wasp

No but i'm sure somebody will. It really was big you could easily put your head in its mouth, maybe a shoulder too! Did see some of them on a TV doco a few years ago there was a few of them lived in some spot that was visited regularly by divers and were very docile & quite an attraction. Each was named and loved by the regular divers at this place. But it was a few years ago I don't remember what they were now.

Well back now, there has already been some Melbourne aquarium pics in some other threads so here is just 3. They have a room with some stunning jellyfish tanks that have to be seen in real life to be believed, a lovely H Magnifica anemone ( I think ), and some kind of huge fish that just lazily swam around. The aquarium had some huge tanks and the effect of them was stunning. A disapointment was the fake sps corals in the marine tanks, although I can see how providing the requirements to have real ones in such huge tanks would have probably just cost too much. Some nice softies though.

Wow! These quiet guys can be full of surprises!!

I've had the odd one & they seem to last a long time, I've ended up removing them after several months have not had one die. Just bear in mind if one did die it would be quite a bit of pollution.

Some very good advice given above. Do you already have this tank? If not, do consider getting a different one wider than 300. You will majorly regret such a narrow tank once you get into corals, it will be difficult. Feelers is likely correct you may be using a fairly old book. Undergravel filters were popular years ago but now are not used in marine, which is why we have better water quality now and even beginners can keep what used to be regarded as difficult corals. Best plan skip the undergravel filter, plus don't use a cannister for biological filtration. Just let the liverock do all the filtration. This will make better water quality plus save you money, which you will need to buy the absolute best skimmer you can!

How are they looking today?

Been in Aussie. Had to come back for work but my wife is still over there, once she gets back with the camera I'll put up some pics of the Melbourne aquarium. Tank looks much better for me having been away! :-?

Yes a 6 line I had a few years ago would clean some of the fish, both the 6 line & the fish seemed to enjoy it.

Good to see, looking better than when you got them from me too!

The lemonade may contain both sugar & preservatives, one will help bacteria, one hinder. All you can do is monitor water quality & ride this out. Maybe run some carbon although not sure if this will help. Once water is back to normal it's pretty likely the fish will shrug off the whitespot also.

Off on the boat?

They do skim wet, it is just a thing about the way they introduce the air. I once had an aqua c although a different model to yours, because it could be quite sensitive I had it connected to an overflow, and had a float switch in the overflow that would turn the skimmer off if it got too full. Rarely was needed but did happen occasionally. Hard to get anything better than tea colour from it, nothing wrong with that though long as you're geared up to maintain the tank salinity in some way. Your model does have an air adjustment so probably the bit you are talking about. Unlikely you will tune it to produce a consistent thick dark skimmate though, that's just not an aqua c. Interesting comment about your 2 skimmers complimenting each other, as they work in different ways this might be the case. Sounds like you have all the bases covered in terms of getting everything out of the water. What is the turnover rate for your sump water ( how many times an hour )?

No smiley for this but need one for wiping sweat of brow, hoping nobody coming round with gun. :lol:

The 2 main shops selling marines are Hollywood Fish Farm in Frost Rd, and Jansens in Mt Eden Rd. Mt Eden Rd is long, Jansens is down the end nearest to frost Rd. If you are going to the North Shore Hollywood Fish Farm have a shop there also, corner of Rosedale & Tawa Rds. There's also one or two guys who quite often sell frags out of their tanks but I'll leave it to them to contact you if they wish.

Actually you got a VERY good deal. All the corals, or at least the ones in the pics, are hardy ones & easy enough to move. Just bag with water as you would a fish, or put in plastic containers but if you do that make sure they are not going to get too bashed around during the move. The liverock needs to be kept alive, best way is to put in a plastic bin, without water, but cover with wet cloths or similar to ensure it does not dry out. The more origional water you can bring back the less shock to the corals, but you can make up the balance with either sea water or artificial water. Just if you use natural sea water, (NSW), it must be clean, ie, only collect it when conditions are good & it is crystal clear. You then need to dilute it by 10% with fresh water to bring salinity to around 1.025, the same as the reefs where the corals come from. There is a TON of other stuff to learn but you are starting with a nice set up and hardy corals, and I suspect you have been "lurking" in the salt section for a while, so welcome aboard!

Yes bit of a laugh I thought wow we just about said exactly the same thing. I was also thinking what Reef said, but didn't say it. :lol:

That is an offer you should not refuse Oliver! Nothing like the personal touch

The pic just is not good enough to say for sure, but there are 2 possibilities I can think of, one is that the frag is dead or mostly dead and has coraline algae giving it the purple colour, or the other possibility is that it is supposed to be purple and needed the extra light to achieve this. If there is any way you could post a better defined pic that would help.

It's actually simple enough. If a teaspoon will raise calcium in 100 litres by 18 mg/l, just use that for your calculations. IE if your tank is 300 litres & you want to raise calcium by 18 mg/l, you need 3 teaspoons. If your tank is 300 litres and you wish to raise it by 36 mg/l, use 6 teaspoons. Couple of things about slurry, watching the pH you obviously have sorted, what I see as a risk, and has happened to me, is if any solid particles go in and are ingested by any corals they can do harm, I have burned white dots onto corals like this. A sump might be the best place to do it & try to get it dissolved before it gets to the main tank. Dissolving the slurry in vinegar will help with pH issues. Also, kalkawasser dissolved in vinegar, can then be mixed in a jug of tank water instead of fresh water, so in this way you do not have the problem of adding a lot of fresh water to the tank.

Yes there are some cheap 2nd hand ones on trade me. If you go 2nd hand, check the K rating of the bulb, if the MH unit has not been used for a marine tank the bulb is probably wrong. You need a bulb rated 10,000k, or up as high as 20,000k. Many people go for a mid range of 14,000k. But for your tank even one 150 watt MH is quite a bit of light, if you only have fish just about any old light will do long as you like the look of it. If you get corals they need the correct type of light to perform photosynthesis, but as Warren said ordinary marine floros will keep many types of corals happy. Your tank is quite deep for the length though, so a 150 watt MH will give you the ability to keep high light needing corals near the top, and lower light needing ones at the bottom.

How much calcium in a teaspoon? Kalkawasser is around 55% calcium. To put it into practicle perspective, a teaspoon, or 3 grams, is as much as you can mix into 2 litres of RODI, to fully saturate it. Adding this to 100 litres tank water would raise calcium (in theory anyway), by 18 mg/l.

Thanks for the kind words! Just been reading the thread after a couple of computer free days just stunned at the great tanks! Would like to say a few words about each one but they are ALL good! I think little old NZ is really getting up there with some world class tanks. BTW Raeh1 that frag you sent me is really coming away nicely now .

Very nice! Seems like there is a lot af action in Hamilton if I can get the time I would like to spend a day there, do a tank crawl!

Very interesting. I presume that was a sample from the fish pictured?

This looks quite good evil I will be watching with interest! 150 watts MH is actually quite a lot of light for that tank, to avoid shocking your corals, you will need to put the light high above the tank, perhaps a meter or so, for the first few days. As you see the corals adapting to the light, you can slowly lower it each few days until you have it where you want it. The other biggy is nutrient export, that brown type stuff on your rocks is going to provide plenty of fuel for algae growth when you up the lighting. You'll need to work that skimmer at max!, also, dosing 1/3rd of a ml of vodka each day will help. Rowaphos will also help. Also, adding tap water will cause never ending problems, there is a DI unit for sale only 25 bucks on this thread, buying this will probably be the best 25 bucks you could spend on the tank http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/equipm ... 17456.html Looking forward to see the progress!!