jolliolli

as part of its lemming-like desire to kill itself one of mine managed to squeeze past the overflow guard again (the gap is probably 3mm ). Partner came home to find it sucked half in to the overflow pipe... im not sure if it will survive, its still moving a little but i think it got rather mangled..

im interested conch was the girl you knew working as a maf assistant or investigator? the requirements are quite different

sorry but this is totally incorrect, you require either a university degree in horticulture, biology, zoology or relevant experience in these areas, MAF jobs are actually highly sort after, the last intake they had over 200 applications, most ppl that make it through to the first cutoff possess a university degree or horticulture experience. although i understand everybody's frustrations regarding importing i think MAF is too often blamed. You have to remember that MAFs primary responsibility is to keep unwanted organisms out of New zealand, sure that means there are a lot of hoops to jump through but NZ is primarily an exporting country, if we want to protect our economy and our environment then regulations must be put in place.

bugger!, i can see one of mine about an inch away from the nano as we speak... Also came home tonight to find one tumbling like a ball over and over in the overflow, i had put the overfow guard on last night (i take it off sometimes in the evening as it mays a big of noise) so the poor fella must have been in there tumbling round and round for a day or two, pulled him out and he was fine, can you imagine spinning round and round for a day or so, must have some major motion sickness

i use generic stuff :lol: the GFO rather than the aluminum based stuff

i would be tending to think parasitic as well, but internal parasites rather than external gill flukes i had a discus which seemed to have internal parasites. It developed a small lump in the base of its fin which grew larger and larger eventually turning in to an open wound which went through the base of hte body through to the other side At the same time the red melon discus i had also developed severe finrot which i think was secondary to a parasite problem, likewise he is completely healed now heres the thread on mine, have a look and see if its similar at all http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/next-v ... c&start=15 i treated with metronidazole and daily water changes, which eventually cured it but it took a long time, he's now all cured but still has the scar..

i've decided the nanos aren't really too much of an issue for them, i saw one of my crawling around on top of one, it was obviously not particularly comfortable as it was squirting out some purple ink, but wasn't harmed.

i use asw and use the same 150L plastic drum for mixing my asw as i do for my freshwater topoffs (ie ive worked out a plan so that by the time it comes round to do a water change i should have the required amount of freshwater in the barrel for the water change). I buy the 25Kg Red sea salt mix which costs $127, doing 15% water changes fortnightly on a 400L tank it lasts around 5 months so around $6.30 a week which i don't think is too bad. i was using tap water only for both top ups and salt mixing but now am using straight DI so i haven't worked out how long it will take before the DI runs out (but replacement DI resin was only $11US so its a pretty small amount) i also heat my asw and run a small powerhead

yip, most ppl here with a marine tank have had to move it at some time or another. the basics i have learned in the process are : prepare in advance, make sure you have a lot of plastic buckets and jerry cans to move the water (you would probably only want to shift half the water at the most, the rest will get too gungy). Make up enough ASW or collect enough NSW a few days prior that you will have enough to fill the tank when you set up on the other end Disconnect all equipment, skimmer lights, sump and move them somewhere out of the way Siphon water, in to jerry cans, remove corals and place in bags, remove live rock put in to large bins with wet towels (better chance of keeping the live rock live). remove fish and inverts and place in to bags, put bags in some sort of container and put the lid on to keep them in the dark and reduce stress. If you can have a tank or some sort of bin at the place you are moving too it will make it a lot easier. I set up a temporary tank and made up ASW a couple of nights before, and connected up a heater and powerheads. Then i transferred the fish and inverts in to the tank and reduce the amount of time they were in the bags. Put some pieces of liverock in to the tank to help with the filtration and to give the fish, inverts somewhere to hide. I put my liverock in to a large plastic bin with a heater and powerheads so that i could worry about aquascaping the tank later. scoop out sand and if you decide you want to keep it store in buckets or bins, i scooped mine out using dustpans, made it easy to get the sand out of the corners of the tank. Get a few people to help move the tank, and set up at the new house. If you're using your old sand then rinse it well till water runs clear. fill tank with ASW/NSW and also the water you took from the move, bring up to temperature. Its a lot easier if you have a spare tank, to store your fish/corals/inverts while you set up your new tank and aquascape.

beautiful pics and fish!

no photos not visible (but you can copy and paste the link in to the address bar to see them). You need to use the direct link in photobucket, you'll know it has worked because you'll be able to see the photos yourself

you can use baking soda to increase your alkalinity, i use this calculator: http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html

agreed and you make a very good point wasp, so many times on the net ppl take an aggressive standpoint on a subject and can't be swayed despite the evidence to the contrary... in the case of us chchians we're all just one eyed cantabs Hmm i wouldn't have a clue if its setup correctly, i guess it must be doing something to reduce the water 23ppm. I've run around 80l through the unit so its going to be interesting to see how quickly it wears out the resin. I'll test it out of the DI today and post the results, i assume that im correct in thinking that even without an RO unit i should still obtain a reading close to 0ppm? when i was in auckland recently the first thing i noticed about the water was the strong chlorine smell out of the tap and then the bitter taste... blech! You mean the TDS and phosphate meter weren't essential travelling items??!

i think i now who you are referring to :lol: . He gets such a hard time (though i know you mean no offence wasp), i feel i have to stick up for him, he was really helpful and kind looking after my fish, corals and helping me shift my tank when i bought my setup. Re: chch tap water, well i tested the house water today with the TDS meter was 70ppm. Tested the water in my barrel that had gone through the DI meter it was 23ppm... so still not great, however previously this barrel was being used for mixing my salt so that may be making the readings higher. i'm going to try measuring the water straight out of the DI unit and see what it reads, if its not sufficiently low enough i'll have to look at adding an RO kit

NERD! jk :lol:

UPDATE : got my TDS meter today from ebay so i thought i would test the water here at work (central city) i was surprised came up with a reading of 75ppm which is quite a lot higher than matt's 45ppm. Will be interesting to see what the home reading is and also interesting to see if my DI only unit is purifying the water sufficiently... will keep you posted

ahhh yes i remember it welll

sure!

Main equipment you need Tank Skimmer Powerheads for circulation Heater Optional - Sump (if you're running a sump, you'll need a return pump, plus a sump is nice to stick all your other gear in it ie skimmer, heater, return pump)

the advantage of a bigger tank si that things like fluctuations in your levels will have less of an effect over a bigger volume. everyone always says go as big as you can afford

looks great!

not hard to maintain just different, you'll need to test your tank more often than a freshwater tank to ensure your pH, alkalinity, magnesium and calcium levels are correct, you'll also need to dose for alkalinity, mag and calcium if you want to keep corals. If you keeping fish only then you don't need to worry about this stuff and just do water changes. the cost of maintenance is more than with a freshwater tank, you need to either buy your salt and make up your water, or collect it from the beach, you;ll need to buy your additives, most likely buy an ro/di unit for your water top offs, lights will cost more if you're wanting to keep corals, again if its only fish then its no more expensive than a FW tank. thats a tricky question, personally in the short time i've had marine i've had less problems with my SW fish than my FW fish but just ike a FW tank it depends on maintenance, health of your fish stock when you buy them, feeding etc. Fish are a lot more expensive than FW fish, around $80 - $120 for your standard fish (more for the really pretty ones, cheaper for the bog standard chromis etc) if you can buy secondhand, it will save you a lot of $in the setup costs, of course the actual cost depends on what you want to put in it, how big you want the tank etc. Your important and costly parts of equipment are your skimmer, lights (if keeping corals), powerheads, tank Im guessing i spend around $20 a week on maintenance at a rough guess really really hard, not like FW

seems everyone is having trouble with cyano at the mo, and it probably has something to do with the high heat. I've read of a few ppl on RC treating with erythromyacin but have been reluctant myself to try anything at the mo

i found one of my nanos had a bit of a vibration noise when it wasn't seated in the magnetic clip correctly, also when one of my clips broke it allowed the powerhead to vibrate more against the glass, maybe check to make sure the nano clip hasn't broken