Warren

While not at all pleasant, the methods mentioned by Alan and Tanksman are probably the quickest and most humane to the fish. Any more pleasant method for us humans is usually much less humane for the fish... Never heard of clove oil before either.

As dimsum says, set it up the other way round. You won't need a radiator in the aquarium, just a coil made from stainless tube. I use a coil on hot days in summer to cool the tank. I just run cold tapwater through the coil to act as a heat exchanger. It usually only take 2-3 hours to knock 3'C off the tank with the tap on really low. If you put a cooler block on the CPU, GPU and Northbridge, and circulate the water through the coil as above (instead of a radiator), you will get really good cooling...

It may not be the most efficient way but it's relatively cheap, silent and very easy to set up. During winter you get a 2:1 heating ratio so more efficient than heaters. Much less efficient than a good heat exchanger though...

Just get a phosphate test kit, it will easily show if there's any in the tap water. If it changes colour at all, there is too much...

No, stainless steel tube cast into an aluminium block. The water goes through the tube and the peltier mounts to the block.

I'm using a double as well. You can see the tank pressure too. The gasflow knob (on the one in the TM auction) is intended for high volume low-pressure flow adjustment for welding, not the low-flow situation you need. That reg will work effectively to drop the pressure but that's all. You'll need to add a needle valve and bubble counter...

Gone mine today too!! Nice Danio's on the front!!

I looked at making a heater chiller using peltier's. I was going to cast stainless 316 tube into an aluminium block for one side and use a standard fan-cooled aluminium heatsink for the other. In summer it would need to only take about 4-5'C off the temperature and in winter, add 15-17'C. You can reverse the polarity on a peltier to make it work in either direction. The advantage of heating is you get approx 2:1 transfer ratio. I was going to use about 500W of peltiers to get about 500W of colling in summer and about 1kW of heating in winter. The only reason I haven't done it is time. It would take a while to design and build a controller, especially by the time the software is debugged and all the design stuff-ups are sorted. Part of the big problem is peltiers do not like thermal cycling or AC ripple in their power supply. The junctions fatigue and break and bye bye peltier. A control system is required to put only contant DC current into the peltier and to cycle it as little as possible so it's life is maximised. It is all relatively easy to do but time consuming... This year summer is not as hot so the tank is not overheating much. Next time we get a heat wave it may motivate me to start the project...

Turning the lights off only masks the problem. You need to find out what is causing the algae. If you do not find the source then it will come back after the lights are turned back on. I run my lights 14 hours a day, 2 x 250W metal halides, - no algae problems. Phosphate is the most common cause of algae. Get your water tested for it or buy a test kit. The combination of phosphate and nitrate is the most common cause for algae outbreaks. You've probably added a large dose of phosphate to the tank recently. Maybe a waterchange? pH stabilisers are often phosphate based and should be avoided. Some fertilisers are way too rich in phosphate. Many solid fertiliser tablets are very rich in phosphate. This is fine if they are pushed deep into the gravel. If an undergravel filter is used the phosphate will wash out into the water however... There is always a cause for algae and it's nearly always not the lighting.

7.2-7.4 is not high at all. When you consider the pH scale is logarithmic it further shows how 7.2-7.4 is nothing to worry about. If it was 8 or more then it may be worth worrying about. Fish are usually very adaptable. If they look happy they usually are. I wouldn't muck with the setup. If it's stable, you only risk disaster by mucking with it...

Not any more. I got rid of that system now I'm only running one tank. It wasn't that complicated Alan, it was just an automatic dosing system to treat the RO water to add the right balance of salts on the continuous waterchange system.

Yes can be kept happily in an aquarium. No, will eat anything they can catch. They're pretty good at fishing and will catch fish at night as well. I don't think the Taupo prawn farm sells live prawns. I heard they once did but have no idea how acurate the information was. On the last tour I was told they do not sell live prawns by the staff.

We only got tiny micro cuts - sub second. There was one outage for about 5 seconds but thats it. I have my tank on a UPS with 2 days of backup batteries with the file-server running and 4 days if it's switched off. The UPS cost $750 to set up and I got the batteries for free (rejects from work - 12 x 150AH 12V configured as 300AH at 72V). The $750 is about the same as replacing 3 adult discus of which I have 17 in the tank along with 150 neons, 50 black neons, 20 SAE's and various other fishes. It would cost 5x the $750 I paid for the UPS to replace the fish, not to mention the ones that can't be replaced. Another option is a cheapie Genset from Mitre10 or Repco. A 650-750 Watt Geni is only $199. It won't last very long (heard of them crapping out after only a few days) but they'll do the job during most long power cuts. It's pretty rare for the power to be off for more than 8 hours.

No, long gone. BMW now!!

I can give you a bunch of idea's for building your own tank. I'm relatively local too... Look me up under the officers section if you want to give me a call.

The red measurement on mine is 620mm. Does it matter for you though, why not turn the regulator 90' so it's under the total height of the cylinder?

Tetra makes an O2 test kit that seems to work ok.

I'd wait until the leafy plants are well established. Once Echinodorus osiris is well established and the stem plants take off there will be plenty of shade for them. If you put floating plants into the tank you will be forever removing them as they grow like crazy under MH. It took me 2 years to get rid of some Duckweed I accidentally introduced with a new plant and I was only using fluro's then. Many floating plants will completely cover the surface in 1 week. Duckweed used to take about 1 week to go from nothing to complete coverage cause I'd missed a bit. Eventually I got the whole lot and now it's gone.

Use colour 86 or 96 tubes. The colour rating specifies how close the natural sunlight the tube is. 100 = sunlight so 96 is pretty good. 86 is a lot cheaper, still works really well and looks good. Colour 84 is a lot pinker and while it works ok for growing aquatic plants, distorts the colours of the fish. It will however make Ram's look great, bringing out the reds and blues really well. Colour 96 is very natural and the fish will look more realistic but the blues and reds won't show up as well. Any tube from 84 to 96 will work fine, it's really down to personal choice. The really cheap tubes with a yellow/orange colour are not very good for growing aquatic plants. The $2 ones you get are really cheap and are not designed for aquariums.

It won't matter if the cylinder has a tube or not - if it is kept upright...

I've spent a while checking info about CO2 and regulators etc. It appears the original info I posted had the details backwards. I've edited the posts to stop anyone getting confussed. The bottom line is still correct though as confirmed by alanmin4304, the cylinder must be upright. Refer to the last posts from alanmin4304 and lorenceo for the correct description of how a CO2 system works. The last time I assumed Australia used the same fittings as NZ I ended up having to make an adapter. I have no idea if CO2 fittings are the same. Anyone else able to help?

Total height to the top of the tap is the same as the carry handle so the original measurement still stands.

Edited - info incorrect.

Hi Blue, Where do you buy these? At only $30, it's worth adding to my tank for sure. For me $30 is really cheap insurance with 17 adult discus to replace if disaster strikes...

Mine is 6.8kg and it's 672mm to the top of the carry handle. Nothing sticks up higher than the handle. The cylinder needs to be upright so Liquid CO2 does not get into the regulator.