Warren

1 gram per 1000L = 1ppm 1 gram per 100L = 10ppm However, this is for 10ppm of Potassium Nitrate. If you want 10ppm of Nitrate then you need to see what percentage of the Potassium Nitrate is actually Nitrate and divide the weight of Potassium Nitrate by this to get the actual weight required. Will see if I can find the info how to work this out for you...

Or try adding Potassium Nitrate on it's own. The problem with adding more PMDD is the other nutrients may get out of balance and create more problems. If the plants are growing well and Nitrate is limited then you need more Nitrate and/or less PMDD.

You could try increasing the Nitrate to between 5-10ppm. This will help with plant growth and seems to inhibit many types of algae. I don't know why but sometimes 0ppm nitrates is as bad as too much.

As pointed out to us, the negative comments have been cleaned from the thread. Thanks for noticing this. However, advising us in public and the way it was presented was not the best. If we miss things in the future, please PM a moderator instead of making a negative public comment about it as this really serves no positive purpose. We are only human and do miss some things. As we're trying to be as consistent as possible, any help you can give to make sure it happens is appreciated. So, in future, if things are missed or inconsistency is found please send us a PM or email so we can at least discuss / fix it before you rubbish us for it...

Some poor bugger has to be the fun-police.

If you haven't sterilised the gravel the algae will come back. It will likely come back anyway unless you create conditions it does not like. From comments on this forum Flourish Excel seems to work to help control it. However, the best way to get rid if it so it never shows is CO2 + PMDD and intense lighting. When you start to get 100-150mm growth a day from Ambulia and one full new leaf from sword plants every 2 days you have conditions favourable for plants and not good for algae. That combined with a few good algae munching fish and you will never see the algae again... You will never remove algae but the correct conditions mean the plants will significantly out-compete it to the extent where it cannot be seen.

I think so too. At 6 months old it should be starting to show some body patterning if it's going to have it. It may still patern-up but it does look like it's a brown / turq cross.

On Monday, I'm heading down to Christchurch from Conference (for a holiday). I can guarantee the fish will be well aerated if they travel with me!!

Even as a PDF it can be too big for most inboxes (>12MB). We could look at ftp download but that would potentially chew up a lot of my server bandwidth... Certainly with the costs rising to create the AW and distribute it we may have to look at other options. It would be a lot cheaper to produce and send electronically. However, then we have security issues of the magazine being forwarded on to unsubscribed people and the fact that many if not most of it's readers still prefer the paper version. Maybe we can make a purely online version with a password to access or based off membership etc - maybe also too hard. Just a few thoughts without really thinking much about it...

Now Locked!

And gushing!!

Have abig scar on my thumb knuckle from the same thing - did it on Boxing Day 2007 and the scar is still bright pink!! Very difficult job. Sometimes you have to break the divider (smash it) to get it out. If you do be careful of two things - that it doesn't break the other glass and doesm't cut you up while you're man-handling it...

Ok.

Good point - you can't expect too much from a $15 device. Our cheap power quality meters start at about $6K...

Just be wary of doing it this way as you're not taking the power-factor of any items into account. You are actually measuring kVA, not kW. In most cases it will be close enough but if you have a lot of pumps you could be out by 30%. The plug-in style meters measure the phase angle between the voltage and current and compensate for power factor...

If you can put the MDF between two bits of ply it will be incredibly strong - much stronger than needed. You can be guaranteed the wooden part of the base will never cause problems. You can use PVA as long as you use plenty and it oozes out when the wood is clamped. The best way to clamp would be to sit the sandwich on a very flat surface and evenly space some of the concrete blocks across the entire surface. Just make sure the base never gets too wet. The odd splash will be ok but the MDF might expand or the PVA let go if it gets very wet. You could always paint it to seal it...

I currently have 0 tanks but this is likely to be a short lived problem. At it's peak my obsession hit 42 tanks totalling approx 9000L, including one 3000L tank, one 1200L tank, one 680L tank, one 580L tank, ten 200L tanks and the remainder as small breeding tanks ranging from 30-150L. Will never go this mad again though. The next TANK (yes, only one) will be around 800L (1500 x 800 x 700) with about a 100L sump. It will be another Amano style planted tank...

Another reminder to advise the FNZAS who your delegates are. No club has sent us their delegate details yet. Please send your elected delegate details to the FNZAS secretary - details available on the 'Officers' page. Also, please advise the organisers of Conference 2008 who your delegates are as soon as you can. Please send the details to Amazonian by PM or email.

Yup, was trying something that didn't work so well...

This tank's bottom glass will have a peak deflection of approximately 0.62mm. The wood that needs to be placed under the tank needs to be able to support approximately 1/3 of the total weight of the tank with less than this deflection to have much support of the glass. I don't have the strength figures for commonly available plywood so cannot calculate the deflection of the wood for you. To add significantly to the strength of the bottom glass of the tank you should add the maximum practical thickness. The thicker the wood, the less stress on the glass as the wood will deflect less. As you already have 9mm wood and a 1/4 sheet, there should be enough to stick two or three layers together for really good strength. If you do this, make sure to glue the wood together as this will make it around 4x stronger if two bits are glued together (18mm) and 9x stronger if 3 bits are used (27mm). You can never have too much support for your tank...

There's nothing wrong with using some chemicals. You just need to learn which ones are good and which ones to avoid. Basic chemicals like Sodium Bicarbonate, Calcium and Magnesium Salts and many trace elements are exactly the same as the ones found in natural waterways. Adding them in the proper concentrations is often beneficial rather than bad. In fact, the fish need some of the trace elements and some of the metal salts in the water to live. It's only the toxic and non-naturally found chemicals that you need to avoid and be wary of.

New thread for this please...

Ok, the guidelines have been updated so the underlying meaning is clear. The original intent was to remove all aspects of Online Auctions and the trouble they often generate. So, no more references to Online Auctions unless you genuinely want to buy the item and want help deciding if it's ok for your purpose.

I get 500mg or 0.5g 200L @ 0.1mg/L = 20mg 20mg / 0.04 (4%) = 500mg of medication As the solution is 96% water, the solids represent a fairly low part of the weight. Therefore the error using 0.5mls (500mg) of the solution will be small enough to ignore.

There are probably thousands of tanks this size and larger built with 6mm glass that seldom or never have problems. However, here's the stats on this tank - you can make up your own mind. Assuming it has "euro bracing" - ie, bracing full length front and back as well as front to back supports: This tanks has a safety factor of 1.58 (where 1 is where the force on the glass is equal to it's tensile strength or breaking strain). The recommended minimum glass thickness for a tank this size is 9.3mm (or 10 as the closest std size) to give the glass manufacturers recommened safety factor of 3.8. It's usually best to try to have a safety factor greater than 2.