David R

I love the dimensions of my small tank, and hate that it already looks small! :lol:

Crikey! I'm not sure I've ever seen your tank in the entire time I've been here!! Looks nice, good ratio of plants to open space.

I'd skip the baffles, suspend filter sock(s) above one end, bags of submerged media like ceramic rings or matrix, heaters then return pump at the other. Just make sure you have a large enough tank to provide adequate depth for the pump while having enough empty space to hold the water when the pump switches off. It will be every bit as effective as a canister for bio filtration, far better for mechanical, easier to clean, no disturbance to bio media when cleaning, and it lets you hide the heaters etc to keep the display tank clean. Certainly sounds better than a canister to me!

Canister filters are utterly useless at pushing water up hill. I think you'd be better off redesigning the sump so it is quiet, or running the two tanks separately.

Very cool!! What's the squiggly one in this pic?? So many nice big pseudas too...

That isn't going to be enough if you don't have enough filtration to effectively perform the nitrogen cycle. If your ammonia and nitrite are at zero then (as far as water parameters go) you aren't overstocked. The nitrate levels are what will determine how much water you need to change.

Depends if they're Zulu or Afrikaans.

and ~20k indigenous people being kicked out to make way for said dam...

Sounds like a blast! Any particular talks of interest? Anything on the future of the Xingu?

If only someone had invented a way to take a photo with your phone or ipad and upload it directly to a web page that was full of your own content so that all your friends (who could have similar pages for sharing their own content) could see it! :sml1:

Anyone else keen for a 'Kiwi Contingent" for 2015?!

Not sure if that is David me, but if not it is still applicable! Glad you talked to Nick about the possibility of importing, their stock list updates on Facebook make me rather jealous, and there are a few gems that we could bring in. Great beer, awesome fish, plenty of trains, if it weren't for their utterly miserable winters I'd have relocated years ago!

Try Stone and Water World, just up the road from you in Marua Rd. Not sure if they have limestone, but I've bought other rocks for aquarium use from them.

Yeah love that long-haul flight, glad I don't have a nicotine addiction to contend with too! Which airline are you flying? Food sounds great.

Already getting into the European culture eh...

I haven't used their UK-based service, and wouldn't use their US-based one again unless the vendor wouldn't ship internationally as it was slower and more expensive than UPS, but other than that no complaints. Anyway. Is there a website for the conference? Sounds very interesting, and a great excuse to head back to Deutschland.

http://www.nzpost.co.nz/tools/youshop

Sounds like a great trip, looking forward to seeing some pictures when you get home and get the film developed! :sml1: I love Germany, Weissbier, kraut, currywurst, and the amazing breakfast spreads with all sorts of cheeses and cured meats! Oh, and the LFS and public aquaria I visited were kinda cool too. Sounds like you're going to have a great time, I follow Rare Aquatics of Facebook (yes, it isn't just teens gossiping and hipsters charing pics of their food) and their stock list updates make me very jealous.

Shame, I'd love to see it set up. Can you share the company who supplied the drum filter?

I suppose the only thing to do it give it a shot, they're not that pricey though you would need a larger size than that for your set up. I wonder how durable they are after repeated cleaning compared to the felt ones?

Sounds very interesting, would love to see some pics or a write up on it if you can spare the time. If it is self-cleaning how come you're using prefilters that will require manual cleaning? It doesn't save labour, but it does cut down on the amount of cleaning required? I know with my tank not having to regularly clean the mechanical aspect of the filtration would be a huge reduction in the amount of work required (which isn't actually all that much, but the less work is better in my world). If you don't do much cleaning then I wouldn't expect something like this to be of much interest to you. I feel your pain, summer hasn't begun and we're down to half a tank! I think if you were running a continuous drip set up then this probably wouldn't add much to your water consumption (and would help keep your nitrates low in the process). Depending on how messy your fish are any how often the filter cleans itself weekly water changes would probably become a thing of the past.

You're right it won't perform the nitrogen cycle, and you will obviously still need some sort of biological filter afterwards. But by continually removing physical waste from the water column (instead of leaving it to break down and continue to produce ammonia [then nitrites, then nitrates]) I believe it would have a positive effect on water parameters compared to almost every other mechanical aquarium filter.

You're not wrong there, it certainly is in the "expensive luxury" category! I would like to think that this kind of thing will get cheaper given time, maybe we need to send one to China for "cloning". I think part of the thing with the noise in the video is that it is only a temporary "demonstration" set up, just sitting on plywood on a workbench. If the pumps and the unit were mounted on foam inside a sealed cabinet I think it would be a lot quieter. Still not sure if it would be living-room quiet, but any big tank in a living area is usually either going to have noise issues or remote filtration.

All I wanted to hear was a discussion on the piece of equipment I posted which, to me at least, seemed like a fairly revolutionary concept for the aquarium hobby; a self-cleaning high flow 40-micron filter. I don't care if other forms of filter catch finer particles or diseases, I know that already, I have one on my kitchen sink for drinking water. This filter will catch finer particles than the vast majority of aquarium filters, so comparing it to an almost-never-used method of filtration that is grossly overkill in it's level of filtration for the average hobbyist seemed like a strange angle to me. I'm well aware that one of the usual downsides of fine mechanical filtration is the need for pre-filters/multiple stages, I know that all too well from my own experiences, and this filter does not need such things as it cleans itself as soon as it starts to clog. So why mention it? And I'm not particularly interested in this technology not being new outside of the aquarium hobby, most "new" technology offered to consumers isn't really new at all, though I was interested to hear that Mark has experience using similar units adapted from waste water treatment system to aquarium use and hope he shares some information on his set up. Sheesh all I was trying to do was share what I thought was a fairly clever and innovative product. The implications of this kind of filter go beyond the convenience of not having to clean it, the frequent removal of waste from the water column would have a positive effect on nitrate levels in a heavily stocked tank, improving water quality and reducing the need for large water changes. Perhaps that point was lost on those people who think leaving canisters full of crap for 3-6 months at a time is good practice?

Brand/company? Pics? Cost? How is it working?