David R

Just had confirmation from a friend on that side of the globe that the afore mentioned 'mega tank' has been shut down as the price of FW rays dropped to the point where it was no longer viable (and costing them about 700 euro a week to run). They are now using it as an aviary to breed exotic parrots, which is considerably more profitable. Sadly I can't find any of the construction pictures, these are about the only ones I could find; http://www.mypalhs.com/forums/showthrea ... -Mega-Tank

I think the container would make a good frame, it could be lined with ply and waterproofed with epoxy. Cut one side out and add a steel frame to support a window. TBH I think if it were me I'd opt for concrete blocks instead, unless you were dead keen on having 2M+ depth.

Can't find the link any more, but there was a crowd in the Netherlands who turned a bunch of shipping containers into a huge aquarium for breeding rays and asian arowana. It would certainly be possible to use one as a starting point for a large aquarium, but I wonder if the cost of buying a good shipping container would be worth it over just starting from scratch with steel or concrete (or both). The thickness of glass/acrylic needed would be relative to the depth of the water, IMO the best bet would be to only have it half full and have the top part with branches and terrestrial plants (and some arboreal reptiles if you live in the right part of the world).

If it's only five days I wouldn't even bother getting someone to feed them. Healthy fish will be fine for that length of time (and longer) and feeding will only increase the risk of someone cocking it up and increase the need for a water change.

Why? Fine if you're just keeping fish from lake Tanganyika, but if you want to add fish from a soft water environment it makes more sense to compromise. Your trophs won't die if they don't have pH9 and sky high hardness. The upper end of the ideal temps for the tropheus is around the lower end of ideal for the hypancistrus too. I don't think you can ever undo years of evolution (or creation, if you prefer) simply by gradual acclimatisation. All fish will tolerate a range of conditions outside of what they would naturally encounter, the question is how far does that range stretch before the fish start to suffer. With wild caught altum angelfish that range would be fairly small, but with captive bred convicts it would be huge. Slow acclimatisation might allow you to get the fish to survive short-term in a far wider range of conditions, but I believe it will not change the long-term effects of such conditions and how they affect things like osmoregulation. It is one thing for a fish to appear alive and "happy", but long-term effects of incorrect housing may take years to manifest.

If you're trying to keep fish from different water conditions you'll be better trying to strike a balance between what is ideal for both, rather than setting it up perfectly for one at the expense of the other.

I think you'll find that 200micron is actually finer than 45ppi foam, but if larger particles are being forced thru the foam should trap them. You should try a polypropylene needlefelt sock, will catch all the fine stuff with basically no bypass (unless it overflows).

Marrow? Yuck!

Imma let you guys in on a little secret, it's called http://www.google.com !! I typed in "how much of the cost of petrol is tax" then set it for New Zealand websites and found this in under a minute; Source; http://www.aa.co.nz/cars/maintenance/fu ... alculated/ So tax makes up 43% of the cost of your petrol, and that includes paying 15% GST on the fuel tax. As for not paying tax on the petrol you use in your mower, ain't nothing you can do about it short of finding an alternative fuel source. About 8% of my commute to work/town is on our shared ROW/private driveway that we have to maintain, so I'm giving away even more than you!! :nilly: :nilly: :nilly:

Tank size? Temp? Water parameters? Tankmates? Decor? Generally I'd suggest adding more clowns, but without knowing the above I'd just be stabbing in the dark.

I recently added a bit more beach sand/crushed shell to the substrate as it was starting to go the other way. It's such a tiny fluctuation it could well just be within the margin of error of my interpretation of the colour on the chart...

Just a quick update, nothing much new to report but the set up passed another "test" over xmas; being left unattended for two weeks with no water changes and a friend feeding the fish twice a week. The day before we left I cleaned out the first two sheets of Poret foam and changed ~20% of the water, parameters were: pH: 6.6 TDS: 38 Ammonia: 0ppm Nitrate: 5ppm Got home late yesterday and fed them heavily, tested before the water change today and: pH: 6.8 TDS: 63ppm Ammonia: 0ppm Nitrate: 10ppm Better than expected! I think the pothos do a great job of keeping the nitrates down with the light feeding, and I have no hesitation leaving the set up for four weeks when we head to the US later this year, though I will get the friend looking after them to do a small water change after two weeks. The Poret hadn't clogged, I think it could have probably gone another week with the reduced feeding, perhaps slightly longer, but I decided to clean it today as I'll be feeding them well this week to make up for the past two weeks. Which is slightly ironic as I'll be feeding myself far less to make up for the past two weeks of too much good food and beer!! :lol:

I used to turn mine inside out and wash them with the hose (go to bunnings and buy something like this as it makes it way easier) so that you're pushing the water through in the opposite direction to which it would usually flow, then throw them in the washing machine (no soap) when my wife wasn't watching...

Adrienne is right, I would think that with a small tank like that the cost of the glass that Greg gets will be less than the time it would take to disassemble your tank and reglue it. Give him a call or email and get a price for a new tank of the dimensions you want, then flick your leaky one off to someone who wants frogs or lizards.

Yep, thats them. Voltage is no problem as they come with a transformer and run on 12V DC. I got mine through http://www.kensfish.com they certainly aren't the cheapest units out there, but you get what you pay for IMO. Make sure you're looking at the Satellite+ (not just the Satellite) units so you get the adjustability.

If you like adjustability and switching modes you can't go past the Current Satellite+ units. There's a few people here using them, myself included, and I've heard nothing but positive things.

What sort are you looking at? I've been thinking of getting 1-2 of these Jebao ones to play with; http://www.fish-street.com/wave_maker Seem to be getting pretty good feedback. In a tank with lots of rock work I'd certainly be inclined to go with a couple of smaller ones for different angles rather than one big one.

If you're talking about actual turn-over after head height, friction loss etc then 8000LPH seems fairly excessive for a 540L tank IMO. I would think that 4500LPH flowing through your tank and sump will provide plenty of flow, but you could add a couple of small powerheads to add more circulation around the rock work to prevent the build up of waste in any dead spots if needed.

Same species as yours, Trichocereus pachanoi, aka San Pedro. Don't let the junkies see it...

Very cool, the big one I planted at Mums a few years back is covered in buds too. Shame the flowers are nocturnal.

You can order them from www.particlesolutionz.co.nz too. Henward recently tried using the mesh ones inside his felt and found that the particles in the mesh bags break down to under 100 microns and can easily work their way through. The felt ones actually get more effective as they clog up and in reality will usually filter far finer than their micron rating. I found no difference in water quality or quantity of waste captured on my old set up when running 100m socks, 50m, 200m, or 200m inside of 50m...

Looks good. Only thing I'd change is to swap the mesh sock for a felt-type one, they're far more effective at catching the fine stuff.

:thup: most comfortable thing you'll wear on your feet, if paired with nice woolly socks. Just need a floppy hat and black stubbies now...

Yep, works fine for many folk on MFK, keeping everything from monsters to wild discus.