chimera

hahaa, dunno where you got a "768" from, you're clearly looking at the wrong thread I know it was alot more than that so I checked, if you really must know it has just over 44,000 views halfway down the page "Sump room, new tank etc" here: http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/35-vf5 ... start=1700 a little before your time it seems conch ah, views not replies, but certainly out of context :roll:

OMG do i have to spell it out for you? what do you think creates flow? :roll:

only if you want to call the tank "equipment"

That would be first and third most important. Second most important is flow

dude, it's auckland, its the most unpredictable weather next to melbourne it'll be snowing tomorrow you just watch... 8)

Yes and no, there are also 2 types of base rock, "dead base rock" and "seeded base rock". Dead base rock is not yet cycled (devoid of bacteria) whereas seeded has been cycled (ie: has bacteria and is therefore "cured"). Live rock is simply seeded base rock with life living in it (pods, bristleworms, sponges, etc) You typically place dead base rock under seeded or live rock when you do aquascaping, that live rock will then seed the base rock.

well said

...and at over $100 a coral you will be into several thousand before you know it, but before you even get to that stage you start forking out $30 to $50 for each test kit you buy, you then start stocking your tank with livestock too fast causing endless algae problems to which you spend hundreds of dollars at your LFS on products to try and cure the algae along with bags of artificial salt to perform countless water changes, later that week half your fish die from stress to which you buy replacement fish a month later, a week after that half your fish die again from whitespot introduced from the new fish you poorly chose when purchasing, later that week you notice some of your corals start to whither away because you fail to realise the importance of flow in your tank so go out and spend a hundred bucks on some powerheads, several weeks on one of the cheap heaters you bought blows up so you buy a decent one, you soon start to get even more hair algae growth so you buy a fluidised reactor and phosphate remover in an attempt to cure it, the hair algae comes and goes and its only later you realise its because you've been topping up with tap water so you fork out several hundred on an RODI unit, you continue with your water changes but you get frustrated because your tank doesnt look as you expected, you find out that the $100 skimmer you bought just won't do the job so fork out several hundred in an effort to obtain better nutrient export, you notice your tank is starting to progress nicely but you notice your corals arent growing, you find out your small pot of calcium and alkalinity supplement you've been buying at ten times markup is not sufficient to keep up with demand so you buy a bag of Calcium chloride and some baking soda and start a new dosing regime, while you're dosing you notice the cheap powerheads you bought is ripping the side off a coral because of its bad design, the other starts to rattle and breaks, this happens several times so you get so annoyed you spend a several hundred on some decent powerheads, at this point your phosphate remover loses its effectiveness and you start to get hair algae and diatom growth again, you mention you are running 2nd hand T8's with 2 year old bulbs on a public forum to which everyone tells you the lighting is inadequate so out comes the wallet again and several hundred go on 2nd hand halides, the T8's get sold on trademe at 1/10th of what you paid for them, you still notice diatom growth over your glass and rocks and find out the aragonite sand you bought is actually a cheap alternative so you syphon out the sand and chuck it out, your tank is finally starting to look good and you're happy, you check your bank balance and realise that the $1,000 you were initially told is complete and utter bollocks and even on your small tank you've already hit several grand, you decide to go away for a weekend break to get away from it all and when you get back, you find that you really should have also invested in that thousand dollar chiller to protect your now overcooked investment... Some of it is speaking from experience, but not all

possibly the head of a seacucumber, similar shape to the head of this one:

judging by its position in the photo above, i dont think you could put it any lower to the ground. run longer plumbing

yeah you could. i got 4500lph return to my display. about 1/2 that gets gravity fed through my deltec ap902. rest gets bypassed to fuge and chiller. everything then gets dumped back to the sump. so - its 40mm from display down to fuge. off that is 2 T's. one to skimmer and one to chiller. each T is reduced to match the inlet size of the equipment its feeding, so 25mm for skimmer, 20mm for chiller. if i turn off ball valve to my skimmer and chiller, i got all 4500lph going through the fuge. the fuge overflow is 25mm to the sump. that 25mm outlet JUST copes with that flow. even the slightest blockage and the weir starts filling up (i gotta change that bulkhead to a 32mm) in your case, you'd need minimum 25mm plumbing to feed it. get whatever size the inlet to the skimmer is and match that, so if 40mm inlet get 32mm plumbing. i'd imagine if you did same plumbing setup as mine (40mm down) then T it off to 32mm for the skimmer it would easily cope. although it all depends on what rate your return pump is...

you answered your own question in the first 5 words you wrote

they are hermaphrodites. the larger, older specimen is usually the female but if the female dies the male will increase in size and become a female

nice, has come along way

any full tank shot updates? MASSIVE improvements since you took out a heap of rock. be interested to see growth since the last shots

subliminal advertising aye reef

:lol: :roll: when you buy frags from mates they are

While the marine hobby is small on the scheme of things, I think there are still enough hobbyists in it to like either LPS, softies, SPS or various combinations of these Personally I like the movement of LPS/soft corals as it gives some action to an otherwise motionless SPS tank,... but then there is nothing better looking than big beautifully coloured SPS. I dont believe variety is hard and most of the common SPS would be favoured by the average "coloured stick lover" - acro's, milli's, monti's, stylo's, poc's, seria's and the various colours of each. It is perhaps the very advanced hobbyist who already has all these and is looking for that rare or hard to come by specimen that will demand something different. I understand that it is difficult for an LFS to keep SPS "coloured up" in their shops long term without a good deal of time and maintenance invested in their tanks (its hard enough doing it at home :-? ) but most shipments of acros that go into shops seem to disappear not too long after so surely they must sell well. I dont mind brown acros if they're healthy as I know they will colour up long term - its when I see bleached, half broken and poorly maintained acros in a shop still with ridiculous price tags that makes me wonder why I should fork out the money and take the risk buying it.

sounds like another case of who you know, not what you know :roll: i rarely (if ever) see acro's in the shops (any shop) only softies and lps (although often a good variety of fish when new shipments come in) most people i know of buy either frags or full size acros when someone breaks down their tank.

"Acumen", insightfulness, shrewdness shown by keen insight. Sounds like someone familiar Dont import marine livestock because you have to deal with unethical competition? Permutation with repetition or without? :roll: Starting to sound like a broken record so I'm picking with

Now that makes me laugh. I made a formal complaint about exactly the same thing. Just for reference - I was suggested to do so by dogmatix (it wasnt him) after I told him about it. At least one staff member is on the ball. But you just told me you werent in it to make profit reef? If thats the case the shops must be making huge margins. Clearly only marine importers run businesses and know what they're talking about. Business owners like myself and several other hobbyists I know of certainly must just be slaves to the system and no more. What idiots we are :roll:

NZL marine industry...

:roll: thats not the only reason; and that comment itself is completely naive and unjustified. competition sux when you're the one being competed with but its the way business works unfortunately. http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/-vp259068.html

ask HFF?

try pm'ing joeblog i'd say he'd have a heap of snails and probably wouldnt mind