lduncan

Ha ha :lol: A bit of Dolby Moderation should take care of that! Layton

what about pointless threads like this?

That's the one. Do you have any trios? or a pair maybe? Layton

The problem affecting elegance corals is not really anything to do with lack of nutrients. Eric Borneman had one in his tank for years, and as soon as he put one into this system for temporary holding, both died within a week. It seems to be some contagious bacterial/viral disease.

This is similar to the one I'm after. Layton

Looking good Pies. I second a picture of the tank in place! I like the closed loop setup, very minimalistic. Layton

Like with many things MAF issues. Some universities or aquaculture facilities may have access to cultures. I don't know of anyone on these boards who has tried, (or maybe they're not telling). Layton

There is nothing inherently wrong with elegance corals, say as opposed to Dendronephthya. Elegance corals have been successfully kept in captivity for many years, and don't require specialist care or feeding. This phenomenon is relatively recent, and is most likely due to poor handling by exporters, much like the problems with bangaii's and other selected fish, this disease seems to be very contagious, and single coral in a exporters holding tank could infect the whole lot. That's the impression I got from reading the threads a while back anyway. Layton

DSB's are the lowest maintenance, most effective form of nitrate removal in my opinion. Just make sure that is is not in your display tank, but in a separate sump area which can be quickly disconnected from the entire system. DSB's are not to be touched once running, otherwise they are prone to crashing, which results in it stripping your tank of oxygen, killing stuff. Layton

I use Purigen (made by Seachem) instead of carbon. Works well, and can be regenerated easily with bleach. Layton

I got the venture bulbs new off ebay. around NZ$120 each all up after shipping. Venture is a BIG US gas discharge lighting company, almost all industrial lighting places in NZ should be able to get these bulbs. They are only marked as MH400 10k. Layton

Just changed my bulbs a week or two ago. I was using Venture 10k bulbs, which i'd probably rate as 12 - 14k. I was very happy with these, and they were very reasonably priced. I now have coralvue 20k's. They appear similar in colour to the ventures, but I think the light from the 20k's is distributed more at opposite ends of the spectrum. ie more Blue, and more red/yellow, with little green. They definitely make the green corals fluoresce more, without the ultra blue look that a lot of 20k bulbs. Ballasts are standard atco MH ballasts with ignitors, and cost around $140 with caps. Apparently you can get a similar ballast used for high pressure sodium and metal halides for around $120 all together in a case, from many hydroponics suppliers. Reflectors, well I can get aluminium plates from work, which I polish using a buffer and braso, then bend to create the reflector. It's too hard to find anything else suitable. All I see are the white painted hydroponics ones. Layton

Obviously not, cause it just bounced back. Can you give me your email address Pies? Layton

I just emailed through a hi res, but do you still use the techtonics address? That's where I sent it. Layton

Thanks Pies, as usual the photo never looks as good as the real thing. The Naso died a while back. Just stopped eating and two days later died. I suspect cyanide, but I don't know, not usually something you'd associate with fish from Hawaii though. But it died very quickly, very strange. Still got one banner fish (must be camera shy), I lost one right after the fire though. Sold all my anthias, plus some annoying damsels. I'm quite surprised at the colours myself, cause nitrates are around 10. Will be interesting to see once they drop, things should look a lot better. They are finally on the way down now. I'm just about to add a third 400Watt halide so i'll get some pics of my lights and stuff when I add that in. Layton

Finally found the camera charger.

Just wondering which fixed strains or guppies we have in NZ. I'm particularly after one which Redwood aquatics had about a year ago. It was labelled "Green Cobra". It was a well developed green black and yellow snakeskin, does anyone have any of these? Layton

Very nice. Should be very impressive once it's finished. Now to sort out my next tank... Layton

Actually I think they're Jansens' corals. Layton

There is no inherent issues with t5 technology, just low quality poorly designed ballasts. Buy a reputable brand and you should have no issues. Layton

Well, some stainless steels are magnetic. But others are not. It depends on how much (if any) nickle is in it. Titanium is non-magnetic. So if a magnet can stick to is, it's definitely not titanium. Can't think of a positive test for titanium though. Layton.

Polyethylene tubing is quite a good insulator unfortunately, so you would need a very long thin tube. Shame titanium tub is so expensive. Plus you have to dig the hole. Layton

Looks to work using a Peltier device. Which is a solid state (no moving parts) heat pump. 50W is not a lot of cooling power about 1/13 horsepower. A 1/6 Hp refrigerant chiller only does a small tank. Maybe useful for some though? Layton

But Chimera it would be less than half the cost if you went wholesale. Layton