Ira

6 of them...In a planted tank... Obviously you've never had one.

I 4th...Or is it 5th? that it's a Surinamensis. One of my favorite FW fish. They get to be a very nice size and are pretty well behaved.

Yes, it's true, you can't get live rock here. All you can do is buy dead base rock or rock from someone else's tank. As for the stores in your area? You've already found the only one with marines within a couple hours drive.

Try a sporting goods shop.

I'd imagine the waste treatment plant needs to treat a FAR higher volume of water than the average marine tank too.

I don't quite have room to fit both on my sump at the same time. But I think giving them both the same amount of time on the same tank in the same conditions(As closely as I can keep them) should have given reasonable results. But, as close as I can tell without a FishyPoo testkit I'm going to say the amounts of nutrients skimmed by each over the week is roughly similar. If I'd done this test before I bought my MCE600 I think it would have been a tossup between the Prizm and the MCE600. Maybe more likely the Prizm because it doesn't vomit foam all over the place. Though, I've checked some online prices and it seems that prices of the MCE600 and Prizm pro in the UK at least are pretty similar.

The MCE is about 2 years old, the Prizm, I'm not sure.

Each skimmer was run on my tank for 1 week, one after the other. Similar feeding, no major changes over those period. After the end of the week the volume of liquid skimmate was measured and all the slime was collected from around the collection cups. I'm not quite sure how exactly to compare the volume of proteins collected by each accurately. Probably need to dry the samples and then weigh them and figure out and subtract the weight of salt. The MCE was adjusted to about the best I could get it and it always filled the collection cup with foam and then the nice dry foam overflows all over the place and makes a mess. (Yes, I collected all that spilled gunk) So it's not really possible to run the MCE any wetter. The Prizm has a MUCH bigger collection cup which didn't have that same problem. But here's what I have... Results: MCE 600 Liquid: 59cc Total weight(Liquid+slime): 61g Specific gravity: 1.028 Prizm Liquid: 285 cc Total weight(Liquid+slime): 279g Specific gravity: 1.026 The Prizm's skimmate is noticably less concentrated, but there's almost 5 times as much of it. I tried taking 10cc of each and diluting the MCE's to about the same darkness and it took 20 ccs. So, the MCE would be about 3 times as concentrated but about 20.7% the volume. So, by that logic the MCE600 would have removed about 2/3rds as many proteins as the Prizm. I think saying the Prizm skims better than the MCE600 is hard to say given that my comparison isn't very precise. But I think their performance is close enough that price becomes the major factor. If you don't have an unlimited budget you'd be better off with the cheaper Prizm and a couple good powerheads. And, realistically, if you're looking at a HOB you're probably trying to keep the costs down.

I'd just give them a good scrub and wash then throw it in the tank.

I wouldn't even bother with a transformer and PC fans. You can get small 240v fans from the Warehouse, like 6" or 9" fans for dirt cheap, they'll blow many times more air than a case fan will and be just as quiet doing it. I use a box fan that's maybe a foot and a half across to cool my tank. Cost me $30 at the warehouse, has been going about 9 hours a day for about 2 years now.

Oderings in Upper Hutt usually has them around mid spring, I think. Probably another month or two they will.

Cool, I'm tempted to remove the caps from my lights...

I seriously doubt, with it being food grade, that the other 2% is anything toxic.

I always thought it was to store the big surge of electricity needed to light off the tubes when the starter triggers.

Every time I tested it when I was collecting NSW it came up as 1.028.

Hmmm, When they move do they stretch out and then retract? Look like a leech or some kind of flatworm.

You mean snails? If they were parasites they wouldn't be living in the filter. Filters aren't fish.

If you're going to do that, why bother with putting the panels near a window? Throw them near your tank lights.

hehe, Never mind, it's installed. Was easier than I thought. Hardest part was pulling the right wire out just a little so I could get the sensor around it. I didn't realize before that my house has one meter for the underfloor heating and another for the rest of the power. Each of them is reading about 3KW right now. Damn...6KW! And my marine tank's lights havent even come on yet!

YUP!

I just tried it on one of my tanks. Didn't have any reading. Might be the cord is too thin, Dunno. I'll try and install it properly this weekend.

Got me a new toy! Any suggestions on installing it? I was thinking it looks like it wouldn't necessarily have to be on the power supply to the hole house since it just clips onto a power cable. So would I be right in thinking I could, for example, clip it onto the power to my marine tank and see what that is, then move it to something else and measure there, move it somewhere else... And so on?

Heh, Yeah, it takes stupid amounts of magnesium supplement to raise mg levels. I only have a bit less than a kilo left.

You wouldn't really need to worry about water backing up. Well, possibly if it somehow got plugged up down at the sump and the water level in the tank got too high it might raise the water level in the tank, and therefore in the pipe, until it flows out of the hole. But, you could just attach a short section of hose and run that a few inches higher than the tank. That way the water would overflow the tank first. Anyway, Suphew, she's only going to be running maybe 1000lph through it. Not 4000+

Or you could talk to Cracker. If you use the reef chemistry calculator here: http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html and see how much you need I could raid my stash and bring you some mg and ca if I have enough this weekend. Maybe in exchange for a small frag or something?