lduncan

It's in there, but i'm not bothered about it. It doesn't cause any problems for me. Healthy happy fish don't die from it. Layton

Just the angel. I've had it for a few months. I don't even know that white spot was the cause of death. All my other fish are looking really good, haven't had white spot on them for several months. The blue tang gets a few spots which disappear after a day if I move rock around, and things like that. Layton

Usually only expensive ones, or those that are known to be shy eaters at first.

People confuse silica SiO2 (sand) with silicate SiO4 (used in exoskeletons of diatoms and other critters). Silica is quite insoluble relative to silicates (in general). Beach sand (silica) is no more responsible for diatom blooms than what the glass of your aquarium is (which is made from a substantial amount of silica sand). So beach sand is fine, if you can stand the colour of it. I much prefer the bright white of carbonate sand personally. Like Ira said, if you use beach sand try and wash as much of the "foreign bodies" out of it as possible. Layton

Yeah, i wondered whether you knew that or not. I'm sure Bob could work out staff discount too.

Or alternatively $700 to $900 brand new http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/chillers-vt9860.html Redwood have some of these too.

Some people use all those as supplements. They're not necessarily "garbage". I hydrated lime to my tank everyday!

Sand does little in the way of buffering. People assume it does because they notice that it dissolves over time. Bacteria are dissolving it, not for the benefit of everything else in the tank, but for themselves. It's a source of carbon for them. Use whatever you think looks best. To me coral sand (3mm+ in diameter) looks best.

Dunno, i haven't found any suppliers or seen any prices for that one yet. It was just released this year.

Oh, and the Octopus from Aquadyne. http://www.aquadyne.com/

There is another one made by an Italian company. http://www.aquatronica.com/

Some of that may also be because he only has them running around 2 hours a day too.

Nope. You think that solar is going to save money, rather than cost?

I loved that show!

The way I see it is if you go with cheap equipment and you decide the hobby isn't for you, it has no resale value at all. Alternatively if you decide to upgrade to a larger tank, you end up having to buy a new skimmer, new pumps, and new lights. If you go with good quality branded equipment and you decide the hobby isn't for you, you have equipment which you can sell and recover more money. Or if you decide to upgrade, you'll be able to make the most of a lot of your existing equipment, without having to purchase everything again.

Plus batteries, charge controllers and inverters... Wind is more cost effective and efficient than solar, by a long shot.

I understand where you are coming from. Except my priority is to make something which I can rely on to run MY tank. There is significant incentive to have it work correctly 100% of the time. There is no way I would give it to people to try unless I was completely sure that it is safe, and functions as expected. I'm not even going to entertain X10 for the simple fact that it is extremely unreliable, and will continue to become more and more trouble some, with the proliferation of power electronic switching supplies like electronic ballasts, energy saver bulbs, switchmode charges and powersupplies spewing noise into the power network. Kind of pointless having a reliable computer, and then go and use x10 as a contol network.

Yip, I wish more bulbs came with that information. It's called a power spectral density (PSD) it tells you the quantity of light emitted at every frequency (colour). I find it easier to judge the colour of the bulb from that plot, rather than a number which may only be loosely related to the visible colour. Kelvin ratings can be pretty random sometimes.

The only dumb question is the one which is never asked.

Not all computers crash like desktops. There are simple methods to ensure that computers (especially mission critical embedded systems) recover quickly and gracefully from any abnormal state, whether that be from software which crashes, or environmental disturbances.

Based on what? I'm not a cheap person, but I think it is pretty average value for money. Yip that's kinda obvious. You forgot the uncertainty and doubt part. I don't think the AC provides any sort of SSL encryption. Mine has the power to provide this and more advanced encryption schemes. Anyone with the processing power to break 128 bit SSL can have control over my tank Layton

It depends on what you want it for. I want one because I plan on spending a bit of time overseas over the next few years, and it would be nice to be able to view the tank at anytime, and control anything from alkalinity and calcium dosing to FW topup, lighting, heat cooling, all from over the internet. None of these products can do all that. But people have different reasons for having them. The AC may be fine for what you need. Layton

I was kind of disappointed with the AC Pro III, and the price is huge considering the (lack of) features, over $1000USD for any useful sort of setup.

Ok here would be my recommendation. 1. Skimmer - Something like a Deltec AP600 2. Lighting - two 250 watt halides. You could do 175's or 150's, but the 250's will allow you to reuse them if (when ) you decide to upgrade to a larger tank. $500 DIY. Could go with T5's over halides, but I prefer halides for the shimmer effect. 3. Flow - a couple of stream 6000 (or 6100 for eventual tank upgrade ) http://www.tunze.com/149.html?&L=1&C=NZ ... zeprod_pi1[predid]=-infoxunter025 4. Live rock - anywhere between 12 and 20 kg. More of a personal preference thing, trend is towards less live rock these days, but remember it does perform a filtration function. $10 to $13 per kg. 5. Sand - go with a largish grain size, around 3.5 to 4mm plus in diameter. It's easier to vacuum and keep clean. 6. Test kits - around $100 to $160 for a full range (Salifert) 7. Refractometer - essential for measuring salinity.

I'm looking at an anodised aluminium housing, similar style to the old iPod mini, so colours may be an option .