lduncan

That's great. Personally I wouldn't use it again though, especially reading what I have about the possible mechanisms it uses. Layton

My corals don't like it. Layton

Hey, I'm just calling it like I see it. The tank doesn't stand out as being impressive to me. Even my own tank doesn't impress me at the moment. Layton

Several reasons. 1 Size. This will be much smaller than even the smallest form factor PC 2. Cost - By the time you design the IO required and interface it to a PC, you might as well put you're own cpu in their. 3. Power - this will consume about 3 watts. PC you are talking orders of magnitude more power. 4. It will hopefully form the basis of an entirely separate commercial product. 5. I had to think of an idea for my final project for university. Layton

When i have time. To tell you the truth, i think my tank looks like crap at the moment. It's been neglected the last few months because of uni and what not. Things have settled down a bit for a while. This week i've spent a lot of time cleaning, and trying to get it back into shape. Layton

It's an average tank for "Tank of the Month". Last months one was a all time low I thought, too. There are better tanks in NZ. Maybe my standards are too high. Layton

Petshop, $120 gets you enough to make 600-700 litres Layton

For those that use NSW. What sort of "life" are you trying to add and why? Layton

I think it's kind of an average looking tank. Nothing really impressive. Layton

There is a subtle difference there. Reducing nutrients in the water column is fine. You can do it as quickly as you like, without having problems with tissue loss, etc. What Bomber is referring to is ADDING a chemical into the water column, such as a chelator, which actually diffuses into the coral tissue and binds required elements, that's what will cause problems. Layton

Well that appears to be part of the problem. You can't test for the things which you need too, in order to control the by-products of the process.

I think the point is, is that there is no test kit for the processes going on in the system, which makes it a very risky method. The problems have nothing to do with nitrate or phosphate. Layton

Consultancy Pies. If I wasn't at Uni, i'd be charging $90/hr +, and still be one of the least expensive in town. Layton

Sorry Ira, i wouldn't get out of bed for less than double that hourly rate. Prototypes are expensive. The boards themselves cost $800 (for min 4) so that pic is a $200 piece of laminated fibreglass and copper, then there are the components on top of that. A single protoype with all the other components will probably cost me a couple thousand, in raw materials. But once the proto is finished and working. I can send them to some chinese sweat shop and have them manufactured for next to nothing. :lol: Layton

What i'll probably end up doing is putting together a couple of complete systems, and send them round NZ, and people can try/test it. Layton

Boards have arrived, got a photo up: http://www.nzreefs.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=15 Layton

I just thought you should at least be told once about the tank size, just so that you know. But if you're up for the challenge then definitely make sure you do a lot of reading. Other things to note on a tank that small is that you will not be able to keep any sort of anemone, they are too big. As far as fish go, tangs, angels, butterflies, anthias are all out of the question. Fish which you could keep include clowns, gobys, chromis, dottybacks, cardinals, blennys, firefish. So you're stocking options in terms of fish is quite limited. In my opinion there is only one way to setup a tank and that is with plenty of "live" rock, and a good skimmer, shallow sand bed vacuumed regularly. If you go with metal halides, you could probably get cheaper if you went with a magnetic ballast instead of an electronic one. A single 150Watt would do a 2' tank. Another option for lighting on a tank that size is T5, which would also allow you to keep most inverts. And in case you are short of anything to read, checkout www.reefcentral.com Layton

Also, you should be warned, 80 litres is a very small tank for a beginner to setup a marine tank. It will be a steep learning curve. If you can, start with a larger tank (think 4'). I can guarantee the chances of success will be much, much higher. Smaller volumes of water mean that water parameters such as salinity, pH and general water quality chance much faster. Good water quality and stability is key to keeping fish and corals alive, and happy. Layton

I would suggest not DIY'ing a skimmer. It is one of the most important parts of the system. Lights are the big thing which can benefit from DIY. They're damn expensive if you're looking in petshops. Layton

I agree. Not being able to get "live" rock doesn't bother me at all. But stopping coral imports does. Layton

I don't know whether I should post this, but here it is. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... enumber=11 It's a RC zeovit thread which has been going on for 3 or 4 days, it's up to about 58 pages long!!! The first 50 pages were the usual back and forward argument. The link above goes to page 51, this is where it starts getting interesting. (It had to be split into two separate threads after the first 40 pages, so the link actually takes you to the page numbered 11.) Layton

Don't forget the legitimate reason why these regulations exist in the first place. Although for the most part it is clear to most people in this hobby that the real threat to New Zealand's environment from importation of this stuff is almost zero. Layton

Not to mention the crane

I can't believe that. MAF really are on the warpath. Layton

I think there is a massive price jump from 10mm up to 12mm glass