matthewY

Sounds good. think i'm just going to go with it. If I make a "big" 3d background with caves and all that then that could mean less water / less real rocks and therefore less weight. you migth be able to help with this. Is it genally accepted that all "tallish" (8 floors) apartment buildings are made with steal and concrete? The floor seems to be particle board but I have no clue whats underneath it. Would hate to think that it could be just wood joists between floors...???

Famous last words from that building in auckland? :-p

Ah, feel so much better about that now. if it cracks from earthquake, insurance should cover it, aslong as I have a earthquake to blame :-) Its not going to the corner of the apartment but would be somewhat centered accross one of the walls. Sound like from the above posts that it shouldnt make a difference . Highrise is 8 stories so not huge by any means (esp compared to the soho apartments) but still huge enough for me to not want to look down. Thanks guys, puts my mind at rest.

I'm looking for any advice or more importantly if I should have concerns around putting a 450L tank in a high rise apartment building. The tank is 150cm length x 50cm wide. Assuming tank with water mostly filled, rocks etc would be aroudn the 550KG mark? I plan to check what is underneath the floor over the next few days but from what I can tell, its carpet over some particle board thing which I am assuming is over concrete (The building is concrete and has 3 storys of carpark on concrete slabs so assuming that follows through to the top???) Apartment building is about 15 years old, 8 storys tall and im somewhere in the middle of the building (both building height and length wise). I'm sure i've seen worst things done but i'm still somewhat concerned and unsure if my concerns are justified or an over reaction? Thanks Matt

Awesome, sounds like a plan then, will go for this approach first before meds :-)

Have an outdoor pond and teh goldfishies in them have picked up whitespots. They have been happy for over a year but think summer and temp changes have helped bring this about. Afew options is to take them out for treatment but I wondered if UV helps in the treatment (either throw a uv pond pump in the pond or take fish out and put uv filter into the treatment container for afew days / weeks????). Pond isnt big, roughly 150L. Any help greatly appreciated.

could be as simple as a fuse? If replacing fuse doesnt work, check using multimeter that there isnt a short somewhere.... ive had a r338 where it would work sometimes and otehr times it wouold blow the fuse. Found that one of the connections would intermittely earth itself and blow fuse. I ended up taking out the light hood and replaced with leds :-)

yep, i got the bigger one, approx 2000 to 2200l/h, dont think real flow rates up to that level as the spray bars are pretty small etc.... but overall, very good, have uv on my one too. Concerned that oince the uv bulb needs replacing that I cant find replacement (9w uv)..... good filter though

nice pics and good idea with the Leds, been looking at something similar but too scared to cut holes in my hood.... 10mm 220,000 mcd leds should do teh trick and keep it pretty cool...

would that imply 3 blues to 1 red would be a good mix for lawn style growth, mosses and ferns? Looking at getting a bunch of 150,000mcd led's off ebay, maybe 10 to 15W of blue and red together to sit next to my main light.

Keen to also know.... Been reading on lights after seeing the LED red / blue "growing lights" around. Idea looks good but I wonder if the red / bule combos ones have the wrong ration for aquarium plants (usually 3 reds to 1 blue)... I keep reading that blue is good for vegative growth, red for flowering... So most aquatic plants dont flower, hence should planted tanks be heavy in blue and soft in red (say a 3 blue leds to 1 red led?) Looking at doing my own diy led setup to "support" my normal tube lights...

Sorry to hijack thread, A related question for those who know.... If the hood fuse blows oftern, would that indicate bad starter? I have replaced bulbs / fufe and things were good for a short period of time (dont turn on light oftern), then fuse went again a week or so later just when turning it on... (blows the second the light turns on)

def dont mind paying abit extra for cardinals, I know animates have 2 for 1 deals every now and then (and fish day is comming up :-) )... Looking at afew more op[tions though. Never had neon's last long in a discus tank, 5 months would eb considered long :-( Trying to see if the gloelight tetras fit into the group of non-lasting fish in a discus tank or glowlights are hardy and would doa s well as cardinals. Ideally i would have 2 schools, 1 of glowlights and 1 of cardinals. also read (cant find ware so dont know if ist true) taht glowlights may carry parasites which discus dont like and which cardinals may not carry (so glowlights being more of a risk to the discus?).... if anyone knows of this, please let me know. Intention is not to kill my discus at the expense of a better looking tank....

So looking for a nice range of hardy fish to go with a large tank with some smallish (5cm) discus, 2 large GBA's and 2 small gba's. Have tried neon tetras in the past and fiound they dont last long, not sure if the 30 degrees is too high for them or if all the inbreeding has done bad stuff to them (I hear most neons are somewhat weakened by bad dna). So local pet shop is selling 6 glowlights for a good price so theres an option but want to know if in a general sence, would glowlights handle the 30 degrees temp worst or better then cardinals.....?

Assuming you are talking about tank light or house light? I would have assumed from readings you require very dark (pitch black almost) enviroment? maybe I'm spending to much time tryign achieve that and not enough on other factors..... If you ever find u have afew small ones worth saving but dont want to "care" for thema s such, feel free to ship my way :-) I think there must be some truth to people saying pet shop ones can be infurtile.... if they bread so easily without even the intention of breedign them down in christchurch but yet a struggle everywhere else... What temps teh tanka nd what kind of live food do you feed them? Thanks

Makes me wish I was living in christchurch.... Does anyone have detaisl on water parameters down there? Maybe someone who has had luck wont mind selling afew of the offsprings? I keep hearing that theres a good chance the petshop ones are imported and infertile.... (I blame my bad luck on that :-) ). Maybe the lower hutt water would help? I hear its pretrty good. Once tried with rain water but found that I could never get enough rain water to do good water chnages, too unpredictable so Decided distilled would give me more control over when I want to do water changes. I have TDS and PH meters at home but found them hard to read, they keep jumping, water which I would expect would be 7ish ph ends up measuring at 8 or so and it would change slowly, ie: look 2 mins later and it would have dropped to 7.8 etc.... not sure whats going on there. TDS meter does the same so I dont depend on readings, only depend on the "realitive" readings from one measurment to the next... helps when you kbnow ph is roughly what it was before you did something even if you dont know what the ph truly is.... I'll start off with slowly getting the tank water to 50/50 mix and see how it goes. Tank doesnt have driftwood in it but does have the floor covered in peat (took from article???) so may effect ph in 50/50 mix? Full on envy for thosee who have a school of 50+ cardinals in a large tank (+ the unlimited supply via breading)

dead cardinals dont breed :-( so assuming I have to use distilled water to get the hardness / tds / ph down, would I want to mix it with normal water, say 80% distilled and 20% normal tap water or would I want to add extra stuff into it? no idea what that extra stuff is but I do have amazone extract somewhere.....????

I figure it could be time to try again.... Have read the "breed 500 cardinals" article a while back when I first tried. Although I didnt follow to the letter, did the best I could with what I had. Failed :-( Now i have some more time, I'd liek to give it ago again. The article indicates low conductivity, So wondering if it is ok / safe for fish to use distilled water only when doing water changes to slowly adjust cardinals to condition required. Also, if the tank was 100% distilled water, what does this mean? will it stress the fish? would ph be ok? does the conductivity become 0ppm? would it have enough trace elements in it? would amazon extracts help? Going to try in a 338 tank with a large breading net from mid way up... blacken 3/4 of the tank, line base with peat and see... possibly wishful thinking but I fiugure if its not going to harm the fish, I could just leave them there for a while and hope good stuff strats to happen... thoughts? too wishful? wasting time?

English and me never really go on well...... He no longer talks to me

Yep, pretty much. I hang mine into the tank and leave it there. after draining the water, i switch it on and start fulling from the tap (I do add prime before fulling :-) ). I full my tank pretty slowly, maybe 20L in an hour... had in the past overfulled it and not know cos been destracted watching tv or whatever.... Once it goes of, turn the tap off and switch the unit off, no need to remove it.... Can think of other uses too (can work in reverse to indicate too low water level etc) but this one works well in my situation....

:-) solves my overflow problem

Strip the 2 parts of the cable, twist, tint (lace with solder) and cut to shape below such that the outer part is much shorter then the inner part and the inner part is exposed only by a small part at the top. This is to avoid any chance of a short circuit…. Do the same with the float switch cable end (strip, tint, cut into same shape)…. Now solder the float switch cables together with the mono sound cable such that the long end of one cable is joined with the short end of the other cable… Notice that if we do the shape right, there should be no chance of a short…. K, if you used heat shrink, move it down to cover the exposed joints and lightly heat the heatshrink with a lighter. If you didn’t use heatshrink, grab some tape and tape up the exposed cable. You can tape the 2 individual cables first and then tape over them both to help avoid short circuit. So all done and ready for testing…. Turn the switch on from the side of the alarm and hang the cable into the tank….

Put everything back together and close the unit up and screw it all back.... If you drilled in the right spot (not like me) and you cut the board in the right spot (also not like me), everything should fit perfectly. If you did a few mistakes along the way, you will find they don’t fit as well as you would like and you may have to re-solder or re-drill to make it right. Joining the float switch There’s a few different ways to go about this, I simply grabbed a mono sound / computer cable I had around which I would never use again but the other way would be to grab a broken set of head phones or go to dick smith and grab a 3.5cm mono plug. Pictures / instructions below are based on what I did….. Grab the cable and cut the end off (or cut half way down if you want to reuse the end). If you have heatshrink tubing around then cut that to the size of approx 5cm and feed through the cable. If not, skip this step and use tape later….

Grab the 3.5mm socket and wedge it between the circuit board such that the big long connection sticking out (theres 3 but you want the bigger one of the 3) is on the underside (green side) of the circuit board and the other 2 connections are on the brown top side and solder the bigger connection to the exposed part of the circuit board you created above. Unsolder the power connection (negative one from memory, but its highlighted in picture above) and connect it to the "inner" leg of the 3.5mm socket on the other end of the board (picture below)... Note how above I said I cut the circuit board too short? well because I did, I had to make a gap between the socket and the circuit board. if you estimate better, you shouldn’t need such a big gap when putting it all together Unsolder the speaker cable from the "left" leg of the black inductor/transformer thing. Hook up the resistor (10Kohm = loud but not ear bleeding, 15 - 20Kohm = good noise level which prob wont scare fish and you can still hear from the room next door, 30Kohm is like pretty soft) to the leg and the loose cable. Note the Lshape I cut it down to and how I position them (fits better and less chance of a short?). Put the top part of the case together with the circuit board hanging out a bit and drill a hole just before the centre line on the right top of the case. The picture I took shows that I drilled it way to high, it should be further down below the center line (use the picture a few places down as a reference of where it should be)

The $2 shop tank overflow alarm: K, title is a bit misleading as it does cost a bit more the $2 to build the unit, however, the main part is only $2 :-) Approx total cost, $10 - $15 Tools required: Small screw driver, Wire stripper craft knife Soldering iron + solder Drill (5.5mm - 6mm drill bit) Parts required: Resistor, 10K ohms - 30Kohms (dick smith, approx 30 cents per 5 pack) Float switch (ebay: Liquid Level Float Switch, approx $5 usd inc p&p) 3.5mm socket (dick smith part number P1240, approx $2 nzd) 3.MM plug (or an old headset / mono / stereo cable that you can cut up) $2 shop door alarm Start of by picking up one of the $2 shop door alarm as pictured below. I've seen other types available and haven’t opened to see how similar they are so if you can, go for the type pictured.... Remove the battery cover and unscrew The circuit board has some soldered on reed switches, unsolder them and remove. Trim down the part of the circuit board where one of the reed connections were. My one had a slit and I cut just after that slit, I prob could have cut on the slit and would end up with a better fit when I added the socket (later step). Flip the board over and using a craft knife, scratch through the green coated part of the circuit board around the area you just cut to expose the copper underneath. Add a small (real small) bit of solder to tint the copper. You want to avoid a thick layer of solder protruding out (my picture shows I put way too much on and I had to clean it off afterwards....).