myxsptlk

You're in wellington, you could try egley electrical on hopper street. When I was up there last they had ballasts to run 2 54 watt tubes which would be your 4' T5's. I think the price was around 60 bucks? I can't quite remember, but it wasn't too dear. Endcaps and holders were just a few dollars each. They get a lot of architect and design students from Vic going there so if you just tell them you're building an acrylic display case with so and so number of 4' T5 lights what do I need, they'll just go round and tell you you need this and you need that then you just pay for it. My experience with them is they're willing to tell you what you need, but they either can't be bothered to tell you how to put it together or they simply don't know. If you're pretty handy on the connecting stuff up side of things it shouldn't be a problem but if not, get some help here or ask someone to do it. Do make sure though that you get it done properly, home diy wiring is usually hazardous enough without the addition of saltwater. Death is permanent and takes all the fun out of fish keeping HTH

got them in the tank today man are they big and ugly but they sure move water! funny thing is when one of them goes on the highest mode it makes the thermometer tap on the glass tap tap tap tap and I was out so my dad got freaked out being home alone and hearing tapping from a tank with no fish :lol: every minute or so he'd hear it then try to have a look to see if anything was crawling around they sure make the 4ft look a lot smaller, I'll have to try to hide them behind some rockwork or something, thank goodness I opted to have the back painted black so they blend in slightly, I wish I could say you can't see them unless you look really hard, but no, they're there, out, loud and proud. anyway pics to come in the following days, exams are over!

Hehe no worries, I think it's a bit too big too but for the price, I'm not too fussed about how it looks, if it works it works

Yay a package arrived in the mail today 2 resun wavemakers and in the white box... an octopus otp 3000 needle wheel pump, which I had initally bought to use with my weipro skimmer. Boy did I underestimate the size of the thing There's a cd for comparison. My bad for thinking "yea buy the biggest!!! only a few more dollars!!!" so I'll be getting an octopus skimmer from DeepBlue next payday to use with the pump. Pictures on websites really don't show the size of some of these things, check out the wave makers and again with the cd I always thought the controller was like the size of my cellphone :-? Well that's all for now folks, exams finish on friday so I'll be able to have a play around with them in the weekend

Throw everything you have now into one thing, make it something expensive or important like the tank itself or the chiller. Once you have it and it's sitting in your room and your living room, you'll just need to add to it and by hook or by crook you will. I've tried it both ways, saving up for a long time, buying everything at once. Or buying a couple things at a time. Saving up never works because the money ends up going somewhere else hehe So yea trust me just throw a bunch of money at something and it'll magically add on from there

It was cycling for about two months before I put any fish in, no new stuff apart from the fish. I just did a water check, everything is pretty much spot on. The whole range, nitrate nitrite ammonia ph alk and... i think that's all? Maybe I'll bring some water into organism tomorrow and ask him to test with his kit, need to get some new salt anyway. Nope, the wrasse stays away from the clowns and gets a bashing from the other clown if he comes too close. The other clown rubs himself against the sick one sometimes but no he generally doesn't bother her.

she still swims funny, still has bung eyes, still bangs into everything, doesn't eat but for some reason can swim like there's not tomorrow. I don't geddit :-? She swims okay sometimes, when she decides to go deeper into the water, but she just likes to swim on top along the sides wobbling along on her side. I borrowed a guppy breeding net from a friend so will put her in that during feeding time. Hope she gets better!! Thanks for your concern guys/girls really appreciate it

man she is driving me nuts! I think she was just asleep before because I kept the lights off, don't ask me why but I thought some darkness might help her feel better. She looked terrible (but like I said was probably asleep) so I thought I might as well turn on the lights and watch her go... once the lights were on she was completely different. Back to being a speedboat at the top of the water. She still swims funny though, like slightly on her side. Thing is when she bothers to go deeper she swims just fine. I still think she's either blind or extremely short sighted. She bangs into the walls and thermometer and pump cable. To the point where her nose is nearly flat, not a nice fish like shape. I guess I'll just turn the lights on and off like normal and hope that she gets better or at least stays alive till the weekend when I have time to go see John. I take her out and put her in a small bowl for 15 minutes and dump food in there so she can eat what she can find. She's a glorified fantail.

yup yup, levels in the tank are good, the other clown is doing great, wrasse is doing good too. Just can't figure out how things went wrong for this other clown

Well she got worse overnight and looked really bad, she struggled to swim this morning mM girlfriend text me this afternoon and told me that the smaller clown has been rubbing himself against her and it seems to calm her down a lot, now he swims around her and sort of looks after her She seems better but she's swimming on her side now, struggling to keep upright, I don't know if that's a clown thing because the other one does it too almost as if to mimic her but then stops and swims normally. I've seen her flip upside down when she stops moving, that can't be a good sign can it? Any suggestions?

Got her from organism, I'd feel really bad about taking her back because I've been bugging John every week for the past few months till these clowns came in. I'll give him a ring tomorrow to see what he suggests. Her pupils are just one size, tiny. As if she's been staring at the sun too long. The other guy's pupils are nice and "normal" like other photos I've seen of clowns. There's another 6 line in there with them. He was in the tank for a week before the clowns came in. There was a bit of flaring up initially but now they all seem to get along. The wrasse just does his own thing and ignores the clowns. She's getting a bit skinny, or the other clown's getting fatter because he's been eating more. And the colour difference is quite noticeable too, she's paler than her friend. But she still swims very strongly though

I think she's blind Waving my hand and even tapping the glass next to her brings no reaction, and I tried moving a plastic cup towards her. She just swam straight into it and only turned around when she hit the bottom of the cup. Sigh...

Can clownfish go blind? Maybe I'm just being super paranoid here, but she (she's the bigger one so I'll just call her she) just swims and bumps into everything, even when I put my net in to scoop up the uneaten food, she just swam into it while the other clown ran/swam like mad away from it like it was the devil. Her eyes are different to the other clown's too. Hers have only a small dark bit and a lot of orange around it? While the other guy's eyes are nice and dark right up to almost the edge. Don't know if that makes sense?

I switch between flakes and frozen food each day. Maybe I won't feed them tonight and will just leave them be and hope she's better tomorrow

Still doing it, but going slower and swimming down a lot more. She doesn't eat much compared to the other two fish, just wants to keep swimming. I'll do a water change tonight and hopefully she'll settle down a bit more

At the moment, I have these three little fish and someone's holding a blue tang for me. I'm thinking of getting a school of chromis, 4 or 5, and if it's at all possible a pair of black clowns because they look absolutely awesome, and that'll be all. Won't have too much rockwork in there so the fish have plenty of space to swim around, plus it annoys me when I can't find my fish. The first night I got the wrasse he disappeared completely and I don't have all that much rocks. Out came all the buckets and fish food and bags I have under the tank in case he jumped out. But after awhile he showed up again. I watched him one morning and saw where he crawled out from so I know where his little sleeping hole is. I never even knew he could fit in there. Anyway hope someone can answer this. Do clowns sleep at all?? My clowns seem to be swimming all the time. Even at night when the lights go out. Clowns with anemones sleep in their anemones don't they? Where do they sleep if they don't have one? An anemone won't survive for very long in the little tank so should I provide something fake and swishy for them to host and sleep in? If anyone read my other post, one of them have been swimming along the perimeter of the tank at the water surface, with his nose above the water level. He's slowed down a bit now and swims down more often. But he hasn't eaten much since yesterday. The other clown and the wrasse eat heaps but this guy just wants to swim and swim and swim in the same direction on the same path. I'm getting a bit worried. Also, did anyone pm me? Hehe I got an email saying i got a new pm but my inbox doesn't have anything new. Cheers guys

Thanks! Hopefully it looks nice and pretty so she won't mind too much Got a convincing friend? I can lend you mine, that guy's converted (pushed) more people into fish than I know

Yup that's the one!

...with these little guys Went to organism with a friend to buy food for them, and we had a look around and saw a little clownfish. Friend: Did you know that XXXXX (one of our other friends) is thinking of buying this clown and setting up a nano marine tank? Me: Really?? Damn that's so cool, I wanna do it too. Friend: DO IT!!! Me: Uhrm... but I'm kinda broke now Friend to John at organism: Do you have any little tanks that would be suitable for a nano marine? John: Yea man there's a tank over there that's just nice for one :-? and so.... While it was cycling, the poor clown died in the store so I've been waiting forever another one (two actually) to swim into Christchurch. And you guys know what happens when you sit and wait. You start to think... Maybe I need a skimmer. So I went out to buy a skimmer, which was twice the height of my tank, so I couldn't actually get it to "hang on back". More thinking... Maybe I can buy a canister filter to suck the water through the skimmer back into the tank? So I went out to buy a fluval. Then the girlfriend steps in and says why do you have all these ugly things all over the place? So the skimmer and filter have to be put away. In the meantime weekly trips back to organism bore the same news. "Nah not in yet man". So more thinking. Me to same friend who got me into this mess: I have a skimmer and canister filter I can't use. The skimmer's too big for the tank. Idiot friend who I'm amazingly still friends with: You need a bigger tank man... I'll give you the number for inside oceans. He made my tank and it's excellent Me: Wut? Really? Go away... Friend: Yea you need it! More thinking... Next day at work Me to conch: Do you think I need a bigger tank cos a 4ft's not too expensive is it? Conch in all his wisdom: Yea that little tank of yours is not gonna get very far. If you really want anemones and corals and all the fancy stuff, a 4 foot is really the minimum that most people recommend. You might as well do it while your tank's still cycling before there's any fish in it. Why bother thinking anymore... Picked up the phone and rang Tim at inside oceans (excellent guy by the way) Me: I'd like a 4 foot tank please Tim: Yea sure man no worries (didn't actually go down like this but the end result is the same) Soooooooooo....... Muahahah! And the girlfriend doesn't know yet... :oops: I stashed it in a mate's garage and have been spending the weekends building the lid and stand (she works weekends, long long hours) It'll just show up one day and this is what I imagine will happen. Girlfriend: #@$#@%$#@#$#@ Me: I got it cheap! Second hand! I saved money by building the stand and lid myself! (Why bother... I'm gonna get it anyway) So there you have it, from two little goldfish! I wish I had more time though cos everything's taking so long! But hopefully everything will be up and running soon. More about the tank: 4ft, with black background, corner overflow also painted black with eggcrate over it to prevent the little fishies taking a ride. I highly reccommend Tim, even an empty tank from him will bring a smile to your face. Oh and meet the family: Guessed it was the easiest way to take a good closeup of them, while they were still being floated. They came in yesterday. See the little guy in the corner zooming in the check out his new tank mates Just managed to snap him as he whipped past And this is where they'll be until the new tank's set up Wish me luck guys! Don't overthink! Don't listen to your friends who live their dreams through your wallet!

ok that's cool then, hopefully the wiring isn't too dear or i'll have to wait till next payday. Probably a good idea to bring the lamp holder and ballast to wherever I'm going and let them tell me what to buy.

whoops, but I didn't let them into the tank till the bag was 2/3 full of tank water. The other guy's doing well, hopefully they'll settle down by tomorrow

I'm just cutting up some warehouse extension cords. Will that handle it okay? There are wires from a ceramic connector going into the lamp holder that are about the same size as the cores of the extension cord. I only have one socket outlet where I'm placing my tank so I'll have to run a few extension cords anyway.

yup yup, floated for 15 minutes then added a syringe full (a whopping 3ml) of tank water to the bag every 5 minutes. New to this, and been waiting for a long time for the fish, so it took me quite awhile before I had 2/3 tank water in the bag then let them go. Yea the other one's just acting "normal"

I fed him, he ate a bit, then carried on doing what he was doing. Maybe it's his way of adjusting to the tank?

Hey peoples I'm going to wire up my MH lights soon. They came as a lamp holder and ballast without any wiring. What lengths should the wires be? I'll keep them uniform between each unit but just want to know how long between the ballast and lamp holder and between the ballast and plug. Thanks all!