jolliolli

i think conch is away at the moment

rams were added later, neons and cardinals i think were added around the same time as the discus, you could always try a few neons as 'testers' at least if one of your discus takes a liking to them its a bit cheaper than a cardinal snack.

not sure on the bolivians, have had blue rams with discus and they have been fine, have also had a mix of 20 neons and cardinals with my discus (all adults) and none of them have been a snack.

yes you're right caryl, just wondered if like caper suggested it was a sudden pH shock, although i assume you would probably see a quicker death... pH was the only thing that looked a little unusual in the test results

pH may have been a problem, 8 is quite high for goldfish its getting, they prefer 6.5 - 7.5, i wonder if that caused some problems, does your test kit go higher than 8? One thing that makes me wonder with that reading is what you are using as your grave substrate, some gravels are reallly designed for use with cichlids and i wonder if you've accidentally got some of that gravel, what does the gravel look like, does it have a name and where did you get it from?

Hi NZlass, sorry to hear of all your troubles, could you post up your readings from your test kits, mainly pH, nitrate, nitrite and ammonia, temperature so we can rule out any problems. Redwood aquatics is a very good store, so is Organism so definitely worth checking out, John out organism is very helpful and might have some suggestions also. i would definitely be wary of taking advice from some of the franchise pet stores as often it can be incorrect or they sell you something to try and make money (ie you dont' need the stress coat or water ager chemicals in chch as the water is so good). Also some advice about dead and dying fish, there is some debate as to whether freezing is actually that humane... if you can bear it its better to whack them over the head or sever their spinal cord by cutting vertically just where their 'neck' would be if they had one. I wonder if they are having trouble with swim bladder disorder caused by some sort of bacterial infection, do they swim with their head up or head down?

you know i was thinking that as i wrote it

must be all the young reefers down here in chch

yip last time i checked

shhh we're taking over, its all part of a master plan...

come on wasp tell us your age

dont' seem to have any problems with my salifert kit, reading around a month ago was 1160 now with mag flake dosing its 1285 so seems to be accurate.

have been trying to get some astrea snails, seem quite hard to come by in chch, i've got the spiral shaped snails When i bought my tank around a year ago it had been setup for 1 - 2 years with current sand. I used the original sand from the tank but washed it quite thorougly, i'm now starting to see a bit of life in the sand, little worms, mysis etc. i've always quite enjoyed the look of a sand base (except when its all over it ). I've seen some great designs on RC with rockwork design and eggcrate and its definitely something i'll be researching more once i get to move the tank.... (scares me to think of all the work involved in doing just that..)

your light fitting will need to be specific to a T5 connection, ie you can not put a T5 bulb in a T8 fitting and vice versa, also you would need to be ensure that the ballast is rated for the wattage of your bulb. The amount of light you need depends on your application, from memory i think a marine reef tank would need around 1-2 watts per litre, fish only tank (fresh or salt) whatever you prefer, and planted tank you would need to check with someone else.. Also more important if you are keeping plants, or a reef aquarium is the K value of the bulb, you will need a particular kelvin rating for plants, around the 6500K mark, for reefs its anywhere between around 10,000 and 20,000K or a combination of both

T5 and T8 refer to the thickness of the bulb. T5 is 5/8ths of an inch thick, T8s are 8/8ths of an inch thick (ie 1 inch). T5s are brighter because the bulb is much thinner so more light can pass through the bulb than the T8. Metal halides produce far more light, typically coming in 150W, 250W and 400W bulbs, they also produce far more heat so you can not enclose them in a canopy.

aww thanks wasp but its definitely not what i would call attractive.. haha . You are completely correct about the rocks sitting on top of each other, when i purchased the tank i didn't have much time to get the rock/corals and fish in to a proper aquascaped look, so ended up with typical 'rockwall' look. Longterm the plans are to actually relocate this tank in to the other room and sell of my discus tank. When that happens i plan on less rock, more space for swimming and some actual proper aquascaping, at the moment none of the corals are acutally adhered to the rock, just sort of positioned in spots... though this is probably quite a few months away. I was really impressed by cookie extremes tank when i visited in january, lots of space for swimming fish, very inspiring

awesome is it chch based?

thanks for the offer matt, i might borrow it off you but i should probably get one anyway as its probably useful in letting me know when to change the DI resin. tank parameters are (all salifert kits) Calcium 425ppm kH 9.4 Magnesium 1290 Nitrate - 5ppm phosphate reads as zero, though its not. I've just started adding baking soda, mag and calcium regularly to keep the levels up, prior to this my kH was always low around 6ish. Just starting to see some spots of coralling algae growth now I'll reduce the MH lights, im not sure of the bulbs, they came standard with the aquamedic lights. the third pic makes the tnak look really yellow, doesn't look that yellow in real life xenia is growing really well, must be soaking up all those nutrients.

ok heres some photos of my cyano ....., small children avert your eyes :oops: full tank left side right side so you can see the cyano has gotten quite bad, it produces large amounts of small bubbles as well. Since this photo was taken i've mounted one nano on each side of the aquarium. Both nanos are positioned near the front of the tank angled downwards, the two smaller powerheads are both mounted on opposite sides of the back wall at the base of the tank, facing towards the front of the tank, i'm trying to get more flow along the sand to prevent the cyano from building up. Changed my phosphate remover today as well. Also remembered today that i bought a couple of sound dampening pads a couple of weeks ago but hadn't put them in the tank. I've positioned them under the skimmer and its seems to have reduced the vibration noise quite a bit thanks for the heads up tangtastic, i tried mico plumbing world down here but the trade section wasn't open and the other people didn't know what i was talking about so i'll try them again on monday.

yes i know hence the reason i've purchased a DI unit i just need to find the connectors so i can get it working, looks like i might have to order them from the states, unless anyone here knows of a place that sells john guest speedfit connectors. I do think the tap water is a contributing factor, last water change i did the cyano seemed to be worse a day or so later. so i'll be adding the di, adding the other nano, anything else i should look at? increase the flow? suphew you have quite high (compared to mine) turnover, is this mainly via your return or do you have several large powerheads in your tank, think i'll look at replacing the smaller powerheads with a couple of larger ones. Tank is mostly lps with a couple of acros, what do you think would be the ideal turnover rate?

no i haven't i will be ordering a tds meter soon, howeve fmxmatt measured his recently and from memory it was 45ppm out of the tap, not great but better than i had expected. i've had the cyano in various stages appearing and disappearing since i've had the tank, around 9 months, at the moment its seems particularly bad, it had disappeared a couple of months ago but i went away on holiday and ever since then its seems to be getting worse. I also seem to have this strange form of cyano where its a pink almost furike growth on the rocks similar to coralline in colour but it pulls off if you scrub it. ahh patience, the great virtue of reefkeepers , how long did you have to wait danpapirany before it seemed to disappear? bulbs are around 2 - 3 months old, so should be ok, although i don't like the yellowish colour they produce, will be going for a bluer bulb next time.. will try and upload some photos tomorrow.. i have been using tapwater but have just purchased a DI only unit which i'm trying to find some john quest quick connect fittings so i can connect it up. i'm using the red sea salt (standard not pro mix) good suggestion wasp, it had never occurred to me that i could try feeding pellets, ill try it out and see how it goes. the neoprene is quite a spongey material, however i've found that as it compresses over time it tends to make the skimmer lean on an angle :-? So i should be aiming for more flow, i seem to always have difficulty positioning the powerheads, either they seem to blow my lps or sand around the place or don't direct enough flow to the rockwork and sand.

Which is quieter in terms of vibration noise, an in-sump skimmer or an out of sump skimmer? Currently i have an Reef Octopus NW-150 in sump skimmer, which produces a low vibration noise. i've tried to reduce the vibration noise by encasing the cupboard in foam, adding neoprene pads to the bottom of the skimmer and skimmer pump but still there is a vibration noise... has anyone used this model of skimmer and then replaced it with another skimmer, if so what model, what improvements did you see and how was the noise? Should this skimmer be sufficient for my tank or should i go bigger. Tank details are 400L tank, around 50kg live rock, lps, sps corals, 2 tangs, mandarin, 2 clowns, lawnmower blenny, sixline wrasse and shrimp. Following on from the skimmer question I seem to constantly be battling cyano on my rocks and sand, i feed once a day about 1/8th tsp of newlife spectrum food plus nori each day. once or twice a week i feed mysid for the sun coral and fish. I've tried the lights out to starve the cyano but it comes back, lights are 2 x 250W MH and 2 x 54W actinics on for around 8 -10 hours a day . Flow is currently 1 6025 nanostream, 2 other small nonbrand powerheads (around 600lph each), ive just purchased a second tunze 6045 a couple of weeks ago which i'll be adding to the system this weekend, return pum is 2500lph. My only two acros i have are starting to colour up with purple tips, lps are nice and fully expanded and a sick brain coral i have is starting to show growth so i would have thought that if nutrients were an issue i wouldn't see this, but still the cyano remains... its really starting to frustrate me and make me wonder if i need a better skimmer, or if something else is likely to be the problem... Any advice appreciated

lol, i had to check and make sure i knew after reading that

:lol: i was waiting for you to say that reef , at least finally answers the question on chch water. BTW where did you get your tds meter matt? and did you go for an inline unit or a 'pen' style meter. I'm desperate to connect my di unit up to the tap but haven't managed to find a faucet adaptor to connect it yet. I was thinking of grabbing one of those pen style tds meters of ebay

how are frozen rotifers? or do they need to be live? i've seen them for sale at the old critter kingdom