kinnadian

Given that most pumps overrate their flow rate, the 1000 lph might be 800 lph at best (with zero head). Assuming you have around 1m head (distance between the sump water level and DT water level), this will reduce your available flow rate down to around 400 lph. That's ignoring that max head is usually overstated as well. So now you've got 2x turnover for your sump. That's really on the low end of desirable tank turnover. If you're trying to go cheap as possible and don't mind getting stung once or twice if a pump is crap, you could try http://www.trademe.co.nz/pets-animals/fish/pumps-filters/auction-731650201.htm. Isn't much more than the one you listed, and should give you 4-6x turnover. Can't vouch for it though. I have http://www.trademe.co.nz/pets-animals/fish/pumps-filters/auction-729464258.htm and it really kicks out the flow with no head, haven't tried it with 1m of head. It's noisy though, and you'll find this with all cheap pumps.

Chip will swell, spills are guaranteed and you will hate having to empty the thing to replace the chip with ply once it's stuffed in 2 years. I bought standard poly from Mitre10 meg last week that was 12mm thick.

You might be unhappy with the non-RGB version. However you can pay the extra and be nearly guaranteed to get the color combination you want.

Between aquaworld and hollywood fish farm, one of them should be selling live rock. That is, dead rock which has been cycled inside a NZ aquarium and has all the beneficial bacteria in it. Get around 30% live rock and 70% dead rock, should be sufficient to seed for your cycling tank. The live rock will just cost a bit more, but it is DEFINITELY worth it.

I would buy a big bottle of nutrafin cycle and stop using ammolock. If you're removing the ammonia, then there is insufficient food to encourage your bacteria to start growing. Just do water changes to keep ammonia below 15.

If you have good filtration it should be fine.

SAE won't like 29 degrees any more than the Corys will, I've found >27 degC the Corys get a significantly shortened lifespan and are more prone to disease. SAE definitely love stringy algae though.

Yeah Jebo really don't maintain temperature very well! I would always use a heater with an external thermostat now. For what is a very cheap piece of equipment it can save you hundreds, if not thousands (if you have marine) in livestock.

DIY ATO has been going for a month with no issues. Water change won't be full auto since I want to vac my sand bed, otherwise I would do full auto 8)

My flatmate has a DIY ATO that cost around $25 in parts from Ebay. If you want to be really careful (ie to prevent overfills just in case the float switch fails) you can add a further layer of protection with a $10 timer. By limiting the length of time the dosing pump can be on each day, you can restrict maximum flow into your tank per day; for example the pump does around 40 ml/min, so if you run it twice at 2 mins each time, max into the tank can be 160ml/day even if float switch breaks. I'll be using the same circuitry and adding a semi-auto water change topup feature to automatically fill my display tank from a large reservoir once I have finished removing old water, all I will need to do is flick 2 switches (my project this week). If you're interested we can share the items required and how to set it up. The only in-tank eyesore is the float-switch (which can be hidden in your rear compartments).

Are you happy with it overall in person, then? No dim edges? Nice and bright in the middle? Good color?

Midas blenny might get a wee big!

Seems really... pink?

Wow that's good to hear, I guess Alex sourced a quality bulb for this. I tried the cheap ebay ones and they are crap, spotlighting and they put a cheap driver in and only drive them to like 1.2W or something silly. I have the aluminium housing still so if I ever felt the need, I could upgrade the driver, put some red/blue LEDs in and maybe use it for a fuge light.

If it is dead rock, the only negatives are that you may get some contaminants from the water which end up on the rock, and into your tank. Mainly this is chlorine. If you washed it in RODI water, no negatives at all. I would recommend scrubbing it rather than just blowing the rock with a powerhead. This will get rid of any crusted on algae or other deposits. Also most people "cure" dead rock, which is essentially putting the rocks in a bucket with salt water and letting any nutrients/phosphates/dead bacteria/etc to leech out into the water. This process can be done from anywhere from 1 week to 3+ months, depends on the person really. By doing this outside of your display tank, it keeps the leeching out of the sand. This can of course be done in the tank itself, just don't put any sand in and don't turn the lights on at all. The curing process can also simultaneously be done with the cycling process, so test phosphates at the start of your cycle (after having a few days for the rocks to leech) and see if there are any, and if there are if they reduce over time. If it was live rock, you definitely need to wash it in salt water. NSW or ASW, no difference really.

105L, you could probably go 25-30 standard sized 1.5" tetras depending on quality of filtration and regularity of water changes, ie 10 neons/cardinal, 10 rummy, maybe some cochu blue or glass bloodfins, and a couple bigger ones. A dwarf neon gourami OR female betta would be a good addition, could put in a couple bolivian/blue rams. Pleco or otocinclus/siamese algae eater for algae control. A few corydoras (they like 4+) You could also go the way of some live bearers, like mollies or swordtails for color.

I can't see the photos from work, is the light the chinese cheapie from ebay? (the "165W" rated ones). I found mine was pretty good from ebay, however in testing the lights I found they drove the LEDs to 1.6W for white and 1.8W for colored, resulting in a total output of 95W. In my 60L marine I have them cranked to 100% brightness and it is only just bright enough, but I am really happy with the colors. If it is the same unit, I would recommend opening it up and taking all of the lenses off. They do nothing but reduce the light output (I tested optics vs no optics, and couldn't really tell the difference in terms of light spread, only intensity). Also get some new fans, I recommend http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/160772893060?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 because the old ones are really noisy. I would recommend purigen, but don't think carbon filtering is all that important on a small tank. The carbon used needs to be high quality and changed regularly, if you can do this then it can't hurt but probably isn't necessary. Filter floss filtering is good for water polishing, but only if you can regularly change this media out (harbors nitrates). For powerhead I would recommend the Jebao WP-10 from fish street, really nice unit. It *MIGHT* be worth buying 1 or 2kg of live rock and getting it shipped down to you in water (a heatpack isn't necessary imo). It really kickstarts your cycle, can turn a 3 month cycle into a 1 month cycle! You only need rock, sand, circulation and a waste source to start cycling, don't need media or lights. A tiny piece of frozen shrimp is a good start. If you have the money to spare, I think Nutrafin cycle couldn't hurt. I used it, I don't know if it helped (because it is freshwater bacteria not saltwater) but it's relatively cheap and don't think it can do any harm. Good luck!

Might be worthwhile running a high k energy saving bulb (ie 6500k) for some hours each day, until your new light gets here. Will promote some algae growth but it will help de-stress your corals.

To be more clear, is this black hair/beard algae, or regular green hair algae? Good work eliminating direct sunlight, this does indeed propagate algae very quickly. If it is regular green hair algae, it will stop growing if plants consume all nutrients and fertiliser. You may have to mechanically remove a lot of it, or get an algae eating fish (siamese algae eaters are good). Note that if you are overdosing CO2 or fertilisers, the algae will be eating this and growing. I would recommend reducing your dosing by 50% then start slowly increasing until you get algae again. If it is black hair/beard algae, it is likely here to stay. If it is this I can respond with a more thorough reply.

So you keeping the 1 goldfish or going for a tetra tank? Tetras way cooler imo.

Yeah don't worry. The common myth of the 26 degree "melting/death" point of tropical corals has been dispelled and is slowly being removed from the public domain's way of thinking. Corals regularly get to 26-27 degC in their native habitat and 28 degC is not super rare (ie they are tolerant of temperatures this high). The more worrying part is the big temperature swings, a 1-2 degC swing is not too bad but pushing 3 degC is getting a bit high.

I personally like the Omega One brand and would thoroughly recommend it. Overseas the typical opinion that I have come across is to either use Omega One or NLS, the rest aren't as good.

Here are my thoughts. If they are going to be out of the tank for say, 10 hours, you are better off leaving them in a series of bins (very low bio load per bin, ie 1 fish per 3L or so, unless they are tiny tetras/live bearers) and run without filters going at all, just heaters. You leave the water in the filters and only turn them on once the tank is fully set up so that you don't risk partially decycling tank. Fish are OK for 10 hours in un-filtered water, but if you are skeptical you could do a 50% water change at the 5 hour mark. In my opinion you are better off with no risks for your cycled bacteria (ie not running them for the 10 hours) than attempting to convert the VERY minor amount of ammonia that is likely to actually be produced by the fish in their temporary tanks. Provided you don't feed the fish at all the day before, they are unlikely to produce much waste and hence not much ammonia with a big temporary tank volume. As others have said, don't waste time "acclimating" the fish. Except for the most difficult fish, nearly all fish just need to be temperature acclimated. Just check that your pH isn't wildly different in your old and new houses and that is really the only concern. They are much better off being out of the highly stressful and cramped temporary bins and into their tank ASAP, than worrying about acclimating. The stress of being in the temporary bins far outweighs any negligible health affects from tiny inconsistencies between the two water sources. I also don't really subscribe to the notion of saving old tank water, either, but any reduction in changes between your two situations couldn't hurt the fish. Also I would definitely NOT put all those fish in a 60L.

You just keep upgrading and upgrading your light, lol! How many is this now? :bggrn:

He's trying to save money and not get a powerful filter!