Warren

Check under the 'The NZ Fishroom website' section for answers to your questions about avatars. Probably no more styles for quite a while. Each style takes about 2 full days to modify to fit our format + then it has to be tested and we need to make sure it's 100% compatible with our version etc... Would you like to do it for us? I'd be more than happy to accept help from volunteers. You'll need your own server to test it though - or I could give you access to mine. Any new style suggestions would need to be approved by the FNZAS committee first however.

Agree totally - if it's for road use then there will ne very little if any noticable difference. If it's for on the track then it could be very worthwhile - it could easily be the difference between 1st and 2nd or worse still, 1st and 5th... It will also depend on the track. If it's just road use then you might find it makes a difference of a few minutes to a 3 hour trip if you keep to legal speeds and a few minutes more if you don't. Not really a lot of gain for the $$. 18's will also be noisier and give a harder ride. You have to weigh up the whole comfort factor as well (coming from someone who used to run 4 x 48mm sidies with no aircleaners and no firewall soundproofing - also no heater cause it got in the way of the engine). If you're young this probably isn't important to you...

The bottle of ice trick works really well in smaller tanks but when you're looking at 800L it's no good. I once tried ice to drop my 1200L from 32'C down to something more respectable. 22 bags of ice later it was down to 28'C. The evaporation method works very well if you only need 2-3 degrees drop.

It seems the whole guideline page accidentally got pruned :oops: I have recreated it and added it to the announcements section here: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=36158

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Actually you did break the rules in this post: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=36124 so you got warned and the post was edited (you won't be able to see the original but I can - in fact, we see the full history of all edited posts). Public announcement of warnings is being trialled by me as a deterrent - like posting a crim's photo on a billboard. Don't want it public - then don't do it. I appreciate some people may not have thought a lot about the implications of quoting a post or playing along with what someone else starts. However, it has to end somewhere and I spend enough time here cleaning up already. It would be nice to just read posts and participate in the site than police it all the time... Guidelines - good point. I've just looked for the link to these and it seems to have disappeared during the upgrade. Sorry about this, I'll add a link to them in the announcements section and see what I can do to modify the site's code so there's a permanent link to them on all pages of the forum.

I'd be less worried about the inertia and more about the increased cornering grip. You should find the 18's corner better and will suit tighter slower tracks like Taupo better. To get the best you'll need to rework your suspension geometry as well as the 18's will be lower profile and deform less requiring less negative camber compensation in the corner.

And as I stated earlier - there's been too much swearing here in recent times and it's going to stop. I don't care if members have to learn the hard way either...

Then the original poster should never have posted and everyone else who quoted or used swear words including yourself should not have replied. It's really very very simple - read the guidelines and stick to them. I am simply enforcing them - it does not make me feel better at all. If you get banned I may feel better as then you won't be round to add more swear words but I'd only feel this way because my job would be easier. We have rules - stick to them and you won't get a warning - break them and you get a warning - can't see how it could be simpler. And it's not overkill - to allow any case of swearing opens the door for everyone to do it. We may miss some from time to time but members usually let us know pretty quick when we do and it gets removed. If you don't like it then don't post here. If you do post here then you will do it by our rules, not what you think should be acceptable.

It does appear I need to tell everyone off. Over the last 2 weeks there's been over 8 cases of swearing or implied swearing. Warning people doesn't seem to be working so public announcements might. If that doesn't work then one month bans will be enforced - want one? This sudden increase in the amount of swearing on the site is going to stop one way or another.

It's implied swearing and against the guidelines.

I thought for a second there you were going to say you filled in for the patients as well... 8)

Solid low surface area items like ceramic tiles and bio-balls are pretty useless compared to other much higher surface area media. Try reading the series of 4 articles about filtration starting here: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?PG=filt1 Sometimes it's worth spending a few extra dollars on some of the ultra-high surface area synthetic media to get an effective surface area hundreds of times higher per litre. Pumice is by far one of the highest surface area free media sources available. It has some initial drawbacks but at least it's free.

Why guess when you can work it out for yourself: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?PG=glass2 10mm only gives a safety factor of about 2.4 - a bit low but about the same as many existing tanks. Unless you plan to use thicker than 10mm glass on the bottom of the tank you'll need significantly more than 18mm of wood under the glass - more like 100mm to have any effect. This can be achieved using multiple 4x2's (maybe 4 or 5) across the depth of the tank. The best way is to build the frame and glue the 18mm panel to the top of the 4x2's with something like no-more-nails. If the empty tank with poly under it is placed on this while the glue cures it will exactly conform to the bottom of the tank. Then the bottom glass will be properly supported and have no extra stress added.

By doing this it will drop the glass thickness required from 34mm to 24mm - quite a saving.

Std Annealed Float Glass will need to be 34mm+, acrylic 50mm+ - glass may work out cheaper and will be more robust. Use low-iron glass so it's as clear as the acrylic (adds about 10% to the price). Toughened Glass will need to be 15mm+, again use low iron. The price usually doubles for toughened glass. Most of the acrylic panels at the National Aquarium are pretty scratched after only 8 years. Glass also won't flex like acrylic. Years ago I built a tank 3000 x 950 (viewing window size) using a 19mm front panel (which was a bit thin). It only had a safety factor of 2.2 but worked fine. For public aquariums a minimum safety factor of 3.8 needs to be observed or public liability insurance or general insurance might be voided if the tank should break - and if someone gets hurts... The above panels are calculated with a safety factor of 3.8 This tank is now 8 years old - no leaks or breaks and has been moved a couple of times. It's a steel frame with polyester fibreglass over 38mm ply. Fibreglass over wooden frame/polystyrene composite works really well. You'll need to use high-density polystyrene though as it's considerably stronger. Also, you'll need polyester resign, not standard epoxy. The older style epoxy reacts with the polystyrene and isn't waterproof (suffers from osmosis). Polyester doesn't react with the poly and is waterproof without sealing. Use a good quality hardwood for the frame. If you want some really good advice on how to make tanks like this I can put you in touch with the guys who made the original National Aquarium tanks - made using fibreglass over a wooden/polystyrene composite. These tanks were still going strong after 25 years. The only drawback to fibreglass over poly is how fragile the tank bottom and sides are. If you drop a rock or something falls over in the tank it can easily puncture the fibreglass surface. It's easy to patch but something to consider. The tanks are also incredibly light - it only takes 4 people to move a tank this size and it's not a struggle at all...

No advertising in this forum please - use the Private Trade and Exchange forum. Recent adds have been moved. Future adds will be deleted.

Mmm, it's 22'C again inside my house today - is 28'C outside. Come to think of it, it's always 22'C inside my house during summer...

Mmm, it's a nice cool 22'C in my house...

Hi Stella, The surface-to-volume ratio will not actually change if the tank is made deeper from front to back. As the volume increases linearly with the change in depth, so does the surface area. Therefore the surface area to volume ratio remains the same. It will change if the height of the tank changes as the volume is changing without the surface area changing... Romeo, A tank only 250mm from front to back will only look like it's 180mm deep when viewed from the front as water diffracts the light and makes things look about 2/3 of the length. So you'd be best to go with around 450mm front to back (so it actually looks like its 250-300mm deep... Unless of course if you want it to look very thin. The floor will be fine with this weight as it will be distributed over a long length. According to the tank volume calculator http://www.fnzas.org.nz/index.php?PG=tank, the tank will be about 46kg empty, hold 252L of water and weigh approx 298kg when full (assuming no gravel). This is based on a tank 2000 x 450 x 300 made from 6mm glass with a 10mm bottom. This is about the same as 4 people standing side by side in a 2m x 0.45m space against the wall - no problem. Gravel will add a bit of extra weight but still no problem.

Merry Christmas everyone. Now get off here and go be with your families!!

No, not going through my server. The search index rebuild dropped out at about 1% so some topics are indexed but most aren't. It might look like it's working but it isn't. There's currently about 40000 search references in this database compared to 5600000 in mine... I'd hoped to have this going before Christmas but it looks like it will be somewhere between Christmas and New Year. The version 2 site's search hadn't worked for several years and required a Google search to get results. I can guarantee you won't have to wait long to get our search working properly...

Welocme back BUT!!! Why did you create a new user account? Had I noticed this your new account would have been declined. We have the ability to find user account names - yours was Rixice for example. I have deactivated your Rixice account as it's against the site guidelines to have two accounts. If anyone else ever forgets their details - DO NOT create a new account, ask an admin to find your old details - it's not rocket science...

Except the search function is not yet working. I'm trying to get this going at present. The search index builds fine on my server on the mirror of this site but will not work on our live server. I want to get this going and it will happen soon. Worst case, I will take the board off-line late one night, copy the current database to my server, rebuild the search, copy the search tables back over to the live site and then put the board back online (takes about 4 hours). Then all past posts will be indexed. At present only new posts are being indexed and all past posts before Sat 20th won't be found in the search.

I agree with Alanmin, waterchanges are the best answer. Cyno is caused by excess phosphate in the presence of no nitrate or excess nitrate. Phoszorb will reduce the phosphate level and do so quite quickly but not effect the nitrate level. Nitrate is also toxic to many fish (as low as 40ppm for some species). Many tanks have nitrate levels of 100ppm or higher. This will promote cyno as well as seriously reduce the lifespan of most fish. You could use phoszorb for a short time to pull the phosphate level back quickly but remove it after a day or two - but this is expensive and waterchanges will do the same thing. If you don't remove what's causing the cyno it will just come back so antibiotics are only a temporary fix and also wreck your filter bacteria. Check the water you use for waterchanges is not rich in phosphate as well. There should be no measurable content. It's much harder to test for but make sure there is no dissolved organic content either or this will convert to nitrate with a day or two. I had a very big problem many years ago with 100+ ppm nitrate all the time. I could do a 90% waterchange and get it down to 20ppm. 3 days later it was back over 100ppm! I finally set up a brand new tank with nothing else but water in it and a Fluval filter. I ended up with the same result - high nitrate which went to low nitrate after a waterchange then back to high nitrate within days. As long as your tap-water is good quality it will be fine. You should try doing 25% waterchanges every 2-3 days until the cyno goes away. Then, 50% waterchanges once a week will make sure it stays away and will make the fish much more healthy. Let the cyno grow like mad in the meantime and siphon it out during waterchanges - this will help burn out the phosphate and nitrate. Also, try reading this - http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Fertilize ... onlin.html It's a great reference experiment that links cyno directly to phosphate and nitrate.