wasp

I paid them my fee, then got banned not long afterwards & they kept the change. Not hugely impressed. So then I used the crippled search was a bit of a hassle, but lately its been working every time. BTW Layton when I was there I found this guy http://reefcentral.com/forums/member.ph ... did=697472 Friend of yours? Oh and Layton thanks for that google search thing, I didn't know about that either.

We need some photos to proove it :lol: and girls can be easier when they are little, but the going gets tougher once they hit 13. But both are heaps of fun. Mine are all grown now, only one still at home, but I can say parenting is actually a lot easier than a lot of people say. Just have to chill and have fun, don't take any crap kids need to know whose boss, but less discipline rather than more.

I've cured several batches of rock in a rock pool at our local beach. Comes out nice & clean and smelling sweet. One batch I left there 4 months as I had no place for it, so when I finally got it it had a nice smattering of coraline algae.

Amazing how many guys are sitting up watching their computers this time of night! :lol:

Trouble is, an octopus makes a heckuva mess. Need a major nutrient removal system in place if this is the means to keep the tank clean. Only other alternative would be keep the tank dimly lit, or major regular cleaning of the glass and forget about the algae on the rocks.

That's kind of what I was thinking :lol:

Yes cement is made from lime. 2 1/2 months ago I bought 3 x 40 kg bags of portland cement from Stevensons, they were $13.11 + GST per bag. Phosphate will matter if you want to keep your tank free of algae.

Thing that impressed me was the way he's got his wife trained! Somewhere I must have lost my way :-?

Thanks Jeroen, useful first post! I searched it and found it, pasted to my desktop and played to some people a couple of times, but now if I try to play it it freezes the computer Oh well, guess I'm just not technical enough.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3418

That's great Feelers! That octopus ones good! Shows how much our own attitudes have changed since then also. Anybody know how to download those files & keep them?

For what you are thinking of Pies it would be a simple enough thing to have a HOB skimmer, plus run rowa and carbon in a cannister. At present my main tank around 280 litres total has a Deltec HOB which is doing a fine job, and my 1000 odd litre frag system has a Via Aqua turbo 1000 HOB ( a needlewheel skimmer ) also doing a fine job. The frag system is lightly stocked though, only 4 fish in it. I'm going to wait 6 months before doing my new tank so that there will be plenty of time to think it all through, but the reason for going sumpless is that when I was thinking about the design of the overflow, I realised that the only thing I have in my current sump is the zeovit reactor, and an overflow box could be designed that would accomodate a zeovit reactor in the overflow box. Then with an HOB skimmer no need for a sump. My current tank is pretty ugly with a mess of (as you said), wires tubes and equipment, so the next ones going to be designed carefully. The main thing will be concealing the HOB skimmer, so there will be a hood, or similar, to do that. I'm thinking that no sump will save some electricity, plus some space. Can probably get away with it as it will still be a smallish tank.

For my next tank, around 500 litres, I'm going sumpless, I believe the technology now available can allow this. I'm currently using both types of needlewheel HOB skimmers, and as far as I can tell, they are both excellent.

First I knew there was such a thing. Sounds a good idea, Fay if you get more replies than you need, please forward them to me. Cheers! Actually, with an angle grinder it probably would be fairly easy to DIY one of these, I think I'll go to it!

If it's brown and / or hairy, remove it. If it's pale creamy colour with a straight black line going from one eye to the other, keep it. If it's pretty red and or blue colours, could be safe, or could be a coral mucher, safe option remove it. Crabs have to eat something, and only a small number of them are reef "safe". General rule of thumb, if in doubt, remove.

I'm wanting to set this up, just wondering the best way to do it. I'm hoping to achieve a level that never varies.

Yikes! Who did he mess me up with?

Mangroves are an idea that came and went mainly in the US, a few years ago. If you had truckloads of them it would work, but in general they are not effective due to the slow growth rate. Good as a protein skimmer? Sorry - he's dreaming. Nonetheless, mangroves can make an interesting addition to a tank.

:lol: That's funny! Jimmy, basically making your own food is cheap, and easy as, plus good for the fish. You just get live mussels, which are fine on their own, but if you wish you can add shrimp, crab, roe, pipi, etc, plus nori. Get all the ingredients fresh, not processed in any way as chemicals may be added. Some people don't cook them, but I find it easier to cook the mussels lightly, then either blend, or freeze and grate on a cheese grater. If you blend in a blender, wash the food in water and pour off or seive to remove fine stuff to small for the fish to eat, that will only add pollution to the tank (can make good coral food in small amounts though). Keep in the deep freeze and serve daily. Your fish will thrive on this.

Colouring nicely!

As you have correctly surmised, it's one of the joys of being married :-?

Thanks for dropping around Craig. ( For those who don't know Craig was a builder, now he's a tree chopper man! ) Anyhow looks like I can proceed, I'm still just mulling over what I want as Craig tells me I have to put it in a slightly different place than where I had wanted to, so be a little while yet.

This may sound dumb, but could he have been constipated? Reason I say that, about maybe 6 months ago my sailfin tang started acting the same how you describe. Was doing it for several days and getting worse, thought he was soon to die. Also noticed he had a bulging stomach, more so than normal. It was so bad he was crashing into rocks etc and getting cut. Then, I actually saw it happen, as he was charging around, suddenly he did HUGE poos, I mean HEAPS of it. Not the normal looking stuff either. And from that very moment he was back to his normal self. MUST have been constipated. I realised I had been feeding him almost exclusively flake for quite a while, perhaps not enough roughage for a tang, I'm not sure. However I've fed a lot of nori ever since that time.

Thanks all, and very interesting info Craig. And Cookie, I remember your incident. Just one other thing I think I gave the impression it was my main tank, it was actually in a frag tank so I've still got most of my fish. Wondered about that can't rule out something wrong with the water, but I think the cowfish is the most likely explanation.