Warren

I used to have a UV filter on my old fishroom. I have no idea why it worked but it did remove non water-born algae from the surface of the glass. It was quite a big UV filter so maybe it was converting dissolved oxygen into ozone in the water - have no idea really. After running with no UV for 4-6 weeks the glass would get quite covered in green algae even though the water was still crystal clear. If the UV filter was turned on, after 3-4 days almost all the algae was gone and what was left was small very easy to remove clumps. The UV was primarily for disease control as all 36 of the 39 tanks were on one central filter. I have no idea if you would get the same results as it shouldn't have worked based off everything I've read. I never tried to find out why it worked so sorry, I can't offer any suggestion. I was running 3 x 40W UV tubes with the water flow connected in series to maximise contact time. I made them myself using plain t8 quartz UV germicidal tubes with a PVC plastic tube with a 32mm inside diameter. The UV tube was siliconed into the PVC tube - so a very simple easy to make UV steriliser that ran off standard fluro started gear.

No matter what or how much you feed them, the discus will eat the neons. It's nature and nothing will stop it. Like almost any fish, if it fits in it's mouth it will eat it...

:lol: me chuckles.

I just use standard hard gravel of 2-4mm size and add fertiliser tablets pushed into about half way down. Anything else eventually runs out after a couple of years and you have to rip it all out and start again or resort to tablets. I don't like Daltons as it has a lot of silica in it which leaches into the water creating brown algae. Many people I've talked to who have brown algae problem also use Daltons mix... I once had the same substrate set up growing plants well for eight years - then I had to move... I use the leaf-zone tablets and another I make out of clay and macro nutrients like magnesium, potassium and calcium. I also add trace elements like iron and low levels of phosphate to my home made tablets. Alternatively pond tablets that are high in phosphate can be smashed up and small pieces used sparingly to get the phosphate you need.

It will be fine if there's no gravel or if an under gravel filter is used. If there's just gravel with no water flow through it there may be too much insulation to the water. Then the base glass will get too hot and you risk cracking the tank.

The article states the tube has been designed for the likes of tunnels etc - in other words, difficult, high labour cost areas to service. Replacement once every 4 years would save a lot of money in this situation as the labour cost for 3 replacements would likely outway cheaper tubes.

And, we will be considering some of the comments made. I can't guarantee action on all the issues people raised but it will be discussed.

Hi Everyone, I wish to firstly state it was with regret that Henward was banned as he did contribute well to the site. However, he broke the rules too many times as well. We must be fair and consistent to everyone here (or at least try to) so no exceptions are made. The original thread was removed due to too many emotionally charged posts which quite seriously breached the site guidelines. No action is going to be taken against most of the people for these breaches as we realise the posts were very emotionally charged and most of the people posting were probably not in a good frame of mind. This is no excuse though and no further breaches will be tolerated. We have site guidelines for a very good reason - to protect our members and to protect the site. If you don't like them you don't have to post here. Some might argue this is detrimental to the site but to date this has not been an issue. The rules have made this site a clean friendly place where for the most part everyone gets along well and helps each other. I'm not saying they are perfect but we have to have a baseline to work off and the guidelines are 'it'. Most of the guidelines are common sense but there are more than a few that have been added due to activity from members who have always challenged the generally friendly nature of this site. I am only sorry we have to have these guidelines but they have proven quite necessary. If you wish to use this site as a place to swear, be coarse or generally destructive to the clean friendly environment it has then you will get in trouble for it. There's a small group who do it and I won't apologise for the action we take against those people. Henward was banned for good reason. He regularly breached the guidelines and did not change or learn from the warnings or previous ban he received. If you're not going to learn then you will eventually get banned. Many people have made mistakes or intentional rule breakages in the past and for the most part learn from it and don't do it again. Those who don't learn only have themselves to blame. It's up to you to know the guidelines. If you don't understand a certain part of them then ask and we'll clarify it and even update the guidelines if necessary. Arguing about a guideline breach after the fact is pointless. Try telling MAF you didn't know that fish you just caught was undersized... It's your responsibility to know. There is a very small group who know the rules but chose to ignore them because they don't agree with them (fortunately most of these people are already banned). May I remind these people that they agreed to abide by these rules when they registered with us and as such must abide by them. Deliberately ignoring the rules will get you banned. Maybe this is also a good time to become re-acquainted with the site guidelines. If anyone has an issue with clarity of any item in the guidelines I am more than happy to discuss it. As this topic has proven too emotionally charged for some people to not break the guidelines I request no further discussion on the matter. Any further topics will be removed.

Don't worry, we'll split it shortly. Ok, has been split with the original wanted add in the PT&E section.

This topic is about to be split. The PT&E section is for advertising - not general discussion.

What's your temperature today? It's currently 38'C outside here (but a nice 22'C inside...).

I'd expect there's a bit of both happening. Even if the radio wave is reflected it's still not going to make it all the way to the US without being absorbed unless it's refracted to a shallower angle as well. This isn't my area of speciality though so what do I know??...

Happy Birthday!!

Not yet. It's designed but will be expensive to make if I want it to look really classy. Will have to wait for a while longer yet.

I've never had any decent performance from dacron. It always clogs up before the bacterial colony has good time to establish. Doesn't seem to matter where in the filter it's put, it still eventually clogs up (even with a 15 micron pre-filter).

Yeah, I know - but the thickness calculator doesn't know the glass thicknesses available, it just tells the exact thickness required based on the safety factor. The designer will always have to chose the next size up from what is locally available.

Yeah, my gut says 5.5mm is too thin as well even though the calcs say it's ok. As TM says, 12mm is a good size and would recommend this too.

You don't have to grind the edges - it's just tidier and easier to see if the edge is damaged. It adds a small extra cost but makes the finish very good. It also make the silicone join very uniform and it can be a bit thinner than normal as well due to no uneven edge to worry about high points. It's also advisable to go with ground edges as the glass gets thicker, probably above 10mm as the unevenness gets worse as the glass gets thicker. This is compounded by thicker glass being used on larger tanks that are typically longer and taller, putting more stress on the edges and silicone joints. Any movement in the silicone reduces the tolerance to a high point in one panel touching another panel and causing high stress area and possiblea breakage. Ground edges go a long way to stopping or significantly reducing this problem. Thinner silicone joins flex less and are stronger.

Hmm, my local glass merchant's quote was only 10% higher for low-iron. Maybe they made a mistake.

At 10mm+ there is a noticeable difference and at 15mm+ a lot of difference. Many of the marine aquarium keepers won't use standard glass as it effects the viewed colour of the reef and water looks less sparkly. Low-iron glass is pretty much crystal clear - no green tinge. There's also less than 2% tensile strength difference. I think the iron just makes it easier to work with when it's being made. At approx 10% extra cost my personal preference is low-iron when used on medium sized tanks of 600 - 1400L.

If you're going to use toughened glass, as Barrie says, it will need to be perfect. Get the edges ground prior to it being toughened and make sure there's no damage before using it. If you want to use toughened glass, just substitute the tensile strength for toughened glass into the thickness calculator. Standard float glass has a tensile strength of 19.3 to 28.4 MPa (so use 19.2 for calcs) and toughened glass 175MPa (so use 174). Toughened glass costs about twice as much as the same thickness annealed glass. If it breaks, it will all fail by shattering completely where annealing glass often just splits and leaks. At least with annealed glass you usually have some time to rescue the tank as it leaks out... On my new tank I am going to use 15mm low-iron toughened glass. This will give a safety factor of approx 22!

Try 20 times the voltage therefore V²/R means 400 times the power and that's not considering the fault current as the fan failed spectacularly. Sounds like a cool bang. In my job this sort of thing happens from time to time but usually a little bigger sort of bang (normally 10's of mega-joules in my explosions) Shows the extreme danger of getting electricity wrong eh? Will you do it again, I bet not - at least for a while anyway. PS: 12V fans will blow immediately when wired to 240VAC as the internal electronics are designed only for 12V (maybe 16-18 max). The components aren't designed for 240VAC so blow instantly.

I don't really want to get involved in the process too much or I may as well just do it myself. As long as any guidance is very minimal I will be happy. However, if I need to answer 2-3 questions a day I won't be happy. I'm rather hoping anyone who wants to give this a go will learn for themselves. Others have already expressed some interest in this so if I'm trying to support 2-3 people it's likely to take more time than if I did it myself. Incidentally, I'm not expecting finished styles by Feb 7th, just point me to the style template you want to start with on one of the style download forums... Before you start any work on modifying the style to format it for consistency with our existing styles it will need to be approved at the committee meeting. It will also need to meet our style specification requirements. Just tell me what the template is for the style so I can look it up and print it off. I'll include our style specification in the email I send out. If you're going to try to create a new style from scratch you will need many years experience before you even consider it.

Welcome

Cool, thanks. I'll set you up with ftp access to my server and create a dummy forum so you can get things going. Further correspondence will be by email. Before you do anything though, it would be best to send me the details of any new styles so they can be approved before you start any work. It's a steep learning curve if you've never done this before. You'll need to learn how to write html and php code and understand how other people have written the existing code so you can easily modify it or trace where to modify it. On Feb 7th we have a committee meeting so we can discuss and approve any new proposed styles at that meeting. As long as I know what styles you'd like added a couple of days prior to the meeting I can prepare slides to demo at the meeting.