jolliolli

ok thanks, i htink i might have some gutter guar around here, will have a look around

Sure am pretty much captivated at looking at the tank all the time, its so hard to keep your eyes off with all that movement . managed to get a pic of the blenny, i just love that face! Spotted the mandarin at this morning looking for food, which leads me to my next question. I've read about their need for a live food supply and i think i'v emost likely killed off any copepods living in the sand when i washed the sand. Is there anything i can do to increase my copepod population? Also anything in particular i should be doing in terms of care/maintenance in the first few weeks? i figured i'd water test daily to make sure their aren't any spikes in ammonia etc with the addition of the livestock.

Great thanks guy, Weka you have a PM

i want to buy some plastic grating similar to the sort of grating that you see in bathroom extraction fans to go over the top of the overflow to prevent snails etc getting stuck. Does anyone know where to buy this or something similar. At the moment i have a sponge at the top but know this isn't ideal..

found the mandarin goby all alive and well,

Well the livestock arrived today, and are all in the tank now, only problem i had was the mandarin goby, i was floating him in a bag in the tank acclimating him and all of a sudden he turned upsidedown stopped breathing and appeared dead! i hadn't added any water from the tank at this stage but maybe the stress was a bit much for him, or perhaps ammonia had built up in the bag, anyway i had to pretty much get him of the bag and in the the water without acclimation. He recovered in the water and swam around but then disappeared behind in to some rocks and i haven't seem him since, so i'm hoping he's just hiding and hasn't died under a rock somewhere... The shrimp, tang, clownfish, blenny and clam all adjusted well, acclimated them over the period of around 40 minutes. At the moment i have a lot of microbubbles, i'm just going to wait them out and see if htey disappear as the skimmer break itself in. Right some pics Full tank shot Left side Right side with clowns Length on with tang blue Clam One of the shrimps lots to still sort out but should be lots of fun. Couldn't get a photo of the lawnmower blenny he's too quick!

strange i have had just the same thing happen to my female ram. Noticed a small lump near her mouth around 1mm diameter, quarantined her last week and the lump has grown, it is now around 2-3mm in diameter and looks tumour like. when she opens her mouth i can see the lump on the inside of her mouth also. Otherwise appears fine and is still eating and active, until it disappears im keeping her quarantined.

No we added the ballvalve ourselves, previously it was just plumbed straight through. Not sure about the sump/tank flooding thing, atm the tank is filled all the way up to where the trim starts. I don't think there is any glass inside the trim which could mean if the tank level rose even an inch or two it could possibly leak through the plastic. i might give it a test and see what happens

Algae seemed to reduced quite a big when i took it out of the holding tank, ive added phosguard as i still have some algae growing on the sand (which i think is also caused by a dead spot in the flow) Need some fancy tunze nanos so i can direct hte flow a bit more once the budget allows. I have the TWO smallest overflows in the world My previous tank i bought was a Rio 300 for my freshwater tank which was converted to marine. It also had the same size overflow (9cm x 9cm) but we ripped that out for the freshwater setup. I believe both overflows were done by redwood aquatics so they must build them small. very true, i have a hang on red sea skimmer which i was using on my interim tank but found out it has a leak :evil: Ive only been running the skimemr for a day so will be interested to how much it pulls out.

very trickly, luckily my arms just fit (guess thats the advantage of being a girl, no bulging muscles). Water goes back to the tank via return pump but you;re right its very tight and not well designed so i'm thinking about a rebuild. Overflow i'd like to be bigger, in fact we were thinking of changing it to a full siphon but we don't have the room in the current one

So as you know a few weeks ago i bought an existing reef setup off trademe and over the past few weeks have been setting it all up, making a few modifications to the plumbing etc, so tonight i thought i'd add some pics. These are all progress pics. I've added the sand, rocks and corals during the week and have it all running and should be picking up the livestock tomorrow all things going to plan Before the cleanup Needed a good clean up, cleaned all the woodwork. Previous owners had painted the back of the glass which annoyingly had gone on to the cabinet. Lots of scraping and cleaning to get it off. All cleaned up Tank and Skimmer. Well this definitely isn't my area! my fiance did all the work on this so i have him to thank. The cabinet was lined with black water-resitant rubber, then foam to line the cabinet for noise reduction. Ball-valve was added so that we can shut the overflow off if necessary (which in the end was just as well as after filling the tank we found the overflow had a very slow leak in the main tank.... you can imagine what would happen if the power went off... resilicioned it all and now its good. Probably looking at changing the sump down the road. Anywayt thats it so far, if anyone has any suggestions or comments fire them through, ill add the more exciting photos of actual tank contents tomorrow!

Why the Ball valve and T on the return pipe?

Looked at the reverse durso, and would like to use it, problem for me is lack of space in the sump to really set it up May need to look at making a new sump at some point so that i ca rearrange the design a bit. Interested to know what you think about the flexible hose though, did you have any issues connecting it to the bulk head? did you need any special connectors? Thanks

Thanks for the reply i have some questions below Under my tank i have a 1" Double Union Ball value ( so i can removed the sump), 2x 90 deg elbows ( put together in the shap of an S) and then a straight bit of pipe. The elbows are used to off set the pipe so that it goes into the correct part of my sump. Any way you could get away from 90 deg elbows, try to reduce the number of sharp bends as they are restrictions. Can you get 45 deg elbows? Would love to say yes, but ive used threaded hansen connectors for now which dont have 45 deg fittings, potentially i can change and use slip fittings with glue etc. 2. Is there a modification i can do the the pipe entering the sump so that it doest cause so many bubbles? Tee junctions or wye or something? should it be so far into the sump water, or less or more. Try reducing the distance from the sumps water surface to around 2 inches. Also, I am trialing flexible hose with a tee at the end. The flexible hose has a more gradual bend which should reduce agitation. The tee is there to allow bubbles to vent at sump water surface Seems to be helping Ok so if i understand you, i should reduce the length of the pipe so that its only 2" under water? The flexible hose might be a good option, the tee you have, its at the end of the hose and allows the water to exist from 2 sides? or have you put a tee at the suface of the sump water so that air can go out the side and water out the botton?. Any chance you have a picture to explain?

Hey Guys, Set up my system last night and i have a few problems. sorry this is going to be a long post so just to explain a bit, i have a 1" (25mm) bulkhead, my overflow at the moment has a 1" pipe that takes all the flow and makes my overflow fill almost full to the top. ( the water drops about 1 -2" ) Under my tank i have a 1" Double Union Ball value ( so i can removed the sump), 2x 90 deg elbows ( put together in the shap of an S) and then a straight bit of pipe. The elbows are used to off set the pipe so that it goes into the correct part of my sump. My sump seems to be a simplistic design ? the water enters in one corner box ( about 10cm x 10cm), as the water fills up in this box is flows over a baffle and then back into the sump. The overflow pipe from my bulk head goes about 8" into the water, and has about 4" gap from the bottom glass. As water enters the sump the water is very turbulent, and causes water to splash everywhere. I assume this is due to the air being sucked in at the top. So for the time being i have put a bit of a lid over this corner box so that water doesnt go everywhere. My question is . 1. Im looking at either using a Durso, Aqua Silencer or Full Siphon, i dont have a 2nd overflow as a saftey so the full siphon method i guess introduces more risk.. for now ive used nothing. Will any of these effect/fix the turbulence in the sump? ( i assume full siphon will ) 2. Is there a modification i can do the the pipe entering the sump so that it doest cause so many bubbles? Tee junctions or wye or something? should it be so far into the sump water, or less or more.. 3. Should the piping under the cabinet be the same size as the overflow pipe or larger? eg should i use 32mm under the cabinet and 25MM bulkhead? so any thoughts or pics or help on this would be awesome. Thanks

you can buy a complete freshwater test kit which will test your pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and high range pH. Its called a freshwater master test kit and i bought one off trademe from a person called tank girl. Was around $45 i think instead of around $60 - $70 in the shops

haha i must have been typing when you were . Yes planning to drain it now, remove the old silicon and let it cure for a couple of hours and refill

hey guys thanks for the info, have managed to source some of the silaflex locally through someone here off the forums. The tank itself is fine, it has had an overflow added at a later date and it is this which has a very small leak (probably only about 1ml an hour) however i'd still like to get it sorted . it looks like i'm probably going to drain the tank for a couple of hours tonight. Luckily I just bought 2 150 litre barrels and 10 25litre jerry cans two weeks ago i have somewhere to store the water

hi does anyone know which aquarium safe silicons will apply, cure and seal under water. I need to fix a very small leak in an existing filled tank. I have seen in a previous thread this product recommended as being able to cure under water Siiaflex RTV Glass And Ceramic Professional Range Silicone Sealer However when i went to the fosroc site, the only aquarium safe silicon i could find was Silaflex RTV and the spec sheet on it said it needed to cure fully before immersion... so are these two products the same or different? Or does anyone know of any that definitely cure underwater and are aquarium safe

well update today: Thursday night finished cleaning the tank and doing some small changes with the plumbing, moved it in ready to fill. We then noticed that the bulkhead had become unsiliconed from the glass . Resliconed it and left it to dry until Saturday. Water tested it yesterday and its all good . Half filled the tank yesterday and added the live rock, sand and corals and added the heater and circ pumps. Today we're aiming to finish aquascaping the rock, adding the additional seawater, adding the skimmer and get the sump running. Couple of questions i have, are there any good sites on aquascaping i'm struggling to get it looking good. Secondly once its all set up and running i'll be adding in the livestock that layton's looking after on tuesday night. There's a lawnmower blenny and i'm a little worried about him having enough to eat. Seeing as the tank is newly setup there isn't any algae on the glass, only algae i have is whatever was on the LR, should i try and supplement his diet with something and if so what do you suggest? nori? In the holding tank i had a brown algae outbreak, i was hoping to avoid this in this tank by adding phosguard in to the sump, would this be detrimental to the blenny in terms of having a supply of food? Will post pictures very soon!

tried that a bit, didnt want to ruin the thread on the bottom though, i think i have it tight enough now, still a little un easy about it, damn tight overflows

Ok so im having a hell of a time fixing the plumbing on a tank i just bought, the bulk head in the overflow has decided to twist on me ( while trying to attach a threaded union connector ), not such a big deal i could just tighten it up, BUT i cant get my hand down the overflow, and dont know how i can grip the bulkheld to make sure its not going to slip as i tighten. ( a pair of grips are no good either). Any thoughts?, its a Hansen 25MM tank connector. Any tricks of trade to tighten a connector when you cant get your hand down the overflow ( without taking apart the overfow ) Second, im using Aquamate silicon ( just to make sure all is water tight ). anyone else used this? seems to take a long time to cure? not sure if its crappy or not, but anyone else use any other type of quick curing silicon? Thanks

nothing so far, no one seems to have anything at mitre 10 or bunnings etc. Would be great to just know what its called

I've been buying 150 litre bins off this guy in chch for $25 http://www.trademe.co.nz/Business-farmi ... 66.htm?p=1 great for storing water and live rock, they have a wide mouth, and they have previously been used to store sealer for moro bars i think, so are food safe

I just did the standard initial and standard followup doses and found it worked on the blackbeard algae fine. took a couple of weeks for it to disappear fully