wasp

Actually Penejane I can see where your partner is coming from. Anybody will of course be happy to see their partner start a hobby that they enjoy, but it is natural that a spouse is going to get concerned if they see the hobby is going to cost many thousands of dollars. When I started I told my wife the tank was going to cost $300.00. I wasn't lying, in my ignorance that's what I believed at the time. ( Funny now huh! ) I now believe a reasonable quality 4 foot tank can be set up for a bit over $2,000.00, ready to go, but without the livestock. That is based on what my current 4 footer actually cost. That is with a quality skimmer, but some shopping around and a few wholesale purchases are need to achieve that. Also, it has actually cost me a lot more than that due to trying to go cheap & buying a lot of equipment that is now in the back of a cupboard. Hence the importance of good advice and I commend you for making thorough enquiries before starting. So back to the relationship front, The best way to handle it is to have a budget plan so it is not all an unknown to the partner, all of us are uneasy with the unknown. The way I handle this issue is my wife is not happy with what I have spent on the tank. However, every now and then she wants to spend a large sum of money on something. I usually let her, but use these opportunities to point out that it has to cut both ways & I am allowed some things I want also. That way both partners can see it as working together so both can have the things they want.

Good going Tel. When I read your post in the other thread I thought it may be inevitable you will lose some fish, but looks like you've taken the plunge and are going to do this thoroughly! Keep us updated!

I should have added, if you are getting floros, you don't really need to worry about what specific k it is, they are generally classed as "marine white", or "marine blue", the blue also being refered to as actinic. Wether you get blue, white, or 50/50 is just personal choice. However remember that if you get either blue, or white, you can mix and match if the effect is not quite to your liking. Also, the white tubes put out a lot more light that is actually useful to the coral, the blue put out less but is pleasing to our eye. So predominantly white, with some blue, or not more than 1/2 blue, is the most common formula.

For marine, "white" is 10,000k, and "blue" is 14,000k, or more. Less than 10,000k is for fresh water.

Yet another sad story. There is only so much oil in the planet, and once most of it has been mined out, I guess some of these things will start to turn around. Don't know what's going to happen to human society though, some big changes. Only in the last year or so, we crossed a line never crossed before, where discoveries of new oil, was less than consumption. In other words supply of known oil is slowly getting less.

Is that a fresh water fish?

What Cookie said, they are harmless and in nearly all tanks. They can look a bit messy but is just another interesting life form. Sometimes I get annoyed with them putting web looking stuff all over one of my nice corals, but they never hurt anything.

Well next time I'm around Little Shoal Bay at low tide I'll be having a look.

If I was lucky enough to get one, it would get it's own little tank. A few years ago they had one at Hollywood Mt Roskill, it was brightly coloured and very cool. It looked all around with its eyes on stalks & I could see it watching me & taking an interest. I have read they are quite intelligent ( as far as shrimps go I presume :lol: )

Wow! Well that's definately a Mantis! I live on the Shore also, maybe we should meet up and go on a Grand Mantis Hunting Expedition! I doubt they are that common though, if they were I am sure we would have heard stories of people getting whacked by them. But I would sure like to go & have a look.

Just trying to see if it may have been a pistol shrimp, my daughter in law managed to find one recently at Campbells bay. But if it definately was a mantis I might go down there myself & check it out.

Did you pick it up with your fingers?

Just thought I'd post this for the information, a few days ago I fitted a baffle in the overflow using Siliflex RTV. I had to drain several inches of water, do the repair, and replace the water over the wet silicone, allowing it to cure under water. The next day I did a phosphate test and there was quite a jump in phosphate. The next day I tested again & back to normal. Not being a chemist I am not sure if there really was a jump in phosphate, or if some other chemical released by the silicone may have "fooled" the test and caused it to read higher.

What colour was it?

Penejane, before you purchase one at a lfs or whatever, pm Reef & Jetskisteve. Trust me on this!

Well said

Actually you could use the cannister for flow, just without any biological media in it. That way the liverock will be able to do the filtration, and do it properly. Powerheads will still be cheaper though.

My suggestion would be to have the minimal amount of sand you can, provided you do in fact use live rock for filtration. Just have enough to decorate the bottom, but no more. Why, because the sand can store waste and eventually add pollution to your tank. There are many different ideas on this, all of them workable, including the use of very deep sand beds to do the filtration. But in your case, less sand would be best ( IMO ). Don't follow your logic on having to have a cannister due to lack of power points. If you can plug in a cannister, you could plug in a powerhead instead right? this will - 1. save you money, 2. do a better job. Protein skimmers, this is the sticking point for most newbies, because they are expensive. You can get a simple air driven one for as little as $50.00, but they are not that effective. As you move up in price, they get better and better. Now the reason this is important - that crud that the skimmer removes, had it stayed in your tank, will be fertilizer for algae, and also have a negative effect on your corals. A good skimmer can make the difference between a crisp, clean, healthy looking reef, and a crappy one. If budget is tight, then a $50.00 one is better then none at all, however you should get the best you can, they will last you a lifetime. To get more info on skimmers you can pm the two importers, Reef, and Jetskisteve. BTW, airstone driven is the oldest technology, then venturri, and now needlewheel which are hard to beat. Some experienced reefers swaer by their old airstone driven skimmers, but that is because they have the knowledge to keep them tuned and running right. Most needlewheel ones are plug and play, hard to go wrong.

What Cracker said. Both wet/dry, or cannister filters, are absolutely NOT the right choice for biological filtration in a reef tank. This issue keeps cropping up because people think you can run a reef tank the same as a fresh water tank. In a reef tank you have to keep nitrates down to low levels, and wet/dry, and cannister filters, will not do this because nitrate reduction requires anearobic bacteria, which cannot function in the aerated environement of a wet/dry, or cannister. In fact, the filtration is very simple in a marine tank, it is done by the use of coral rock, which is porous, and these pores get full of bacteria, at which point it is referred to as "live rock". These bacteria do the filtration, including the needed nitrate reduction, which cannot be done in a wet/dry, or cannister. The basics you need in your 75 litre tank are 7 kilos or so of coral rock, a skimmer, and pumps / powerheads that will do at least 750 litres per hour of flow, double or triple that is better. You simply positon the pumps so they are blowing the water around and about in the tank, and thereby creating the flow that many of our marine organisms require. Lighting, are you suggesting around 40 watts? That will be enough, but only for the very low light corals. Mushrooms will be fine, some polyps, and certain lps if you locate them properly. You could keep a whole lot more coral types if you doubled that amount of light. The $600 or so suggested for a cannister can certainly get you a more than ample protein skimmer for this tank. You CAN go without a skimmer, but it is extremely likely unless the tank is extremely lightly stocked, that within a few months you will start getting problem algae, the corals will do poorly, and you will not enjoy your reef.

I have done it, does work. Safe with LR provided you change parameters slowly. Not safe with corals / inverts. Much easier on fish than copper in my opinion. The big problem is making sure the salinity does not sneak up, even for a short time, harder than you think, you have to measure it exactly. http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevo ... inity.html

I guess a person would not actually have to be a fool to pay that kind of money, if they were in an income bracket where it did not matter. But I've seen quite a lot of unusual / rare pieces get sold in the US for that sort of money, and I wonder how many of them are still alive in 6 months, and also I've seen the price of things come down hugely as they get more common. Layton was right they do normally get snapped up quickly, there must be a lot of wealthy people prepared to pay whatever it will take to get the best for their tank, and therefore the vendor, knowing what it could go for, will obviously charge what he can. Wonder what the person who collected it got? A dollar or two?

A fool & his money are easily parted

http://www.reefermadness.us/RMD05090001.htm

Are they some of the $40.00 ones from that other tank? Can you do a better shot of that bottom one?

There is no point telling me that I do not understand, and that I have not picked up Mesocosms supposed error. I am not a scientist nor do I claim to be. If you feel Mesocosm has got it all wrong, it would be best to talk to him, he is vastly more qualified than you or I.