wasp

True. I'm still mulling over ideas for my next tank, think that's given me an idea! Would also creat an area for low light mushies etc. under it, something I'm wanting to do. Perfect!!

ROTFL!! :lol: :lol: :lol: Sometimes I come here just for the laughs

Ha Ha! It's not something you'd really do in a tank that was a joke On oil rigs when they do repairs deep under the water, they film everything. That is one of those films. It was real deep, the water pressure was more than a ton per square inch. Pressure inside the pipe they were cutting was close to zero. Then an unsuspecting crab walked along!!

5 pages later you saying you don't know? :lol: :lol: :lol: You a hoot!

Mickey do you have access to a digital camera? A few of us guys would be interested to see some photos of the London marine shop & the tanks, if you can do that.

The joys of reefing! :lol: Perhaps you could try this http://burningsmell.dyndns.org/crab/crabvspipe1.mpg ( 1.8 meg video, quicktime required. )

Mickey, going to a marine shop to get a few bits of equipment, is where things start to go wrong for a beginner. Here's a tip - go to the shop, sort out all the stuff you want, get the prices, then don't buy it, come back here tell us what it all is including brand, and we'll tell you wether to buy it or not or what you should buy instead. Trust me, there's a lot of people wish they did that, after it's too late. Also we'll need to know how big your tank is & what livestock you are planning to keep, to give good advice.

I'll take that top liverock + the 4 flasher wrasses in the same pic.

Just single distilled water would normally be fine. If the double distilled stuff is free, go with that. I would imagine that following a double distil with DI, would be to remove any gaseous contaminants that made it through the distillation. But those contaminants, in the quantities we would be talking, would not be a concern to us.

Distilled is fine, long as the coil was not copper.

Yes have to say i just would not go back to not having one. If the water from Speights is extremely good, you may be able to skip the RO and just run it through a DI. The purpose of the RO is to remove TDS cheaper than DI, but it doesn't get it all, so a DI is used as the last stage to finish off. The DI resin gets used quite quickly if the water has a high TDS. But if there is a TDS of say, less than 20, a litre of DI resin will give you quite a long period of service if you're just making one litre of water a day. I'm making around 7 litres a day, from water with a TDS of 60. In my case an RO before the DI is definately more economical.

You'd need to test the water to know, but tap treated with stress coat is generally not a good idea long term. as you have access to a lab looks like this will not be a problem. What you'd test for would be kh, Po4, and TDS, for starters. the kh will not matter provided it's not sky high, you just want to know what it is, so you can factor this in to your dosing regimen. TDS should ideally be less than 5, and Po4 if you can detect any at all with your Salifert kit that's too much. Bear in mind that as you top off all the time, whatever you're adding becomes more and more concentrated. A tds of 5 is unlikely to be achieved, although I don't know what Speights actually do to the water. which is why most people eventually move to using RO, after battling phosphate etc. which becomes apparent after they are a few months or a year into their hobby.

True. What withholding period should be used for them then?

Don't know on that one, but viral related problems are not common in our tanks if the fish are healthy, it's probably not worth worrying about. But since some viruses can remain dormant for hundreds of years, it's not going to be worth trying to eliminate them by a withholding period anyway. Would bleach do it?

Just keep adding the calcium, it will start taking out the kh once calcium comes up more. But do you have any reefer type friends nearby? May pay to get someone else to test your ca and kh levels with their own kit, just to make sure your testing technique/kits are accurate.

Many have tried and failed , don't think it can be done. I don't know why someone would want to get rid of them they play their part in the grand scheme. Actually stubbornly removing them all before they get to breeding size, for several months, may work, but it would require a heckuva lot of man hours and torch batteries.

My sons girlfriend just sold a really cool brackish puffer on Trade Me!

Mickey there is HEAPS to learn, MONTHS of reading. A salt tank is different in many ways to a fresh tank. Yes, testing for the things you mentioned is important. You put liverock in the tank and after a few weeks the tank will stabilise when the liverock gets full of bacteria and eat all the waste products. You cannot put any fish in till this has happened. What I'd suggest, is use google, and enter the word for whatever you need to know about, plus the word aquarium marine. So for example if you wanted to learn more about liverock, you would enter liverock aquarium marine. Good luck dude! great to see a 13 year old getting into reefing. Hope your Dad's got lots of money that the main ingredient for a reef tank! And keep asking us stuff!

My little faux pas! Actually I'll say it was really just a "tester" I know your awake now :lol: :lol:

Mickey you will need one of the following to check your salinity. swing arm hydrometer, floating hydrometer, or refractometer. Your tank salinity will change over time due to several things including evaporation and addition of calcium, etc. you HAVE to have some way to check it. The swing arms are unreliable, floating hydrometers are OK, and refractometers are best. You live in London? If so, there's lots of reefers there. You need to track one down make friends and have a look at his tank and a chat. Much easier to learn that way. Make sure his own tank's up to par though, otherwise look for advice elsewhere.

Oh yes, I see it now, Laytons right!!! I was confused :lol:

Hermit crabs may last a few weeks?months, but it will be the temperature that will get them. glass shrimps will be OK, fish will handle it for maybe 6 months +, but eventually their livers will pack up & they'll die. That's because at normal salinity, fishes liver is used to constantly "flush" and get rid of excess salt. The fishes own internal osmotic balance is 1.007. At an external salinity of 1.010, the liver ceases the required amount of "flushing" to keep it healthy, and will eventually fail.(that's if you're talking 1.010 ). You will need to start them in normal salinity and reduce it over several days. Crustaceans have a different mechanism of osmotic control, the ones we see in the shops cannot adapt to 1.010. But glass shrimps may. Rock pool blennies are real characters in a tank, I had some in a cold water system. They perch at various vantage points where they can keep an eye on everything. They eat heaps, big appetites. How long till you get your system up to 1.020? Rock pool fish will be fine at that. If you have rockpool fish in a lower salinity, you will need to lower it over several days. But raising salinity is more dangerous, if going from 1.010 to 1.020, you should take at least a week, particularly moving out of the lower levels slowly, giving the fish time to get its liver fired up again. Don't get fooled by the idea they live in a rock pool and can handle sudden changes. These are short term changes, long term temp/salinity that is wrong is harder on them.

? Looks like the same tank to me.

What!!! I thought you'd be out ferreting away trying to find one. Save me the work!

Well, what to say? I don't think your one's a patch on it Feelers, although it's certainly an excellent tank. Anyhow, taste in art is an ephemiral thing, everybody has their own taste so can't judge I guess. Be interested to see what Layton comes up with.