Dark

thank you all very much its been a challenging couple of years, and we are both glad that we managed to get to a point where we could get married and live happily ever after (i expect this will make more sense to those that know us closer...) we are having another baby too, which is cool because then i'll be able to register a re-breed! the wedding was over the atherton tablelands which is inland of cairns in australia. after that we spent a week there having our honeymoon, taking in the beaches, wildlife, heat and humidity. stayed at on green island and then at melaleuca resort in palm cove. we also picked up a love of sorkeling while we were over there and are thinking of trying scuba diving after we get past the being parents again thing. i'm tired and not making much sense. feel free to ask all the questions you like, and take notes - we really recommend the hassle free wedding thing, and hay, getting married at 3900 feet makes it very hard to say 'no'.

check out http://www.dark.co.nz for, of all things, powerpoint slideshows. we eloped to the AU, else you all would have been invited (and they can only fit 20 people in a hot air balloon)

dude, its real easy... if you're out in the hutt sometime pop by & i'll show you what i mean

and about those soda stream bottles: the thread is the same as a normal co2 bottle. attach a normal regulator. heres the fun bit: instead of a big tap on the side of the bottle, there is a small screw. it is the tap, it bypasses the pin-valve in the neck of the bottle. using a screwdriver is beyond the scope of this post. caveat: it has been a long time since i did this, i can't remember the exactness of my claims, and i don't seem to own a soda-stream any more (???) so i couldn't verify. i would also expect that a soda-stream bottle would last about a month or so, on my system i guess a couple of days, and they cost about $15 (again, from memory) to 'refill' works out cheaper to hire a bigger bottle. and for those of you that didn't pick this up already; pressurised gas likes to absorb energy when it is released from captivity. this means everything around it gets VERY cold. be slow and methodical when playing with compressed stuff, unless of course you are running away from it. thread tape and spanners are your friends and 'hand tight' is a term to be applied only when using a long-handled spanner. if you are not using a spanner the term 'hand can't undo' works as a starting point.

my 10 cents: i went to BOC and got a regulator as used on a mig welder. $150ish i then went back to BOC and hired (and continue to do so) a 6.5kg co2 bottle for about $8 a month. a few parts from the gas supplier across the road that the BOC people recommended (about $100 for solenoid and all other connecting parts, and some thread tape) done. no more messing around. attatched solenoid to a spare light timer and set up a mess of piping and gang-valves, and inject co2 into about 16 separate tanks. i have plans to put a co2 line down the side of the house when i put a tank in the living room. there is enough pressure to do this with no worries, and if you do something like; run larger tubing (8-10mm) as the main supply with smaller with small/normal tubing (5-6mm) branching off into tanks; then you will not get as many problems with pressure drops when adjusting the flow-rate of individual injectors. similar to the 'token ring' method of running a high-volume air-pump. for tubing you can use air-line, but co2 can leak through the walls of the tubing. there are co2 resistant tubes available (see a tubing/hose supplier). comes in many colours, sizes, lengths, and toxicities. you can also get normal non-toxic air-line tubing for about 35 cents a metre.

someone mentioned to me that you might want to check the variety you use - apparently there are some for use on horses that get very hot compared to the ones made for people. don't think you'd be able to get them at the local sporting shop or chemist, just thought i would mention to save someone getting one of those good deals that turns bad... just in case and all

my first large tank broke in exactly the same way with a curved split. (i had it 1 day and lost 1000 litres onto my living room floor) i believe the cause was a lack of support in the center or the tank, but experience has told me the tank was badly sized and prone to break anyway, being the same dimensions as the 600l tank i have now, but a metre deep. (its actually the 'same' tank, just with most of the sides and all the bracing replaced) Those that know tanks better than me have noted that a split in that manner is somewhat unusual as glass prefers to break on a straighter line. Don't know how useful this is, but it might help with design considerations on fixing the stand. Enjoy

i took a lot of photos when i made the last one, and i am in the process of turning it into an 'article', or at least a lot of pictures with a few explanatory words here and there i'll post a link to it soon.

i have one of those co2 'ladders' - i must say the one that comes in that pack isn't all that bad as far as bubble ladders go it is double sided, so the bubbles pass between front and back - nothing overly special there. i had a single sided one about the same size that didn't have as much of a run for the bubbles. the nutrafin kit pictured is actually pretty neat - they are about $20 wholesale from memory, and for that you get a whole pile of stuff, most impressive of all being the brewing canister - beats messing around with old coke bottles etc. not trying to get you to buy one - but as the kit is sold as a going concern i will use it for comparative purposes. the down-side to the bubble ladder included in the kit is that it isn't big enough - something i'm sure you can improve on in your experimentations! when using the brewing canister with a 100% effective reactor, it could raise co2 levels to near toxic levels in a 600l, heavily planted tank. that give you an idea of how much co2 you can get from a 1/8 teaspoon of yeast and 5 tablespoons of sugar... the kit, however, is rated at only 120 litres (memory...). the reason for this is that the ladder isn't all that effective - the bubbles do diffuse, but most of the co2 ends up leaving the ladder un-dissolved. if you still want to make a ladder, my advice is to make it as large as you can - the one in 'the kit' is about 10cm wide and 20cm tall (memory...) i would suggest going about 4 times that to get good results... then all you have to do is make it look pretty alternatively, i can show you how to make a cyclone reactor from old undergravel filter parts

i'm lazy: i do two at a time: take two upside down coke bottles with the bottoms cut out place them in something so they can't fall over (i use a spare fish tank) in a 2 litre jug, mix three tablespoons of rock salt with some really hot water until the salt dissolves top up with cold water to two litres pour half of the water into each coke bottle add an air-stone to each bottle and turn on so that the surface of the water is bubbling, but not foaming (i have found the foam traps the eggs) add a 1/2 teaspoon of eggs to each bottle wait 24 hours turn off air, remove airstone, apply light to the bottom of the bottles, use another air-line to syphon out BBS into a fine mesh net (muslim cloth is cheap and can be fitted to an old net frame) rinse briefly with water - non-chlorinated is probably best (i use fish tank water) feed to fishies - either dump them in the tank, or put them in a small container with an amount of water, and use a syringe to collect and deliver 'measured' amounts as you can see, i don't care much for heating, and i'm certainly not going to worry about the pH of the water. after 24 hours the eggs hatch with good yield, i wouldn't say perfect, but i'm not overly concerned - i often have more BS that i can deal with. the cultures tend to survive after hatching for about 24 hours, after that the contents of the bottle start to smell funny helps to have more than one culture on the go at a time with staggered start times so you get staggered hatch times i'm sure there are plenty of ways to improve my technique, but it works

Without all the BS? yeah, right! :lol: That was like reading the script for an info-mercial! It does sound interesting, but personally i like the ingredients like to say a little more that 'flavour bursting particles' and 'component 1-5'. or in other words: we can't get it to mix properly, so we came up with this amazing excuse to cover ourselves, and of course to benefit you! the consumer! :lol: (order now and get a free set of steak knives) on a more sane note, there are plenty of things you can feed baby fish - microworms, egg yolk mixed with spirulina, brine shrimp flake, crushed up normal flake etc... and i'm sure there are recipies out there for DIY (or 'Poor-mans') fry food. i have used a few different brands of liquid fry food which seem to work about the same as our comical advertising maniac above, and i have seen some brands of flake food marketed at fry - but again, i think it is simply the left over powder from the machines that make the larger stuff, re-packeted and re-marketed, perhaps with an additional 10% of something so they can't get sued. to this day, brine shrimp is worth the hassle, especially if you have a good setup for growing and harvesting them, and supplementing diets is important too (translates to 'variety', unless you are in marketing, when supplementing translates to stupid products and $$$!)

those drums are ideal for lots of things - water storage, daphnia bins, bulk gravel storage. you might be able to get one from a place that sells livestock feed - Sharpies in Lower Hutt has had them in the past. 'Food grade' is good. 'Previously used for toxic chemicals and radioactive substances' is bad. (talk about stating the obvious!) if i had room, i would plumb one up with a float valve, overflow, auto doser for water ager, aeration, in-line heater... and UV sterilizer just to be sure... actually i would probably do a couple linked together... try to mount it somewhere up high so you can drain water into your tanks, thus making it easier for your powerhead if you even need to use one. one of our club members has three outside for daphnia - occasionally they have to be emptied and washed out to get rid of the accumulated leaves and algae and so on... i don't know if you would run into this indoors, but it might pay to think about how you would go about overhauling it if the need ever arose (radioactive possums falling in the water tank?) too late at night for more inspiration...

i had a mercury therm until recently - very fast to tell the temp and accurate too; temp range from -50 to +250. it was from a chemistry lab. it met the floor at high speed and shattered and lots of little highly reflective balls of liquid (mercury) went everywhere... gutted. the floating ones are a therm in a glass tube and so they are slower to react to temperature changes - i think the extra layer is for bouyancy and protection, most likely the former. i tried using the digital ones, but i have three of them and they all read different temps when placed in the same tank - can be out by about 3 deg in either direction! my old man has what i think is the ultimate temperature measuring device, similar to this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002Z07QA/002-9677788-9569630?v=glance&n=228013 it uses infrared to gauge the temperature of an object and has a laser pointer to aid with aiming it. great for telling which beer is the coolest :)and you can stand on one side of the room and check all your tanks without moving but without going overboard, a medical or lab thermometer is probably your best bet - i'm getting another one to replace the one i smashed, and i'll be keeping it in a safer place next time!

mine are an orangy brown colour - they started off white and went that way over a couple of years. it hasn't caused anything strange to happen in my tanks, i think it is just staining from all the brown stuff that gets stuck in it. as far as cleaning filters go - if you go overboard you will kill all the bacteria that is in it, which might not be a bad thing if you are starting fresh, but it would mean the filter needs to be allowed to cycle for a bit to build the bacteria colonies back up again. i know i'm probably stating the obvious, but you never know the ribbed hosing on some models of the external fluvals seems to be exceptionally good at collecting gunk - most noticable as brown chunks that come out when you switch the filter off and back on again. i blast them clean with a hose from both ends (when i can be bothered taking them off my tank) and even that doesn't seem to get all the rubbish out. fluval do sell a 'bottle brush' type thing with a long handle, but i can't see myself ever paying them for the privelage.

mine were at least a couple of inches long before i noticed they had spawned - about three years old perhaps? the babies tend to hide out with dad until they are free swimming, and even then slowly leave their cave. you might be lucky and not get any eaten. on the other hand, one tends to notice that bristlenose cats have spawned because the tank is suddenly covered in small fish anyway - if they do take three years to grow, imaging the number of tanks you'll have by then!