kinnadian

Like I said, Eheim 2010 or 2012 will suit that size. Not sure about Sunsun internal filters, but I know their external filters are good quality and flow, so their internals will probably be ok. Two of these should be OK if you're trying to go as cheap as possible: http://www.trademe.co.nz/pets-animals/fish/pumps-filters/auction-724102374.htm. I've found you get what you pay for, though. Aqua One put out very poor flow rate. Don't bother with Hailea internal filters, they are absolute junk. I think at that size you are better off with two internal filters rather than one, aimed at different directions, to get good varied circulation.

100L is kind of pushing it for internals imo, especially with big bioloaders like goldfish. Eheim 2010 or 2012 are quite large and ugly but good filtering capacity and VERY quiet (sometimes need to mod the shaft slightly to raise impeller).

Especially once they grow to 3", 1 flap of their fins and they are at the other end of the tank.

Yep it is. I'd recommend getting a heatsink locally ie from Ullrich. Then get one of the LED kits from RapidLED, they are an all in one package and quite good for a first time LED DIYer. Don't get the heatsink from them or you will pay out the ass for shipping! Have you seen those in action? There's no technical specs at all for optics, LED driven wattage. Looks like 4 white to 8 blue so would be VERY blue. I have researched at length LED reef lighting and the general consensus now is that blue/cool white lighting is insufficient for optical colouring. You need the red/oranges in warmer whites to get good non-green coloration, also a mixture of blues and royal blues and a few high nm purples. You can see this slow adoption for LED lighting manufacturers, they are all moving away from blue/blue but it is taking some time and as they do we will see more cheaper blue/white options like the one from Aquaworld as they become outdated.

Don't bother with the cheap Par30/38 bulbs on ebay. I tried two because they were "cheap enough to try" and took 6 weeks to get here and were absolute shit. Spotlighting and they drove the 3W LEDs to a miserable 1.2W, and even then my equivalent wattage power saving bulb put out around 3x the light. Don't waste your time! Good PAR30 bulbs are RapidLED, BoostLED, Ecoxotic, Reefbreeders. With shipping you are looking at around $140ish last time I priced them (bulbs alone are USD$80). It would be hard to get an LED bulb with a higher wattage than the socket imo, since most of these bulbs are less than 40W, If you are DIY inclined you can do a pretty cheap setup for under $100.

Hobby breeders, clownfish are easily tank bred. Watch these forums or the NZMAS forums. My flatmate picked up two from a breeder on NZMAS for $35 each (http://nzmas.co.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?p=115076#p115076)

Wow that is a tiny tank. What are you planning running in it?

Bristlenose grow to 5-6 inch, which imo is too big for a 71L (though some may say it is fine, we are after all keeping an animal captive against its will, my theory is that they should be given as suitable conditions as possible). Be prepared to rehome him in a year or two. Barbs will no doubt attack the pearl gouramis sooner or later, and will definitely eat all their feelers off. This combination might do OK in a larger tank, but in a small tank every fishes aggressive personality will come out. Also tiger barbs are some of the most aggressive barbs out there. Typically I would almost never mix barbs with "community" fish such as gouramis or tetras. The black widows might fare a bit better than the gouramis, since they are a bit quicker, but I think it would only be a matter of time until you had dead tetras. In my opinion as well, pearl gouramis will outgrow your tank, I wouldn't put them in any less than a 120L. Same comment as above, give them the most suitable conditions possible. Try one of the dwarf gouramis instead.

Depends on the size of the tank. If it is small, regular water changes is all the "dosing" you need. If it is large, you will need some dosing. For calcium/alk I would recommend DIY dosing. See here: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php Note that if you are doing this kind of dosing, you NEED good test kits like Salifert. Crap like API test kits just won't cut it, you may end up doing more harm than good by over-dosing. For other supplements, I would recommend overseas. With shipping they are often half the price, and from amazon only take around 5-10 days to get here. Red Sea Aiptasia-X is better than Joe's Juice, and cheaper. Purigen is one of the better phosphate removers. And you can regenerate it 5-10x. Other options are GFO (granulated ferric oxide) in a reactor (more expensive, better for larger setups). Phytoplankton is usually not needed, it just nutrient-overloads your tank. It's mainly good for growing pods if you have a mandarin dragonet, and if you have a skimmer it will remove the phytoplankton immediately. You only need something like this if you actually have corals that need to eat food (hint: nearly all corals don't, they survive purely through the symbiotic relation with zooxanthellae via photosynthesis). Most corals just eat fish/food detritus.

There are a lot of good pre-made items on aliexpress or ebay. The one from Aliexpress looks quite good. You will need at least 2 to cover your tank, more likely 3. Otherwise a good DIY kit you can find at http://www.rapidled.com/90g-tank/. I would recommend not buying a heatsink from them and getting one local, as this inflates the shipping significantly. I would get dimmable if given the option.

Where does one obtain the famous eggcrate, in NZ?

You have kind of missed the boat on babies, breeding season has come and gone mostly. They start popping up again in December or so. In saying that, one is currently available on TradeMe: http://www.trademe.co.nz/pets-animals/reptiles-turtles/bearded-dragons/auction-714456060.htm It would seem it has been bred out of season, but this is not the norm. Also as it is out of season you will PROBABLY be looking at spending over $500.

They're really hard to breed, no one is currently successful in NZ.

No real reason for it when regular orange/perculas are $50 or less.

I've bought one of these for my 60L http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dimmable-165W-LED-Aquarium-Grow-Light-Full-Spectrum-FishTank-Reef-Coral-LPS-SPS-/271255122425?pt=AU_Pet_Supplies&hash=item3f2810b1f9&_uhb=1 It's a bit more than the one you listed but much better imo, the lower K whites are better for coral coloration. It also allows you to upgrade if you choose to in the future. Spent a long time researching them and no one has anything negative to say about them. They are basically unbranded versions of reefbreeders or reefradiance ones, using the same specifications (most likely made even in the same factory). It's a 165W but can be driven down to 0%. Plus the color combination is perfect, and independent dimming channels for white/blue is good too. 3 year warranty and free part replacement outside of the warranty period, and 100% feedback for the ebay user.

2 clowns in a 15L? Hope you're upgrading in a few months... Otherwise looks nice and tidy.

I'm interested in a black and white clown too, if the price is right. $100+shipping from fish shops is crazy.

It depends on the setup you have for your fish. Typically africans are looking at a minimum tank size of 200L, more when they grow to adults or if you have more aggressive species. Higher volumes of water and decent filtration means you have more room for error. Tropical on the other hand is typically lower tank sizes, so errors become more prominent and can have greater consequences. Also tropical freshwater fish species vary greatly, you are asking us to make sweeping vague statements about community fish. If you have guppies or other livebearers, you can practically stick them in a mug and they will live. Whereas if you have Discus you need much tighter controls on your temperature and water composition, as they can easily develop diseases. Also community fish usually live with live plants, so you have another level of care required to have nice live plants (good lighting, CO2 dosing, fertilizers, correct substrate, etc).

Simple answer was that they weren't happy, they were slowly dying. It would be like subjecting humans to living in an outhouse, with all of your waste polluting your air and contaminating your food. By the sounds of it you weren't doing actual water changes and I doubt any nitrate test could have picked up the levels that you had in your tank, since nitrates aren't removed through evaporation only from water changes. Based on your description I assume you were irregularly feeding them, so they would have been starving and not produced a lot of waste. Also it is very likely a few died that you did not notice and the fish simply ate the dead fish before you noticed. Fish are hardier than most people think, a lot of them live in swamps or stagnant water pools (which is essentially what your tank would have been). In saying this, MANY fish die in the wild because of these conditions, but we as fish keepers aim to have none die so we provide the best environment we can to ensure their survival.

My 450L turtle tank from greg was $350. Add $500 or so for an FX5, $300 for 2 2xT8 light hoods, around $500 for a REALLY NICE tank stand, and you've got tank dimensions that suit YOU and your fish (ie nice and wide, 600 min), MUCH better filtration, better lights, and you've saved yourself $650!!!

All it takes is one Trademe seller to give you a plant with some black hair algae spores and that's it Total pain the ass. I quarantine all plants now as a matter of course, give them A LOT of light and dose high ferts to see if any black hair algae grows.

Quarantine facilities are really expensive. Would recommend exhausting all over options before importing any fish...

The safe range is 6.8 - 7.5 in my opinion, not many fish really like acidic water. I'd be more concerned if I had 6.5 over 7.5. I'd echo others and recommend leaving it. It is not that bad, I believe the tap water here in New Plymouth is around the 7.6 mark. If you are still genuinely worried, options are: * Mix RO water in with your tap water (you can get PureDew RO water from the supermarket for $7/10 litres). * Put peatmoss in your filter * Start dosing CO2 into your tank with either DIY CO2 or Flourish Excel. * Add lots of driftwood to your tank

I like the look of a shallow sand bed, and it allows detritus to be collected and easily vacuumed up, and adds to surface area for bacteria. The brown algae on the sand will go away with time. If you have really high flow rates it can forever pick up sand and throw it around your tank.

Hey mate, welcome. Some of those fish prefer much larger groups, I would recommend looking into the requirements for each species of fish you have.