jolliolli

7pm, just sitting down, ahhh it feels good . my partner and i had soccer till 12.30 today so had to start late, started at 1.30pm and finished just now. Layton was a star , helping me drain all the tank, move the corals out, take all my livestock and then a herculean effort in moving the tank, so thanks so much. Live rock and corals are in the spare tank with the hob skimmer, heater, powerheads and lights. spare rock and water in a big drum with heater, and powerhead. and its just occurred to me that neither of us have eaten today, so i'm off to have something to eat. Thansk to everyone who contributed all the advice and help!

ok thanks, tried it for a couple of minutes on a batch of fresh mix to see what it was like and it made it completely clear, much better than the cloudy stuff ive got at the mo, plus layton has kindly offered to test my salinity with his refractometer . Think i'll be indebted to him forever

hmm one i have has a plastic head but metal shaft.. so no go i guess?

thanks for the info guys, i was quite suspicious of that swing arm, it came as part of the gear i bought, but hardly looked high quality :-? . Tried to find somewhere that sold refractometers today but seems like noone in chch stocks them, only available via order. I saw this here, http://www.reeflounge.com/showthread.php?t=16384 anyone tried mixing their salt this way? I have a brand new paint mixer here and was thinking about plugging it in to the drill and mixing it a bit more thorougly, any thoughts, good/bad etc?

Ok thanks i was aiming to get around 50% of the existing water (200L), and add around 90L to the interim tank and keep the rest in some barrels with the additional live rock with powerheads and heaters until i'm ready to use it. yeah was planning on getting a refractometer in the future, might need it sooner rather than later

Temp is 25.2 degrees I'm collecting an existing reef setup tomorrow (not starting fresh with uncycled rock), layton is looking after my fish and shrimps for a week or so, and i'm transferring all the live rock and corals to my place on saturday and in to an interim tank (the tank i've just filled) until i can clean everything up. Do you think i should do it a different way? Need to house the corals somewhere

its a swing arm one and is still reading 1.019 which i don't really trust, but in saying that i can see some of the salt undisolved on the bottom of the tank. I think part of the problem is that i only have a very weak powerhead on the tank 400lph as its the only spare one i have until i get the rest of them with the tank that arrives on saturday. BTW if i collect NSW today is there anything in particular i need to know?

I checked this morning and still cloudy, if it hasn't cleared by this evening i'm tempted to ditch it and collect NSW instead

sooo... i filled up my tank with fresh water yesterday added a powerhead, heater and skimmer. Today i decided to add the ASW to try and get the tank up to salinity for when the live rock and corals arrive tomorrow. I added the recommended dosage of around 6.5kgs for 180L of water, however the salt hasn't dissolved and the water is cloudy. about half way through adding it occurred to me that perhaps it should be dissolved in boiling water so i added hot water to the rest of the mix. Its been around 3 hours and its still cloudy and the salinity on the hydrometer is only at around 1.019 whereas i estimate it should be around 1.023ish, i think its low due to the undisolved salt. So does anyone have any suggestions as to what i have done wrong or what i should do next, do i need to start over (i really hope not).

great thanks

do you mean 180/30 or 108/30? my tank is 180L

Right got my interim tank setup for when my rock and corals arrive on saturday. The tank is a 180L with a HOB skimmer, and small powerhead attached for circulation. I'm heating the water up to 25degrees tonight and will add the red sea salt tomorrow, i had a look at www.redseafish.com and it gives the caluculatios for mixing the salt up to a salinity of 1.021, however everyone seems to recommend 1.025 so i'm wondering if anyone knows how much salt it would take to add to a 180L tank to get this salinity?

Ok thanks i will keep an eye on them, i thought perhaps the gouramis might be a bit too skittish with the discus as previously they were the largest fish in the tank but always seemed to scare easily. To my surprise they actually seem calmer

ahh definitely a gold gourami then

thanks sharn, yeah i thought i'd keep an eye on the fighter. He's not in the tank yet as i tried adding him to the tank about a week ago and the rosy barbs that were in the tank nipped his tail and he developed a fungus . currently he's in quarantine, the rosy barbs are gone and i'll keep an eye on the ruby's but they never seem to bother any of the other fish so fingers crossed

i always thought he was a snakeskin gourami not sure what the difference is between the two

just thought i'd share my days activites. Have downsized to one freshwater tank due to the imminent arrival of a reef tank next weekend. it means i've finally been able to give my discus a larger tank, going from 180L to 300L and already they look much happier near the front of the tank with the other fish Tank is Juwel Rio internal filter 1500L/ph and Aqua one canister filter 1200L/ph. Fish are 3 Discus, 10 cardinals, 10 neons, 2 Ruby barbs, 4 Sterbai Corydoras, 2 Snakeskin Gourami, 1 Hoey gourami, 4 SAE. Still to be added 2 dwarf gourami and 2 BN Full tank shot

Wow thanks for all the responses. Just spent the day moving the 300L tank in to the other room, dis-assembly the 180L tank, moving the discus in to the 300L and separating the fish that i have to sell. now i'm tired . The blue plastic barrels you mentioned blueandkim sound like the 60L ones i'm borrowing from a friend who used them to store feed. I'll be using them to transport seawater and store it for a couple of days. I figure 60L = 60Kgs so myb partner and i should be able to lift those

ok thanks guys, i talked to people at payless plastics but they weren't completely sure which containers were food grade and which weren't unfortunately not many in chch, i also read one of the guys in the salt section used a plastic container which had previously held something containing sugar and it ended up killing his corals . There is a plastic container manufacturer round from my work so i'll visit them monday and see what they have in the range of food grade plastics.

Ok thanks for that, i have been looking at buying some white containers and also some coloured grey crates from the warehouse. I sniffed the inside of the crate (must have looked a bit strange) but didn't smell any chemicals. I'd prefer to go with the grey crate as it is made of a stronger material, but perhaps i should stick to the white as it is less likely to have toxic chemicals in it?

I'm looking to around 200L (not necessarily all in the same container, maybe 50L containers) of saltwater while i move the marine tank i've just bought. I've heard the words food-grade thrown around a lot and am confused as to what makes a food grade container 'food-grade' and whether it is necessary for storing water. I might be able to borrow 60L feed containers with screw off lids, failing that i've been looking at various places like bunnings for suitable containers but have no idea how to know whether a container is food grade or not, can anyone help tell me how to identify them?

anyone have any thoughts as to stocking levels?

that sux , I was just going to use water and a pressure hose that should be ok? Yes Layton's very kindly offered to house my livestock for me AND offered to help with the move . This week i'm going to write up a plan for the move and post it up here, if i've missed anything or if anyone has a better/different way of doing things then please post away!

Looks like i should be able to borrow some 60L plastic drums that have been used to store feed. I intend on washing htem out thoroughtly and using these to store/transport the water, will this be OK? If i can't find a temporary home for the fish i was thinking i will store the livestock in my existing 180L tank ex-freshwater tank. Can i just connect this up to the skimmer and store the corals, some live rock and livestock in this tank for the interim? The tank won't have a sump, will that matter short-term. Alternatively should i use the cannister filter thats currenly on that tank and instead connect the skimmer to the plastic drums that will house the extra live rock. Should i leave the corals connected to the liverock or try to remove them? so many questions

bet you're as excited as me . Are you starting from fresh or buying an existing setup?