lduncan

Depends what you're keeping in the tank

HAHAHA You haven't been in this game long have you? Layton

Dunno about the tank as a whole. But there are some awesome pieces in there!

Just copied them to my site:

This picture has been around for a while, but I came across it again today. Thought i'd post it for those who haven't seen it. This milli it 2.5' across!!

I disagree. For the following reason:

How is the chamber 450 in diameter, while the skimmer has a footprint of 160 x 280 ? 450 in diameter is big. Doesn't look that big in the photos, relative to the PVC tube, and fluro fittings, and that icecream container lid. Your tape measure must be broken. Layton

It can, If you can afford to buy the probes. All comes down whether people are prepared to pay for them. As well as how accurate you can make them in seawater. It may need to use multiple probes in combination (ie calcium and magnesium) in order to reduce the effects of interfering ions in seawater. Maybe use some complex algorithms based on the chemistry relationships between different parameters to get more accuracy. The controller has 4 built in probes sockets (which can be used with almost any Ion Selective Electrode), with the ability to add more up to a limit of a few billion.

:lol: That was plain english. I would have really confused you with solubility products, pKa, equilibria, and buffer solutions, and all the equations

work or play? Q Town is a great place! Shame property is so expensive down there.

Since when have I ever needed an invitation to say what I want Ca and Alk are indirectly related through pH. Then magnesium and clacium are more closely related. Calcium is supersaturated in seawater, ready for precipitation at any small trigger. Magnesium helps prevent this precipitation by poisioning crystals of calcium carbonate to prevent runaway precipitation (or the snow storm effect) Magnesium should be 3 times the calcium level. The lower it is, the easier it is for calcium levels to drop through precipitation. pH also effect the solubility of calcium in seawater, which is linked to alkalinity in that the lower the alkalinity, the easier it is for the pH to change. Then if calcium is dropping through low calcium, it also drags down alkalinity, which makes it easier for changes in pH to occur, which just increases the precipitation of calcium out of the water. This sort of positive feedback is something to avoid! The interactions between these parameters are relatively complex. I wouldn't want to be doing any sort of quantitative analysis on it! As for how quickly you can change alkalinity, well at one point I was increasing it in one go by 2-3 dkH daily. The biggest I changed was 4 dkH in a day. I noticed at around 5 and 6dKH corals were severely affected. Layton

Apparently washed up incompetent school teachers demand high salaries. Looks like Labour found enough to create a whole caucus!

Yip, the little clown actually has the balls to bit them on the tale when they get too close to their territory! And that's after they witnessed the green chromis being eaten in a couple of bites! Layton

Finally got a pic of the male: Layton

Yeah, the market here is quite different to the states, but $200 is expensive for a yellow tang, they are usually around $130. We have three week quarantine etc here which significantly increased overheads, combined with low volumes, and the yellow tang being one the more expensive size due to shipping rates from Hawaii. I'm hoping to get to the States again in the middle of the year. I'd love to make a trip to Portland to check out your tank, and the new temperate tank, which looks amazing! The retail shops here in NZ from my experience are pretty average, most could present themselves a lot better. Layton

I wonder if they eat star polyps.

You do have a skimmer running don't you?

I might have to come over and check it out, see what the damage is like. Layton

Ok then maybe crackers is not setup how I thought. I'll tell you the principle behind how mine works. You just stick a plain pipe in the overflow box, no elbows or anything, just sticking straight up. You have it so that the top is about 200mm or so below the level of the overflow comb. You then tune the tap at the bottom of the overflow outlet, so that the water level in the overflow box is around 100mm above the top of the stand-pipe. It has to be high enough that now air is sucked into the stand-pipe. So now you have a dynamically adjusting silent overflow, as no air is entering the overflow tube. It's self adjusting in that if for whatever reason the return pump starts pumping more water, the water level rises slightly in the overflow box, and the effective head of the overflow system increases, and you get a higher flow rate out, and vice versa. (To a limit obviously) Layton

Yip, it's a pretty good price. I don't think they are particularly difficult to get (relative to other Red Sea fish). They are similar to the reticulated butterfly's in that for best chance of survival, you need to be able to spare a few coral polyps. Layton

Durso's are noisy, there's no way around it. It's a flawed design in my opinion, and doesn't solve the problem it was intended to. What they did was take what was once uncontrolled air entry into the overflow, and change it so it was more controlled. Sure it reduces the noise, but it doesn't eliminate it. If you want to eliminate the noise, you have to eliminate the entry of air into the overflow completely. I think Cracker has it worked out (at least from what I gathered from his posts here), so if you can take a look at his setup, you might get a better idea of how to do it. Layton

Masked butterfly, Chaetodon larvatus. Comes from the Red Sea. Layton

Got one They look even better in person too. They're even reef safe (well apart from shrimp... and maybe small chromis!) Butterfly's are cool too. I want a pair of each of these: Layton

Nope, that's pretty much the reason.

Yeah, mandarin fish would be interesting. They are easy to sex, and apparently spawn relatively easily. Don't know much about the fry, how small they are, whether they have a pelagic larval stage or not. May be worth looking into. Or maybe some other type of cardinal, like long spine's or those ugly pyjama ones. Layton