Romeo

Anyone got a Smart Meter?

So, who knows who the winners were?

Damn, I'd love a pet hedgehog. Does anyone on here have one? Are they house-trainable? PS: Are you fo' real Mark?!

With our tank it wasn't the fact that the water was coming out too fast and splashing etc, it was that the volume of water rushing past a small opening was creating a pretty strong venturi effect and sucking a heck of a lot of air in - creating a hell of a lot of noise! So you got stung with the constant powerhead hum, the sucking noise, the bubbles bouncing around and finally the popping.

We stopped our 140 litre from doing that by cutting a piece of silicone hose and stuffing it along the split. Seems to have completely stopped the bubbling. Still, we've complained to Animates and they're getting a new unit for us :].

Very cool man, you've really outdone yourself this time!

Regarding the heater, we solved out problems by draping a couple of fleece blankets over them at night. Cuts the power use down significantly .

Could be a Mystus Castaneus, or a Mystus Montaneus. I had a Mystus Castaneus, they're great little friendly fish. Don't suppose you're planning on selling your one ;P? Here's a video I made of mine.

I always wanted a "Monster Fish Keeping" experience of having a brown bullhead. But considering they only grow to about 30cm and the penalty is something like $100,000 I thought against it! Would probably get less attention if I kept the tank stocked with cocaine.

Too late, beat you to it... viewtopic.php?p=436189#p436189

RE bedazzled I haven't really considered that, but many of the Juwel tanks use similar light fittings, and these ones appear to be quite well sealed. Also, there's plenty of ventilation around the bulbs, so that should mitigate a bit of the moisture. Never the less, I'll make a note to myself to be extra careful around them. I'd imagine they'd be quite safe though, Blue Planet love to be "child safe" with a lot of their design.

Blue Planet Serene Life Atlantis 140L Glass dimensions: 75cm * 45cm * 45cm Stand height: 72cm Total height: 125cm Theoretical volume: 152L 1 Two 13W 10,000k T5's. 4.5 litres of media space - comes with 4 compartments. [Large Bio Balls][Foam.Carbon.Foam][Filterwool wrapped carbon][bio noodles] 15w, 1200lph powerhead. Transparent intake tube and adjustable multidirectional outlet stream.

RE si_sphinx What've you got growing in your tank?

We've just picked up the Serene Life Atlantis 140L model from the Animates sale - an Ex-Demo one. Pretty much brand new for $400 with a Fluval 200w heater. It's 75cm wide, 45cm deep and 45cm tall. Lighting is a bit weak, comprising of two 13w 10,000k 50cm T5's with rubbish reflectors. Filtering looks very good, it's got a sizable (4.5 litres total filter media) sealed canister-esque type filter built into the top. Build quality looks surprisingly good for a budget tank. I'm planning to plant the bottom out with Crypts and see if it works :].

Don't suppose you've bought a 140L Blue Planet tank as well ?

My car actually picks up 76.0FM, which is the rural police down here in Christchurch. I think it extends all the way from Marlborough down to South Canterbury. So if your car goes radio down to 76.0, give it a go, it takes a while for a communication to come through, but there's usually some interesting stuff going on. My favourite event was a "Semi-nude, intoxicated and bleeding" gentleman going on a verbal rampage at Clearwater, complete with policeman running, grappling, biting and swearing. Most of the time it's just the officers doing boring stuff, but still interesting. People calling up about pieces of wood on the road, licence checks on stolen cars and a lot of "welfare" checks.

True, the SeaChem stuff is expensive, but on small tanks (40L) you can get about 18 month's supply of the two I use for about $50.

I definitely recommend a mixture of Flourish Excel and Flourish Comprehensive. It's worked for me, my plants are actually growing, and they're healthy - that's all I can hope for!

What ferts and substrate are you using? In my experience these have been more important that the amount of light. All that happened when I added more light was algae growth. My method is... 1) Smallest gravel possible without it being sand. 2) 1ml Flourish Excel & 0.5ml Flourish Comprehensive every 4 days, per 40 litres of water. 3) Longer light period, over 12 hours. 4) Start with plants that are suited to low light - Java fern, Crypts & Anubias.

As far as Glosso goes, if Evil_Elmo can do it with a 60cm tall tank, with only 48w of light. Then so long as we factor in at least a few marks for his incredible skills, then you should be able to achieve it with 150w+/- of light in a 45cm tall tank. Evil_Elmo's Project Lido

I'd say you'd be best to buy from a breeder. For a number of reasons. A) They're generally less likely to be infected with diseases, as they're conditioned and well fed. B) You're guaranteed to get a good condition specimen. C) You don't feel guilty about taking one from the wild, you're saving one from the dinner plate! But, if you have to catch one wild then it's best to take the smallest one you can find. They grow pretty quick when they're well fed, they have more room in your tank and it won't be of breeding age - so you wont be damaging the native population quite so much. If you want to buy one it will probably cost you $5 per unit, as they're generally about $100 a kilo. A small one's about 25gm, medium 50gm, large 100gm, huge 150+gm. Ideally you should feed them about 1% of their body weight per day, and keep them below 19°c - with a max temp of 23°c, anything above this and they become susceptible to disease and other health problems. I recommend Hikari Sinking Wafers - as they're quite hard and the koura has plenty of time to crunch them up before they go soft and float away and dirty your tank. Good tank mates are Inanga, as long as you raise the koura with fish from a small size. Here's some photos of my wee girl, she's about twice the size now though.

Then you can charge admission to the public. Would be an insane MFK project if you decide to undertake it! Over 2 tonnes of water, now that would be a sight!

Toyota Chaser would be nice, too bad it's a '98 and a bit pricey. If it were me I'd be more inclined to ditch the "unique" approach and just pick up a nice early stock Evo - either that or turn to the dark side and go European. In all honesty I'd probably just buy an '87 Starlet and one of these :].

We had an Elite one lock-on not long ago. Guy at animates swapped it without even asking for a receipt or looking at the box. We've had all sorts of troubles heating our tanks (gets down to 3°c inside some nights), so we covered our tanks with 2 fleece blankets each during the night. Surely saved us a lot on the tank heating, as the lights were hardly on during the night when they were covered.

I guess you've phoned Redwood Aquatics?