wasp

Your tank is plenty big for a first marine tank. The requirements would be some liverock, perhaps 15 or 20 kg's, a good quality skimmer, a few powerheads or similar to create water movement, and if you want anemones, the correct lighting. This will allow you to keep clownfish, plus several other fish. Did you read that beginner guide?

Is it a 4 foot tank? If so nearly all the commonly kept reef fish will be OK with him. Hate to tell you this the only fish that bothered my cowfish was the puffer, it use to sneak up then bite his fin. But yours are a different puffer so you may be OK. Got a camera?

8 foot is more than enough you can go considerably smaller than that. In theory a seahorse and fish can mix, but in practise it is near impossible. The main problem is that when fish are fed, they go for it, fast as they can. Whereas seahorses are leisurely browsers who take their time. Try feeding a seahorse while fish are around the seahorse will be lucky to even get one bite. As you are thinking, the best plan is to research the species you want to keep, be it seahorse, or fish, and then set up a tank that meets the requirements for that species. Tangs, manderin, and clownfish can all live together in the same tank. What kind of aquarium do you have at the moment?

The strawberry idea has merit. Put yourself in the fishes position. You spend all day milling around a glass enclosure, surrounded by strawberries. Once a day your owner comes along and gives you chocolate. But, every now and then, you are going to eat some strawberries. :lol:

They grow slow as. Mine never got more than about 10 cm and I had it for several years. Perhaps it would have only got bigger if the tank was bigger, not sure.

They are all available, but first there is much to know. Check out the basic startup guide which is a sticky near the top of the saltwater section, it will run you through some basics.

Yes wait it out, try to keep temp at or below 25 which slows the WS lifecycle down. Do you have a UV this can help. A hippo tang may take several months to build enough immunity to keep WS to undetectable levels, in the mean time just keep him happy, like you are, and there will almost certainly be a good outcome. Fmxmatt has just been through a similar thing.

Oh you mean fish in the same tank with the mud? No, won't work. The mud is easily stirred up, with fish in there it would be a mess.

Hi DantezGirl, a sump is a secondary smaller tank connected to the main tank, to put equipment in such as skimmer and so forth so as not to clutter up the main tank. A refugium is also a secondary tank connected to the main tank, which is a "refuge" for life forms such as macroalgae and copepods, that can breed in there without being under attack from fish. On the manderin thing, the advice above is right on. Just in simple terms, when you transfer rocks into your tank from another tank, there will probably be on the rocks some tiny little bugs called copepods ( often refered to as pods). They are small little crud eating critters, usually smaller than an ant, which run around in the tank. Once there is enough of them to keep a manderin fed you can have a manderin. As previously said though, in a new tank you probably will have to wait quite a while till there is enough of them to keep a manderin fed.

You mean with no rock? Don't think anyone in NZ has, but no reason for it not to work provided there is enough caulerpa to deal effectively with the nutrients.

Your tank looks fairly new, less than a year old? It can take quite a while for nitrate reduction to really kick in, if it's less than 12 months old I wouldn't panic about nitrates yet. One thing though, if you are running an external cannister for biological filtration, this will be a large contributer, highly recommend to disconnect it. Very pretty tank BTW!

Well that's interesting Zhacque, Please post the odd update on the forum about that. I would like a nice semiconductor chiller if it was affordable.

Cool, you will love it. You MUST post some pics when you get it. Favourite food for it - get a live mussel and shell it. Chop very fine or freeze and grate with a coarse cheese grater. Serve. Your cowfish will love you. Freeze what's left, one mussel will feed it for at least several weeks. In the wild they poke around where little crustaceans live, and their mouth is adapted to blow puffs of water, to blow detritus and sand away and expose the worms / crustaceans etc. So mussel and other shellfish is perfect food although they will readily eat flake etc.

Yeah, And invite that neighbour you hate for a pool party! :lol:

I had a long horned cowfish for several years, in a 3 foot tank. It was really the best fish I ever had, i think they are very intelligent. It was very aware of what was going on in the room and would study any new people carefully. If there was a few of us by the tank it would always be right next to me. Most cowfish eat from the water but this one would only eat if I hand fed it. If he was getting hungry he would spit water out of the tank. Large numbers of neighbourhood kids had turned up and knocked on the door just to ask if they could have a look at it. The big negative is they eat coral, mine was in a FO. They don't like too much flow either. And the biggy is to not let them eat from the water surface. They can gulp air and this wreaks havoc with them.

Yes, but collecting straight off a beach would be difficult to get really clean water. Rocks, wharf, or boat ramp would be best. Basically I don't collect water unless it is near enough crystal clear, when conditions are right I collect enough to last me several months so I won't be pressured to collect when conditions are less than ideal. You need an off shore wind so the sea is flat and muck is not being stirred up, and collect shortly before high tide. If there is a river or some kind of run off close by you would not collect after a whole lot of rain to avoid any possible undesireable contamination. NZ seawater is more concentrated than where most of our fish and corals come from, so you dilute it with 10% fresh water. Having said all that using artificial salt mix can be a perfectly fine option, some of us just use seawater if it is easy to collect, plus of course it is cheaper if we don't have to do many miles to collect it. I drive past Takapuna boat ramp every day. But for some people making an artificial mix will be the best option. There are some people who dig their toes in and say either artificial, or natural, is the only way to go, my own private opinion is both options can work well, there are pitfalls with both, long as you understand and manage those pitfalls, just go whatever suits you best.

I suspect you don't know how much a pre-made one costs! Here is a link to a whole bunch of them, I suspect you will have to import. http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_searchIte ... w&parsed=1

Thanks for the snails Speed, and your tank is a stunner, very impressed!

Cheers Speed! You know I tried when you were in Aussie, but couldn't give that one away! I'll be in touch today about a visit .

Here's a couple shots taken at various times of some of my own more sensitive coral types, growing in water from Takapuna boat ramp. You can see how sick they are, suffering from all that sewerage, I guess! And, if there is ever a REAL problem, a little vodka can do wonders! :lol:

Well FINALLY we have had several days of steady SouthWest winds, and happy to report that the water at Takapuna boat ramp is good quality at the moment (Sunday night). It is the best it has been, that i have seen, since October last year. Should remain good for at least another day or so, remember to collect just before high tide.

Either or. You say it closes up into "two fist size balls", perhaps since it is your first go at fragging just chop one of them, see how it works out, and this will get your confidence up. But sooner or later you will have to do something, if left these things get HUGE.

Different video than I saw before but I managed to find this. Not for the faint hearted! http://crackle.com/c/Extreme/Fish_Dick/1469083

Very practicle, it would be something like a planted fresh water tank. The potential disadvantage I would see would be a large swing in pH from day to night due to the abundant photosynthesis during daylight, then plenty of Co2 production at night. However i've seen photos of some pretty awesome algae packed fuges overseas, with a miriad of life forms living among the greenery. The main time to watch all the critters is at night with a torch. The sign you have a really awesome ecosystem up and running in the fuge is when you are watching it with a torch in the late hours of the night, then you are suddenly disturbed by an angry wife yelling at you wanting to know why you have spent "hours" staring at the tank at night with a torch! :lol: (Yes, personal experience! Time can slip away! :lol: )