Jennifer

About that, yes. Good on them for the great sale. Sad they had to close down but apparently the rest of their stuff is going to World of Pets in Cambridge. :thup:

A new Sera CO2 controller is on it's way to me at less than a third of the retail price! Thanks soooo much for the heads up! :happy1:

I got my regulators off Ebay and Fishstreet, the same exact model and brand. One has lasted 2 years and the other is only 4 months old and the solenoid just died. Good thing I carefully check my tanks before bed or I never would have noticed that the gas was still on well after the lights had gone out. I don't want to pay $100+ to get a new solenoid when the regulator + solenoid cost only $60. It's only a matter of time before I get fed up at the twice daily alarm reminding me to turn the gas on and off each day. The decision will be to take another chance on a cheap brand and hope that the solenoid lasts more than 4 months, or get a much more expensive variety that has a good reputation for reliability. A $60 gamble or a $200 sure thing. Hmmmm

Burgers & Beers is also a good place in Chch.

Wow, that's a lot of growth in a week! :thup:

Loaches need a lot of plant matter. Mine eat everything, including pleco tablets and if they dont get enough pleco tablets, they start eating my plants!

Mmmm, Taco Hell.... after just coming back from the States, I can say they have slipped a bit. I still love the enchirito though. Thankfully I have found a way to make that same sauce here. Rock on imported dried Ancho chilies. Carl's Jr though...haven't been there in over a decade. Gotta love their old slogan though:

It's nice to see such a big guy in an appropriate sized tank. They are too often crowded in little 6 footers...

These probes are only as good as three things: 1. the quality of the probe tip 2. your care of the probe tip 3. the calibration range you set it to With regard to the quality, you get what you pay for. I paid for a tip that cost $100 - just for the tip alone, but that was for a sensor that would dose CO2 and I didn't want it to be wrong and gas all of my fish. With regard to the care of the probe, most of these need to stay wet or they will degrade very quickly (like overnight) rendering them useless. usually they are meant to sit in a neutral (pH 7.0) buffer when not in use. Find out what the manufacturer recommends and stick to it closely for best performance and lifespan. With regard to the calibration, most of the electronics that make up the pH probes have a pivot point at pH 7.0, like a fulcrum. The pivot point is fixed at 7.0 with the slopes going either side. What this means is that you need to calibrate it to high OR low pH, but not both. To calibrate it, you need a set of pH buffers. For example, if you were going to calibrate at low pH so that you could detect fluctuations around 6-6.5, you would want to put the tip in a buffer around pH 5 and set the probe so that it is correctly reading 5.0 when it is in that buffer. Then, rinse it off and put it in the pH 7 to verify it is correctly reading 7.0. Always rinse and tap dry between buffers or you will contaminate them. Calibration should take place often, every use even and it is important to remember that if you try to read a high pH with a low calibrated probe, it may not be accurate.

Good points Joe. :thup: Sam, I love what you have done with the rocks, they look amazing. Can you come put rocks in my tank? :sml2: As for the CO2, if you go to Air Liquide in Hornby, it is only about $30 per fill-up. At CTest/Sai Global on 52 Hayton Rd, it is $37 per fill-up. Lighting Specialists are great! Cheap lights that really do the job. I agree with you though, it's nice to have the pink light to round out the colours a bit.

Sam, that tank is looking great! :thup: One thing that you could do differently next time to prevent the huge algae crash is to not take such a large amount of plants out at once like you did with the stargrass. The tank was beautifully in balance, but as soon as you removed all that plant biomass, you created a few key areas where problems could occur: 1. The low-lying plants were suddenly exposed to high light but they had been in the dark so they would not have been able to grow fast enough to uptake nutrients from the water column. 2. The low-lying plants were mostly crypts and swords that primarily take up nutrients from the roots so they further wouldn't have been able to take up nutrients from the water column. 3. The nutrient requirements of the tank would have dropped significantly when the stargrass was removed. Does that make sense?

Ahh, rainbows and a lush planted tank. Couldn't be better IMO.

That looks like the Ethernet Over Power discussed above, although it makes it look a lot more achievable! :thup: When I went to that site and clicked to look at the fibre options, it was a little overwhelming though... Fibre is available and at my house now, I just need to buy the contract/modem for it. It seems the thing to do considering it costs about the same. Hopefully it will miraculously solve the TV problem too... :dunno:

Thank you so much guys, that is very helpful!

Ok, so this is not my area of expertise. So, fibre isn't worth it as I can stream at the same speeds I have now? And, I need to invest around $200 for EOP just because my new smart TV doesn't stream as well as the other one in the house?

You gotta love that a fish forum is a source for the best advice around on just about any subject. Speed tests run at 9.30am - On laptop in the lounge: On laptop in the office (near the modem at the opposite end of the house from the lounge): On work desktop computer in the office (connected by a cable to the modem): The modem is a Linksys WAG200g and is in the office so that it can be connected by cable to my work desktop. The TV in the lounge is this one and it is mounted to the wall so the cable idea is a bit daunting. Ugh, I hope it doesn't come to that.

My connection is dreadfully slow according to speed test... :facepalm: and I have 150GB for $95 (I use about 80Gb/ month). I only notice the inadequate speed in my lounge which is far away from the wireless hub, but I've only tried it at night so it may be better at a less busy time of day. I can't stream shows on the TV in there but I can stream on a TV closer to the modem. I want to get Netflix though so something may need to change. Apparently for a similar price (not including $10 monthly fibre modem hire) I can get unlimited data under the 'fast' fibre plan. Seems like a no-brainer but I guess - IF I was just out for the speed. I would like to be able to stream Netflix in the lounge... is that about speed, or strength of the signal? :dunno: I guess it would be heaps better for uploading large file photos to my cloud though.

Can I hijack this thread some more? :bggrn: I have fibre/UFB at my front door but have yet to subscribe. Is it worth it?

The Camallanus species is an internal nematode so Levamisole should be effective but the parasite has an indirect life cycle so treatment needs to be repeated 3-4 times about a week apart. Free living copopods and crustaceans are intermediate hosts so should be avoided as food for the fish.

I don't know if I still have it. At that hectic time I was rebuilding damaged tanks so plants were my last priority. I ended up hibernating about 90% my crypts. In the last couple of months I planted all of my balansae roots and they are starting to come up again so you never know, it may appear again!

That proposal was my quick composition and an effort to get something that we could work with during the last executive meeting. The intent was to produce a way for clubs to talk about whether or not they are happy with seeing some drastic changes. I didn't intend my writings to be circulated by non-members who don't know the full story behind it. My hope is that the communications that are going on now among affiliates will produce a decision about supporting change at a fundamental level within the FNZAS. Then, each change will be handled independently as members decide upon what they want to see for the future of NZ fishkeeping.

Interesting info graphic. Apparently complaining is good for you too. :slfg: http://mashable.com/2013/02/10/internet-trolls/

Some of us have history that we are trying to get over, that is understandable. What I would like to see happen is that we can pull together and work on how to best serve the FNZAS and the rest of the fishkeeping community. At present there are some confusing things that we are trying to deal with and hope to clarify. I will make absolutely sure that we always keep foremost in our intentions to communicate transparently with all affiliated members. Any oversights are completely unintentional and will be rectified as soon as possible as we are made aware of them.

This was just brought to my attention and it is great to see the willingness to try to keep communication channels open. This is of utmost importance to our future success. The exec forum is technically another platform executive meetings and the rules therein are the same as in any other executive meeting with the delegates having right of speaking on behalf of their entire club. As with other executive meetings, observers may also attend so we need to make sure that is available to members as soon as possible. Once sorted, we will send out an email to club officers and delegates to ask that they forward forum names of affiliated members that want to have access to the exec forum. Thanks for bringing this up.

Would anyone have a spare CO2 regulator they would be happy to loan me for a couple of months? I am using my existing regulator on one tank already but I am considering buying another CO2 setup :nilly: for another tank (no, there is not feasible way to get a dual manifold to work where these tanks are set up). I just want to see if I like this tank with CO2 enough to invest another $250 into a complete setup. :roll: