with clams in it and the red yumas in with the mushrooms and didn't see the porites coral with a bunch of neat worms in it.

Depends on if I can twist my bendy rubber arm... :bounce: :bounce:

I'm going over for a mountain bike in the RedWoods tomorrow and "might just happen to go into Wonderworlds" and "might just happen to have some cash and a poly box"... I'll see how good my photography skills are

Welcome Tigger! You are right on that one, I bet Canadians get annoyed when people call them Americans too.

If you want some glitter lines, a cheap way is to buy a couple of the 12v LED strips from dick smith that Slapper posted about a few months ago. Not very noticable during the day but when they are on by themselves it looks pretty cool - just remeber to make up a reflector to mount them under to maximise their light.

I wandered through there today to get my T5 remote ballast. Managed to control myself and not buy a mandarin (only just though), they have 6 there. Just have to keep telling myself no! If I had a camera Wilson I would have taken some photos of the marine section! Next time I go I'll take one just for guys (and gals) in CHCH They have heaps of marine fish, but have been a bit cleaned out on the coral side - some softies, a bit light on the hard corals at the moment, just under a dozen colonies of zoos, and some basic mushrooms, didn't see any invertebrates left Should have got a mandarin. Next time. :bounce: