chimera

same again... this one is still under 150W lighting and quite low down in the tank. once 400W goes in will be interesting to see what colour it goes.... August 2005 October 2005 February 2006 June 2006

here's some shots of an acro frag I got august last year, I think it has massive potential. unfortunately the photo's aren't in an "evenly spread" chronological order but shows some good progress nonetheless. last two shots show growth in 1 month. not sure what it is? a milli perhaps? initially my wife called it penispora :lol: August 2005 October 2005 January 2006 May 2006 June 2006

cool, good to know cheers. i think I'll move to option 2 :lol:

negligible! you really think they will make that more difference? 0.1 of a degree? if you're lucky? heat from halides, ambient room temperature and fish farts would contribute more to faster heating

i dont think extra heating is really any big deal. they are all controlled by a separate temperature controller. just means when heaters do come on, they bring it back to the set temperature quicker. (so lots of Watts used in a shorter period of time as opposed to fewer watts used over a longer period). i basically added the 200W'er because the sump room is not insulated (yet) and gets freezing in there at night! as soon as its done, i could probably reduce it back to 600W's total. i have seen this, not too sure how accurate it is? Room temp in sump room would get down to around 1-5 degrees at night

your point? he uses the balling method. im sure if he ran a calcium reactor he'd still have the same looking tank. his aquascaping looks like a butt 5th shot down

what frozen food did you test specifically?

cold here too, i think that seems to be the general consensus as with others, never had any issues myself either. goes in the sump rather than in the main tank though. temp drops to about 21 - 22 in main tank usually but only for a short period of time. just added a spare 200W heater i had lying around a couple nights ago too, 900W of heating now so it dont stay cold for long!!! combined with one of those aquamedic temp controllers from steve it works a treat

done. nice link

argh, yuck! all you need is a small glass bottomed reef to make your tank look more realistic

sorry, couldn't resist...!

argh, yuck! all you need is a glass bottomed ocean to make your tank look more realistic :lol:

Interesting, my mg used to be at 1100 - 1200 and in the last couple of months I have increased it to 1300 - 1350 and have noticed an increase in corraline algae. I haven't been overfeeding

interesting, i'll answer that one by one all different size fish, but lots of different coloured smaller fish in schools and fewer large fish saltwater nsw of course, purely down to extra cost same as what i've upgraded to now. massive difference already. 400W with lumen arc reflectors. still experimenting with photoperiod same skimmer as now, deltec ap902. kicks arse! vaccumed sand. much finer grain than i currently have. probably something like what cracker has. calcium reactor and two part for top up, but i wouldnt buy the model korallin i have again its a crap design IMO. same as now, streams, closed loop and seaswirl. main difference is you would not see them. minimal/average. i'd have the pillar like i have now but have it as a feature on it's own in the centre with a small wall of rock going around and behind it creating a valley no comment dont think i've found the need? never really tried so dont know. dont know still playing/learning all of the above no never again yes, but LR only, no sand and NO macro algae! thing i'd change (and which i am going to change later on) is the size of the tank. more deeper front to back. new tank will be 1metre x 2metres by 650. any bigger i'll need 6 foot arms to reach in :lol: interesting topic layton, even though its not specific, it'll certainly get some questions going about why people choose yes or no eg: no to macroalgae, it's a PITA!!!

agree, water change then wait for it to drop.

salinity will do it

yeah I just had a re-read of the reactor setup link i put in the sticky http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002- ... /index.php it basically says to measure the pH output and have it 6.5 - 6.7 (pretty close suphew!) it says to test for alkalinity as opposed to calcium and make sure its roughly stable in the tank. if its reducing, to up bubble rate and effluent output rate at roughly the same amount (because CR's are supposed to be a balanced Ca and kH addition) while maintaining the 6.5 pH. will try that i guess!

I think my calcium reactor still needs optimising but its difficult to do with the driip rate being inconsistant. It is dripping about 2 per second (only way to keep it unclogged) and bubble rate is about 1 every 1-2 seconds. I've been monitoring water chemistry every 2 days over the past week. I havent been dosing anything (other than what the calcium reactor is adding) My Ca has remained stable at 410ppm in the last week but the kH is slowly declining, at around 0.5kH per day. If the Calcium reactor is optimised, is it also supposed to maintain kH as well? Or do the figures look around about right?

gonna insulate the sump room this weekend, i reckon thats where one of the largest power bills is - heating the tank!

yeah was gonna ask if you'd had a look locally. reefonline are good but reasonably expensive i've found

we got that in addition :-? two of the big bottles that sit outside. hoping i wont need to use the oil heaters in the kids rooms once hrv goes in (or at least limit there use) the other thing i gotta do is line the sump room with polystyrene. i got a heap sitting downstairs all ready to put in. i think it will make a significant difference because i believe the tank heaters are on quite often during these cold nights. i got about 700W's of heaters in there so that adds up quite considerably! I was also thinking I might reduce the number of hours and shift the lighting hours on my tank forward an hour or two. because it is more costly using power during the day than at night, if i run the halides from 12:30pm til 10:30pm i get to see the tank more at night when im at home plus its less costly per hour in power. currently it's 11am til 9pm or thereabouts.

nah bro, not yet, installed on the 27th (and counting!!!) will let you all know what i think of it's 'effectiveness' the follwing day its installed (need to give it a day to cycle the air a few times!)

yeah not fair i wouldnt mind roaming around the USA at the moment, picking up goodies for my tank and spending lots of money :lol: Back in a weeks time aren't you Steve? Make sure you post pic's of the lumen arcs then

steve, show us a pic of your DIY luminarcs!

varies, roughly though around 15c - 25c for daytime, 7c - 15c nighttime as a guesstimate. it should show on your power bill. add up the wattage of all your equipment then work it out based on how many hours a day you run them and multiply by your k(ilo)W(att)h(our) amounts. as mentioned earlier, mine is 17.9c/kWh during day and 12.8c/kWh at night. I have a centameter which shows how much power I'm using at any one time, I was a little flabbagastered (sp?) when I put the two 400W'ers on, the average cost increased alot!