Warren

Will post new pics tomorrow. Tank is now nearly 3 months older and looking a lot better.

It could also be 90ppm or approx 5.6...

Yes!! Watch out for any product containing phosphate buffers. If it doesn't say what's in it avoid it unless you can find out what it is...

What's wrong with chemicals? After all, adding logs, gravel, peat or whatever you use to modify the pH adds chemicals to the water anyway. It's just a little more gradual... If you devise a method for adding the correct chemicals at regular intervals there's absolutely no reason not to use them. I use Sodium bicarbonate, Calcium Chloride, Magnesium sulphate and Potassium sulphate to raise pH and raise general hardness. I use Sulphuric acid to lower pH. I almost never have to lower pH as the natural trend in a closed system is for the pH to drop due to nitrogen products combining with the water. I use a dosing pump to regularly add the pH lowering chemicals above with no problems at all. The main reason is I run a dH and kH less than 1 so regular dosing is required to keep pH stable. The only reason I add hardening chemicals at all is to stop the CO2 injection lower the pH too far (use RO water only for water changes…)

Hi Ira, Sorry to contradict you but a continuous water change changing 20% of the water over a week is more like a 22-23% effective water change per week. As the water is changed continuously, the amount changed has more effect. The maths behind it are a little difficult to represent graphically due to limitations of the posting module on the site, but it's a fairly basic integral term based off the % change and the time.

And you'll find the cost is much lower and filtering power of a sump style filter is much higher than any canister. Of course, sumps suit larger tanks...

How tall is the tank?

We're pretty luck here to have an industrial chemical supplier. They'll supply some acids to anyone but not all acids... You'll have a pretty hard time getting hydrofluoric acid for example. I wouldn't recommend playing with this stuff anyway. It eats glass and is absorbed directly into your blood through the skin if you get a splash. It doesn't take much and you're dead. Phosphoric is quite readily available as an anti-rust agent for treating steel. If you use a steel treatment, make sure it is pure / straight phosphoric acid. Many steel treatments have other chemicals added to enhance the performance. Sulphuric acid is another good one but it’s very dangerous too. I'd go with hydrochloric 33%. It's pretty readily available. Most pool shops should have it as a pH adjuster. Mix about 1L into 10L of water and you’ve got a strong enough solution. Keep the bucket somewhere safe while you’re soaking the pumice as it’s still strong enough to burn. You can put your hand in it but it will start to tingle within a few seconds. You’re ok if you wash it off straight away. Next best readily available acid is probably white vinegar. I don't know what concentration to use as I've never used it. I'd guess at about 2 to 1 with water... When using any acids, use rubber gloves. If you feel a slight burning or tingling sensation go wash the area immediately. Treat it like a burn, lots of cold water. Don't buy acids that are too concentrated. Under no circumstances play with any acid if you don't know exactly what you are doing. Eg, if you by concentrated sulphuric acid and try to add water to it, be prepared for a trip to hospital... However, if you slowly add a little sulphuric acid to lots of water you'll be ok. Again, be very careful with acid!! Pumice is pretty inert and doesn't seem to modify the pH at all. Because it's so porous it can store all sorts of muck. If not properly cleaned the muck will come out or dissolve into the water. This could change the pH or pollute the tank. If the muck is organic it may even cause an ammonia and/or nitrite spike...

Thanks Caryl, Aqua, being in Auckland, you could also join an Auckland club. I believe the most active Auckland club is the North Shore Aquarium Society. See the link below to all the New Zealand clubs. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/clubs.0.html

2400mm long, 820mm wide and 640mm tall. Here's a link to pics about 2 months ago: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewto ... k&start=30 It was just setup for about 2 weeks in the photo after completely rearranging everything. It's much more mature now, looking like it's been going for years... I'll post a current pic during the week.

I use only DIY trickle filters with spa pool cartridge pre-filters. On my 1200L planted tank I use a trickle filter with 12L of Eheim Effisubstrat (5400m²) in the wet/dry area and 14L (2940m²) of commercial Siporax in the wet section. From time to time I add Seachem Purigen to the Weir section of the filter to maintain the sparkle in the water. The prefilter is a 75sq foot pleated cartridge type of 15 microns so the water is as crystal clear as a good marine tank. The pump cycles the water 5 times an hour (6000L/hour on a 1200L tank). I’ve devised a water return with a float / valve like that in your toilet. The water return is low in the filter so it never sucks air in and gurgles. As the float rises it opens the valve. This stops air suck in no matter what the flow is. As the pleated cartridge clogs up the flow reduced slightly. Consequently the filter is totally silent, a major concern for me as my other hobby is HiFi. The stereo and tank are in the same room so noise is bad when listening to music. I've tried canisters and hang on filters and find them very painful to use by comparison. The main problem is needing 2 or 3 canisters for a tank this size. Canister filters are a pain to clean and reprime. They don’t clean the water as well as a good trickle filter either. You know you’ve got clean water when you look through the long length of your tank and it’s just about as good as having no water in it. In my case this is 2.4m of water and it’s almost like looking through air… Trickle filters, if properly designed never need cleaning. Mine's been running for 10 years without ever being cleaned. The prefilter takes out all the muck that would clog up the filter media. This filter is overkill for a tank this size but it means it has massive capacity in the case of emergency. I've never had an ammonia or nitrite spike since installing it. Before setting up as a planted discus tank I used to keep Africans (for 2-3 years). I got bored with the Africans, although they are great fish and I'd still keep them if I had space for more tanks. I found the challenge of planted tanks better. Even with 300+ Africans the filter used to cope no problems and the water was always crystal clear. It only got a bit dirty during feeding but within 15-20 minutes it was all clear again. The filter takes very little work to maintain, - about 15 minutes a week to change and clean the filter cartridges...

Good one Caryl. Pity you weren't in Napier. You could have plugged your printer in here and printed away for 2 days with no power... Sounds like you're putting in a great effort to make sure it's out before the end of Feb. I don't think most people realise just how much work you put into it...

The Pump is the one to go for. It's fairly expensive but well worth it for the quality. I had 32 tanks (7000L) running off one of these in my fishroom. One of the tanks was 900mm deep and it still had the pressure to get to the bottom of this tank even while driving the other 32... From memory the 40L/min is about $400. It will last well over 10 years and should be good for 100+ tanks. There are smaller cheaper ones available... I got mine second hand too, - about $100.

If your carry-on luggage is bigger than a breifcase then it will go in the hold. Since you'll need to put the fish into a chillybin they will be much too big to take as carry-on laggage. They will fly fine. Don't inflate the bags too much, - allow for the air to expand a little as the plane pressure drops. I learned the hard way when a bad popped (even though it was double bagged) and I lost a good discus. I've flown many times with fish. The airline usually puts the chilly bin into a big plastic bag and labels the container as live animals. Just be aware that it's possible they could get sent to the wrong place. I've had my luggage go to the wrong city before... They seem to take a bit of extra care with live animals however. I've never had a bad experience take fish on planes. It's the best way to move fish from city to city as it minimises the time they are bagged... (try to get a direct flight - shouldn't be a problem from Auckland to Chch).

Yeah, Pies is right, UV will break down chelated iron and any other chelated product (probably break down Flourish Excel too - maybe). It's a powerful oxidising agent. In a well setup planted tank it is not necessary as the plants out-compete the algae. Their only real place is to help with disease and to help keep pond clear. Some commerial sites with central filters use them as a preventitive measure. In this situation you have small tanks with lots of fish and new stressed fish coming and going contantly. UV is worth it's weight in gold. I used to have a fishroom with 39 tanks on a central filter. It had a 40W uv sterilser (DIY). It was great at keeping the system clean a disease free. I ran it 2 days a week. The 40W tube cost $110 to replace (wholesale + discount). I'd hate to have to pay full price for one. It can also stops coral's spreading in marine tanks.

I'm totally against adding anything to the water. It's much better to remove what's causing the problem. With chlorine it's easy. If left in a bucket overnight with an airstone the chlorine is all gone. It's only a gas dissolved in the water after all. I use RO water so don't need any additives to neutralise anything. RO removes almost everything from the water. All I add are a selection of salts to simulate natural waterway conditions.

CO2 is very cheap to buy. It only costs about $25.00 to fill a 6.8kg bottle. This would last most people even with big tanks at least 1 year. Mine goes for about 2 years before needing a refill and I've got a very heavily planted 1200L tank with about 5 bubbles a second going in.

0.15kW * hours per day * 30 (ave days per month) * $0.16/kw = cost so: 0.15kW * 12 Hours * 30 days *0.16 = $8.64 per month... This assumes 12 hours on-time a day.

Ok, so here's the breakdown. Lights: 300W MH + 160W FL at 50% = 230W Ave Pumps: 9500L = 160W 4500L = 90W 3300L = 60W 2200L = 45W Total = 335W Heating: 3 x 300W @ 50% = 450W Ave Ave Total = 1035W x 0.16 = $119.23 per month approx. The extra MH's at 750W @ 50% will cost an extra $43.20 per month.

Yeah, I should have mentioned it too. I'm so up to my armpits in this sort of thing daily you tend to forget how dangerous it can be. It's compounded in our hobby's case however as we use our lighting over water. If it's not done properly the two can be a lot worse than just playing with the lights while sitting on the bench. It's completely possible to wire the lights up and get them going fine on the bench. Then you put them in a hood over your tank. A year could go by until one day you have your hand in the tank an accidentally bump your wet arm onto some of the wiring or the earthed metal. Next thing you find yourself dead on the floor cause you got the earthing wrong. I've done it at work. Wired something up and used it for a while then you connect something else to it at there a loud bang cause you got the earthing wrong. I've had many cases where it's only been the insulation in my shoes that protected me. I tend to be a lot more carefull now. Some of the wiring over aquariums I've fixed up for people has made me shudder... (before it was fixed!!)

1 Tablespoon is approx 13 grams of crystals. If you dissolve 2 tablesppons of each in 1L (1000ml) then you'll have approx 26g of each in 1000mls. So, in 10mls you'll have 0.26 grams of each.

You need a ballast for each tube. You can wire some tubes in series using one ballast but you nee a special starter. It's commonly done putting two 18W tubes in series with one 36W ballast. Two S2 starters are required, one across each tube. I don't know of any other sizes done like this but maybe... I haven't heard of putting three 15W tubes in series before. Even if you could, you need the special S2 starter and a 45W ballast.

If your tank is truly using about $250 a month in power then it's using an average of about 1200W. Please supply the following details: 1. How big is the tank (litres please)? 2. How many heaters and what wattage? 3. How many pumps and what wattage? 4. What type of lights and what wattage? 5. How many hours a day are the lights on? From this it's fairly easy to guesstimate the power usage the tank should have. It's always a good procedure to go through before committing. I once looked at building a 38000L tank. It would have added about $10k to the cost of building a house. The tank was going to be 7.6m long, 1.8m tall and 2.4m wide using 3 off 2.4 x 1.8 x 75mm acrylic panels. I gave up on the idea when I calculated the running cost would be about $750.00 a month (in a year it would use what it cost to build in power). My 1200L tank costs about $25 a month in summer and $45 in winter. It has the following setup: 1 x 100W Pump 24Hrs a day. 1 x 40W Pump 24Hrs a day. 500W lighting 14Hrs a day. 600W of heating (0% in summer, 50% in winter).

Go with the 1L stated. If you use 500ml's, you'll have to shake the bottle every time you want to use it. If 1L is used the salts stay dissolved so no shaking required... From the look of the plants they don't seem to be growing fast enough. Adding the extra trace elements and macronutrients will make them grow faster. Start adding only a small amount daily. If this picks the plants up and knocks the algae back stay at that level. If not, try adding a bit more. Try the same dose for a week at least. Things don't happen over night and a week is usually enough to show a difference. Don't over-dose or you could get lots of green algae. Once the plants are growing fast, they use up the food for the algae so they out-compete it... With Flourish, it's better to add 1/7th the weekly dose on a daily basis. Even though it's a chelated product they state it stays in a form the plants can use, I've always had much better results with daily dosage. Standard iron chelates don't stay chelated for much more than 24 hours before turning into insoluable iron. That’s why you need to dose daily. It also makes the fertiliser level fluctuate a lot less. A big dose once a week gives the algae a chance to get hold. Lots of regular small doses don't let it get a chance.

Another very good carpet plant (and a native of New Zealand) is Glossostigma elatinoides. It too can be found at many garden centers. It has a very small almost round leaf. It's leaf is much smaller when grown as a bog plant, but get to 5-7mm diameter in an aquarium. It grows quite fast. I recently put a small pot I got at Organism into my tank and it's already spread from about 50mm diameter out to 600mm. It grows about 300mm a month in good conditions.