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Looks like I could just grab a container, I only have plastic, no wood, throw some potting soil in, throw the worms and some baby cereal in and be good. I think I have some baby cereal.

I'm guessing they're daphnia or something. But on top of some of the plants and around the edge of the tank are dozens, maybe hundreds tiny little specks ranging from tan to dark brown or black. And they jump. If I look close I can see a few drifting on top of the water. But they seem to prefer to stay dry.

Ok, I picked up a little container of mealworms and a little container of whiteworms. Now...What do I do with them? Other than feeding them to my fish, I mean. The instructions on the containers are pretty basic, keep the whiteworms in a fridge, keep the mealworms at room temperature. But, beyond that? Do the mealworms reproduce or am I stuck with what I've got? Do I wait for them to grow bigger? The ones in the container are pretty tiny.

Hehe, Speaking of potassium nitrate, I've actually got a little 500 gram container of it sitting right here next to my computer. $8 at your local garden center. I've elminated it from the fertilizer mix I use though. Isn't there a way to directly measure CO2? There must be. Or is all the ways more laboratory type methods and not really suitable? Someday we'll just have a little box that plugs onto your filter and reads off every stat you could think of...

It's probably nice, but it's DEFINITELY expensive. I think it's something like $250 NZ minimum for a 150ish watt metal halide light. I can't find the website where I saw that. Hmmm...Actually, that's a pretty good $/watt.

Just going on flow rate alone, of those pumps, the CY192 is 400 gallons per day, then a fluval 404 would have significantly more flow. Let me check the specs...Hagen's website just says "360 gallons" but I don't know if that's per hour or per day. Per day would make it only put out 1 liter per minute and it seems like it must flow a hell of a lot more than that. But per hour would make it flow 21 liters per minute. Nah, not quite that much, maybe it is per day. Anyway, that CY192, with guesstimated shipping(Ignoring the fact that I'd also need a transformer to use it here) would cost as much as 3 fluval 404s bought here anyway. About $750NZ compared to $250ish NZ. How much light do you need for just fish? I know corals need a lot of light, but I'm not interested in having corals right away, they can wait.

When sucking on the gravel vacuum's hose to get the siphon going, do not give it one big suck while holding the end of those about a foot below the level of the top of the tank and then stop and watch one of your fish. It's no fun staggering around blinded and dripping everywhere looking for a towel because you got blasted in the face with fish water. Ummm, No, I didn't do that...It was ...Ummm...A friend...Not me... :lol:

The salt stays in there forever, Dawn. The only way to get it out is to replace it with fresh water. Well, ignoring doing things like reverse osmosis and other things that are a lot more complicated.

Mine started doing that too, Midas. Got quite loud. I tried a new impeller and impeller shaft, it helped a bit, not much. I eventually bought a new 404 and put the old noisy one on a tank that it didn't matter how noisy it was and the new one on the tank in the dining room. The brand new one started out pretty noisy too but has quieted down. I guess it needed broken in a bit, but the old one has quieted too.

Ouch!

Fluval 404, other fish are a gold severum runt, a big gold severum, 3 silver sharks, a small striped mystus and a bigger silver mystus, 2 big Geophagus jurupari, 2 small geo surinamensis, a small pictus, 2 blue rams, a keyhole, a big redspot Ummm...Oh, a small firemouth. I think that's it. Their eyes didn't go cloudy, not that I noticed at least. I didn't notice anything wrong with the Electric blue before she died, but the electric yellow was looking a bit beat up and off color the day before he died.

Hmmm, maybe it said teaspoon per gallon? That would be equivalent to about 1 tablespoon per 4ish gallons. Could have been talking about something like a salt dip too. Or I'm completely wrong, that happens *Cough* occasionally.

Yup, it came with a little bottle of PH 7 buffered solution.

Trying to raise funds for discus by draining my funds? That's selfish of you, you should give them to me for free! Hehehe. I think I'll concentrate on the free methods of research for now, like message boards and websites.

According to the PH meter the tank is at 6.2, my tap water is 6.95ish, and the other two tanks are 6.9 and 6.8. What else can I check the PH of? Ah, spa pool! 7.9 Ouch. Gotta fix that too, got new chemicals for it yesterday though. I tried a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda in a small cup and it only read as 8 from the 7ish tap water, but when I poured that same amount into the tank yesterday it raised the PH about .2ish. Anyone got any tips on using these? Do you keep stirring until the meter stabilizes? It seems to bounce back and forth by about .03 of a PH either way no matter how much stirring I do.

I thought of doing that. Actually, I might still do it for future reference. But for now I thought I'll wait until I get the PH meter and just go straight to step 5. Lower hutt dick smith has 5 digital PH meters for $130. Not too bad of a price, I think, since I can also use it to check the PH in the spa pool. So it's only $65 for the tanks and $65 for the spa pool. I checked the ammonia levels when I found the electric blue dead. They were undetectable. I'd have thought they'd have gone up a bit if she was rotting in there for a while, but guess not. I'll check again when I'm adjusting the PH. It only takes a second anyway.

Sounds like a plant version of premature ejaculation. Don't worry, it happens to everyone occasionally. :lol: Ooops, not sure if I'm allowed to say that.

Damnit,damnit,damnit,damnit! Now my electric yellow is dead this morning. He wasn't looking very good yesterday, so I'm not that surprised. I'm guessing this would point the finger at the low PH being the cause seeing as both africans in the tank died in the last two days. I added 1/4 tablespoon of baking soda yesterday and that brought the PH up a few tenths(Or at least made the water in the test tube a slight bit bluer, not sure exactly how much), but I didn't want to go too much right away and overshoot 7.

I'd have left him in the main tank and added the salt to it. It's not going to hurt any of the other fish and if he's not doing well the extra stress of moving him isn't going to help. Hmmm, 1 tablespoon per 10 liters...That's pretty strong. The normal dosage for salt for medical reasons in a tank is one tablespoon per 5-10 gallons. Which would be about 1 per 20-40 liters. You're at twice that.

I'm not really looking for the tank itself, I have the tank, I need the contents.

That'd be great, Caryl. Thanks.

Hmmm, aquanet has a few prices for skimmers...The smallest of which is for a tank about 5 times the size I'd be using. More indication that I don't need one.

I've checked through their retailer lists too. There are only 2 with websites, neither really has anything on them. I guess I could just make up a little email saying, "I want a marine tank, how much are you selling what I need for?" and send it to all of them. It's frustrating that my wife is going to christchurch monday where I know there are a couple places with pretty good saltwater inventories and I'm not going.

I'm guessing at the prices of the live rock, haven't been able to find any NZ prices. I'm just doubling the price of the cheapest prices I've read for live rock in the US, which is about $5US per kilo. Though, they go up to about $15 for really nice stuff. $300 is just a goal I kinda pulled out of thin air because it's a little over a weeks pay. Also, I don't think I'd need a skimmer from what I've been reading, not on a lightly stocked tank and a little more frequent water changes. Same for the ozone and UV sterilizer. I also shouldn't need a calcium reactor or metal halide lighting since I'm not thinking of having corals. Dennis, I'm actually looking at that site right now. Interesting, but doesn't seem to have anything as far as prices and supplies.

Since I didn't get any replies in the saltwater forum, I might as well copy and paste in here what I'm just now posting to another message board. My biggest question for here would be, Where the hell do I get anything for marine tanks?!?! [