Warren

The ribbed hose looks like electrical conduit. I'm not exactly sure if it is the same stuff but if it is you can get it from any electrical wholesaler. It's not expensive at about $4.00/m retail. There are a range of sizes available. Best to take the hose you have into the wholesaler and check if it is the same stuff... The more flow in the tank the better as long as there are some still zones where the fish can rest. All the muck will settle in the still zones too, making it easier to clean. The filters will more effectively get all the suspended muck out too.

After a bit of research on some of the pumps available on the net it does look like they don't drop much in flow from 60-50Hz. The 40% drop will be accurate if the shaft speed drops to 80%. I expect the motor is designed primarily for 50Hz operation and runs a high slip at 60Hz so the shaft still rotates at a similar speed. The output on most pumps I looked at only goes up by 5-10% at 60Hz... There must also be enough iron in the pump for 50Hz operation as well.

There's a good reason for polished edges on big tanks. The edges are all dead square and parallel. It's very important to get the thinest glue joint on a big tank to increase the strength. A glue joint weakens by a square law with thickness. A normal 'cut' glass edge is irregular and the glue has to be thicker and is not uniform. It all adds up to a weaker joint. Also, you're not going to accidentally get a single point load due to an irregular part of the cut glass touching the face of another panel. As Pies states, you could have gotten away with 10mm for the sides and 12mm for the base. At least you'll have a bulletproof tank with the glass you've gone with.

Where and when was that again ???

Looks like the relay contacts aren't rated for NZ voltages. Make sure you get a module with enough capacity to control the devices you wish to attach to it. If you are going to run it off a PC you'll need something really reliable that doesn't crash. You'd be best with server based operating system and get a good UPS. Sound's pretty expensive though.

This should really be in the Private Trade section...

Have you used acrylic before? How are you going to glue it together? After being machined or cut, acrylic needs to be annealed before it is glued if you are using a hard glue (like Acrifix192). It's one of the best cheaper acrylic glues available. It has virtually no shrinkage and sets perfectly clear. It fills very well and looks just like the original acrylic. If you don't anneal the sheets first they will crack all round the joints. If you are going to just silicone it together there is no need to anneal.

I wouldn't put a 115V 60Hz pump on to a 115V 50Hz mains. A stepdown trany won't change the frequency. By putting the same voltage but lower freq on the pump it will over flux it but 20% causing at least 44% more iron loss and higher copper loss in the motor. It may significantly reduce the life. The pump will also run at about 80% speed. Since pumps have a flow rate proportional to the speed cubed, you'll end up with much less flow as well - approx 51.2% flow rate...

Keep a post'n

Reamans pump supplies. You can get them from pools shops but Reamans is a wholesaler. You'll need to be a trade customer to buy from them though. They are next door to where I work so I get a good price.

Just did my 1001'th post, this make it 1002. I now join the 1000 club!! 8)

Got mine today too, thanks Caryl, looks great!!

I only use trickle filters with pleated cartridge prefilters. I also only have med size tanks (600-1200L).

This is your original post, nothing to do with what I said... RO not only last much longer than any other type of purifier but it's also the cheapest water purifier, especially for how effective it is. It might only remove 99.5% but so does DI.

RO is the cheapest form of water purification by a long shot... Try using just DI on it's own and you'll pay megabucks for resin (or regen it every week or so). The DI only lasts so long because there is stuff all for it to do after the RO to start with. A good RO will produce about 70000L of water on one membrane and set of pre and post filters. I get over 100000L out of mine... No need for DI on fresh water tanks. Also, DI would be detrimental as it replaces whatever is in the water with sodium ions, - less than desirable in a planted tank but ok in a marine.

The phos here in HB is pretty bad too, 6-8ppm out of the tap. No good for planted tanks unless you want green algae. No good for salt mix either as the phos strips the calcium. I've been using just RO for years now, - the only way to have an algae free planted tank. Even the seawater here can have up to 1ppm phos due to 13+ rivers emptying in Hawke Bay... Why do you use a DI after the RO for marines?. A good RO removes 99.95% of all dissolved molecules to start with. The tapwater isn't all that bad in NZ to start with, just not quite good enough for some of the more sensitive artificial environments like Marine Tanks and Planted freshwater tanks with the same lighting as a marine...

I don't know about planaria but it didn't effect my plants. The treatment is only for about 34 hours anyway. As long as levamisole doesn't destroy part of the plant's cell structure it shouldn't have much effect.

I moved in December last year and my tenelus is only just starting to really establish itself again. As soon as it really starts to take off I can give you some. If you're in a real hurry for some, talk to Franz at Living Waters in Tauranga (if he's still around). He has many of the Amazon varieties. My original tenelus came from him.

Keep in mind NZ is very isolated and doesn't have many nasty critters. It also has very unique native species. Many overseas species would easily out compete our native for survival and end up extinct. MAF is protecting our environment. We do have fairly strict importation rules as a result. We also don't need to worry about spiders when we put on our shoes or use the loo and don't need to worry about getting bitten or eaten in the bush...

Of course you can disagree but keep it within the rules and keep it nice... The rules for the site clearly state no bad language, no slander and no personal insults. All three of these rules have been broken in recent posts and two of them in this thread already. Statements about retail prices are slanderous so stop it now and don't do it again! No more bad language and no attacking each other with insults. As Bill stated, we haven't banned anyone, - yet...

Beware, some of these posts are heading in the same direction as those removed last week. Please keep those slanderous and potentially personal remarks out of the forums.

It could be but if your phosphates are low to start with maybe not. What was the phosphate reading from the test? Have you checked nitrates too? I'd expect regular water changes while the water is green will help a lot in reducing the overall phosphate level whether it's bound phosphate or free phosphate... What type of food do you use? Maybe you can contact the manufacturer to see if they will disclose the phosphate content...

The UV was filtered so the wavelength that kills bacteria and algae spores wasn't present. A little UV still gets through the glass however...

Of course when the algae bloom dies you'll have a lot of phosphate and ammonia products again - creating perfect conditions for more algae. Water changes with phosphate and ammonia product free water is the best solution. It will take time. Phoszorb will speed up the process but it may take quite a bit to fix the problem. I've had lighting above my tanks in the past that's much brighter and has more UV content than direct sunlight through a window with no problems. It can be done quite easily with a little attention to detail - like getting that phosphate level down...

Get a phosphate test kit. The reason you have green water is not due to too much light, it's a nutrient imbalance. The most common problem causing green water is too high phosphate and/or nitrate level. I've had tanks in deirect sunlight before and haven't had algae problems as long as the phosphates and nitrate are under control. Typical values required are less than 0.05ppm phosphate and around 10-20ppm nitrate if the tank is in sunlight. With bright artificial lighting you can get away with 0.1ppm phosphate and still 10-20ppm nitrate. The high phosphates could be coming from tapwater or overfeeding. Some additives for pH have very high phosphate content. Also most activated carbons release more phosphate than they adsorb. Here is some links that may help: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/filtration.0.html http://www.fnzas.org.nz/filtration-2.0.html http://www.fnzas.org.nz/filtration-3.0.html http://www.fnzas.org.nz/aquarium-conditions.0.html http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilize ... onlin.html