chimera

is that a staghorn at the front? if so mine grows that quick too, another weed!

true that pressures on layton

not quite that many, but these are close http://www.neptunesys.com/products.htm thats about what mine tested last night with a salifert kit too, not old either. expires next year sometime.

only with a calcium monitor can you calibrate. unless you have some solution with a known Ca level which you could compare the two kits from

they're only $350 nzl, and when you're getting yours, buy one for me

believe this: http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem. ... uct=AM1121

naaaasty!

good idea, cheers. getting the old lady to come up and feed the fish saturday (famous last words) so will get her to empty another batch in then too

reactor is back in action, i turned CO2 off for about the last 3 days though coz it had enough "fizzing" already going on in the reactor. will be turning on tonight though and adjusting accordingly going down for play, got friends wedding to go to, taking the wife and kids, so relaxing, drinking, a bit more relaxing and alot more drinking. not much chance of relaxing though with 2 young kids!

cheers, in plain english would have been nicer its extremely convenient that I am going to queenstown for 5 days tomorrow morning. right when i should be dosing to get my kH back up! timing is typical of my luck. i only decided to test last night because i am going away, had no reason to believe the tank had bad water chemistry

This is Ira's thread, I continued it because of the discussion on low kH. My tank is looking great (even at low kH) and the CO2 bottle was refilled last week! It's only my kH thats low

Put baking soda (NOT powder!) on an oven tray and bake for 1 hour at 150 degree's celsius. 594 grams makes 5,300dkH!!! I'll only be baking 250 grams which I bought today at lunch. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/rhf/index.php Thanks Pies & Wasp. Will do baking soda addition tonight.

Just did a 20% water change last week, and a 15% change 1 week before that. I would think so too, the CO2 ran out a few weeks ago but I left it drip feeding the tank. I think it got an excess dosing of CO2 because even after the CO2 bottle was disconnected, I shake the reactor and CO2 bubbles float up through the media.

hell yeah! do it and document it on this site so we can all learn from your mistakes

no poor colour, no slow growth, no coral death. i tested twice coz i thought i stuffed it up first time, same results both times. since kh is low, it makes sense that my post a couple of weeks ago about such a low pH is not a faulty pH monitor or reading as stated by others, but in fact a correct reading due to such a low kH (ie: little 'buffering' capacity thus larger pH swings) This is a little concerning - questions: 1. Can you use baking soda to increase kH up to normal levels in one hit or should it be done gradually? 2. Is it crucial to bake it first or can it just be added as is? 3. Is the dosing cracker posted on the first page about right? (1 heaped teaspoon for 300 litres of water to raise kH by 2) Cheers

raeh - is that directed at me or ira? if me, nothing wrong with my corals, nothing wrong with carbon. carbonate hardness why not?

check how much your daily rate is - maybe thats low? or maybe its just a wellies thing

didnt do a reading last night, but about 2 weeks ago i posted that my pH is low, around 7.6 from memory?

I just read back through this post after doing some tests on my tank last night. calcium is highish at 480 (reactor needs fine tuning to pull this back slightly), mg low at 1050 (so added some mag to raise this) but mostly my alk is way low at around 4. even so, the tank is doing/looking well and nothing is looking out of the ordinary. im going to bake some baking soda tonight and add to the tank to raise this up. i think i remember reading high ca and low alk or visa versa is quite common problem. whats the best way to maintain good levels of alk other than daily/weekly dosing of something like baking soda? also remember reading something about good mg levels sustaining alk and ca at correct levels? is this right?

classic example of how quickly and easily someone can get a bad rep by doing one seemingly dodgy deal or not being straight up with a customer :lol:

I got the Centameter tonight, what a cool device!!! Even happier coz I got it for $50 on Trademe, usually around $140 new The main display is a "cent/hour" costing on your power. Right now (with the dryer on) its showing 42.8 cents/hour (that's based on 11.9cents per kw - this is what Genesis charge during the day and about 9 cents per kw at night. You can only specify a single per kw $ rate so I opted for the day rate since thats when most of the power is used) Incidentally, I turned the Dryer off and it drops to 21 cents/hour! Thats 20 cents/hour to run a dryer (and the toaster is about 10 cents per hour!) Funny these figures dont seem much, but when you start adding it up it costs quite a bit over a month. Anyways, I did a test on the tank. At 10pm when the halides went off (3 x 150W), it dropped by 7 cents/hr. Halides are on for 10 hours a day so thats 70 cents a day or $21 a month (however I still have to add 4 x T5's at 52W each so would guesstimate another $10 a month on top of that) I did the same for the sump room plus closed loop and streams and it dropped by around 6 cents/hr. At 24 hours a day thats $1.44 a day or $43.20 a month. So far a total (including T5's when they go in) of about $74 a month. This price does not take into account the chiller or heaters (they are currently off as the tank temp is stable at 25 degrees) It also does not take into account things like the lighting over the refugium (currently on), topup pump and also the zeovit pump (which alternates on 3hrs, off 3hrs - not even sure whether it was on or off when i did the test) The other thing to look at is the way power companies charge you - they usually do a "per unit" + "per day" costing. For example, 11.9cents per kw at day, 9.0 cents per kw at night and 100 cents (roughly) a day. The day rate is charged no matter what, so you can argue you have to pay this anyway and should not be included in the overall tank power cost. The Centameter is definately a cool device and its very interesting to see what consumes the most power. I've been turning different devices on and off all night to see what effects it has The TV takes up bugger all power which I was surprised at. As usual, heating type devices cost most such as toaster, dryer and when shower goes on, hot water cylinder heats up cents/hr usage goes up quite a bit. Oh, and it also shows you temperature, humidity, kW's currently being used, Amps currently being used and greenhouse gases emitted (if you're into that sort of thing )

over 50% petrol prices is in tax,... the govt screw you over here with everything, high taxes and user pays, that just doesnt gel with me... and labour got in :roll:

quiet and silent are two different things mine is quiet, and certainly one hell of alot better than it was before. noise level also, to a certain degree, depends on return pump/flow back from sump (thus flow out of main tank)

Hmm, if they do I might order 6 of them

drill a bigger hole, sounds like water level is too high - i assume its surging?