suphew

I've been planning to have a go posting some pic's of my tank so will get into gear and have a go. I was lucky I had a brass attchment, basically screws onto the bottle has a rubber seal, and a little pointy bit in the middle to push the valve in, thread in the other end to atach the co2 regulator to. Can you pull you sodastream apart? There should be a similar thing in there. By the way BE CAREFULL the bottles are high pressure think about 700psi. I took one off my bottle once while it was still full and it blow the seal right out, and I crapped myself!

I have one of those surface water collector things and IMO they are crap, Ive been using it for about a year, the plastic fitting that connects the hose to the collector thing has spilt and comes lose, the bit that sticks out to connect to the ruber suckers is broken, and the floating skimmer part stays above water for two days if im lucky before getting sucked under. Why are you going to use the fluval? biofilter = high nitrate = bad news. The reason you're putting in live rock is to get the nitrate as low as possible. At the risk of of getting abused by other members for daring to suggest some thing other than a $1000+ skimmer, you can buy Lees air driven skimmers from the guy in kapiti for less than $100. Yes they are cheap and therefore nasty and would probally only just do the job and limit your bioload, but you can also ways add a better one later (when you win lotto). FYI I'm running a setup almost the same as what your planning to do 3 foot, 100 liter, no sump, been going since July, already planning the upgrade.

More plants more cover, + less NO3 etc in the water. But not directly no. If fact I have heard rumours of people killing fish by running too much co2, I think the way it works is in warmer tanks (like discus) where there is lower o2 anyway, plant go hard out during the day and produce lots of o2, then when the lights go out they stop and start putting out heaps of co2, this plus the high levels of co2 being put in suffocates the fish. Might be crap, and I wouldn't lose sleep over it happening but.... Also co2 alters the PH level because it creates carbonic acid, better co2 systems use this to measure how much co2 is in the system and autoshut off at night when the level goes up (i.e. plants stop using it and generate their own) My co2 DIY tips----- 1) I got sick of making up yeast etc mixtures so got a sodastream bottle, co2 valve, needle valve, and made my own. It was a bit tricky to setup without PH shutoff etc but worked fine, got about 2 months from a bottle (except for the time i knocked the valve too far open and turned the tank into a giant tonic soda (joking!)). 2) if you have a filter or powerhead that has an air intake thing, feed your co2 in here it defuses into the water far better, just watch out if you are using yeast method because the pump will suck on the co2 generator and could suck in yeast mix.

Does the packet tell you whats in them? Likely be the same stuff as recommended above.

Used to use ground up dog worming tablets mixed in with their frozen food to treat my discus (on advise from many forums). Did it every time a new fish went into the system and never had any problems. Not sure if it would work as well in marine but can't see why not.

My Tomato clown has taken a shine to one of my pulsing Xenia's!?

Yes you can get it here, most (?) people use it, cost depends on where and how much you buy, LFS $30+ for a little jar but has nice lable, instructions etc. If you can find someone who is bulk buying it that will sell you some from memory $15/kg (1kg is heaps). Or find a chemical supplier and ask for calcium hydroxide (sp?) (? please correct me if I have the name wrong (and any other info in this post)). NB: you buy it as a power. As to what it does, hopefully someone will explain it all cause I would like to know as well, but it all has to do with balancing/increasing the calcium/PH/alkalinity. To use it you add some of the powder to your top up water give it a good shake let it settle (you'll see the white stuff settle on the bottom of you bottle) and drip it in overnight. Done over night because it increases your PH, which naturally drops overnight when the lights go off.

Cant you just use a brace or two? Sounds a little bit like your spending lots of money to save a little bit of money, esp when you consider that the tank is usually one of the cheapest parts of the setup cost. For example look at your filters 5 x $10(?) air filter + BIG/reliable/quite air pump $50 (?) = $100 = very good second hand canister filter

From what I have seen it is the bigger LFS that are the problem, the number of times I have seen people walk out of Animates in Wlg with a plastic tank not much bigger than a coke bottle and a bag full of fish, you just know they are going to die and the pet shop is going to blame them for not looking after the fish right. They even advertise "complete setups" with fish included.

I guess there's a good reason but why not use deviders instead glass partitions? Would make the tank cheaper, one heater, one filter, deviders can be moved/removed etcetc

What about going to NZ car parts (or similar) and seeing if you can get a old electric arial and window motor. I have heavy duty 12v battery charger we could use to have a bit of a play and see what works. The arial might be a good bet if it has enough grunt, I have seen one with the top ripped off and they use a drum with wire on it to drive the arial up and down. Let me know when your ready I should have the tools etc we'll need to modify it.

Just a 3 foot ex-freshwater, upgrade is on its way same length but alot deeper/wider and approx 3 times the water. I can't really go any longer because I don't have the clear wall space.

Just added another fluro fitting to my tank, so now have 3 x 3 foot T8's, questions is am I better to run 2 x 10000k + 1 arctinic blue, which give a good brite light but corals look washed out and crap, or 2 x blues + 1 10000k, which looks really cool but doesnt look that brite? Of course if anyone has a arcadia light unit or two the want to sell me cheap this would solve the problem, the one I just added came from trademe, new for $25!

Water bed heating pads... seen them under water beds of course!! Do you know why they wouldn't be any good? They are designed to have a couple of tons of water in a leaky plastic bag on top of them, thats got to be safer than (maybe dodgy) DIY + 240v + water.

Want about a water bed heating pad? Should be able to get them cheap from people getting rid of old beds. The pads I have seen were about the size of 4 foot tank.

There's no way to guess for sure. Why not just test the water, if it seems okay just put in a couple of fish then test again after a couple of days? If you don't have test kit most LFS will test your water for free or at a low cost.

I got an old water chiller from work the other day (big white thing with blue water bottle that sits on top). I was thinking about DIYing a chiller using this by running a few loops of hose through the 'bucket' where the bottom of the bottle nomally sits maybe putting water or oil in it to transferr the heat (cold!). Has anyone tried this? Joeblog, I'm also in the market for a temp controller can you PM me if you track one one??

If I was you I would be looking at my lights and stepping up the water changes. Brown is often caused by lack of good light, green 'algae' is often too much light (i.e. tank getting direct sun light) but there is another thing call cryno bacteria (sp) that looks just like algae but doesnt need the strong light, it grows in thick 'mats' over rocks plants etc, it not really possible to get rid of (every one has it, just can't see it) it but improving your water quality should control it. There is a rule of thumb for light which is something like 2-3 watts per liter (can't remember numbers for sure so look it up on the net), plus the tubes fade over time (you can't see it but the plants can) so should be replaced every 6-12 months. You could also look into getting some tubes from a hydroponics shop, they sell proper plant grow tubes cheaper than a pet shop. I agree about never using chemical treatments, they will only treat the simptoms you need to findthe cure.

I think clown loaches eat snails, this might be a good thing or bad depending!

I think rockpool hermits and shrimps survive 'better' if you acclimatise them really slowly (like over a day), temps (think about how hot the rockpools get over summer) not so important, its the other stuff that gets them, try leaving them in the bucket that you collected them in and drip in tank water slowly so that it takes a day to fill, then adjust the temp over 30 minutes or so before dumping them in. You will still lose some (most) and from what I've heard about 12 months is the max they survive anyway. I have a couple of shrimps and hermits that have been going for around 6 months, the hermits are great to watch climbing (and falling) off rocks, but don't forget to collect some larger shells for them to move into once they get fat eating all the crap out of you tank.

Hay warren, just an idea. Get yourself a really low test tone, put a sub next to your tank and crank it up. Save you $ on a wave maker!! :lol:

Canon are doing some pretty good cheap printer at the moment, seperate ink for each color so you replace just the cart that has run out and only $15 odd for each. I support/buy a few at work (15-20 odd) used to only buy HP cause they were the type of lasers I got but now there doesn't seem to be much difference between the brands. Don't forget to consider the speed of the printer since inkjets tend to be really slow (if it matters) and also the noise, they make a lot which is a pain if you computer is in your living area. You can also get some good printers that scan, and photocopy as well.

Yeah was pretty down this morning, and feeling poor! It's an old fresh water tank and only has a lip along the back I have to run the water level quite high to otherwise the rock is out of the water. Yeah really looking forward to getting the new tank now, funny I couldn't really see the big difference between fresh and marine tank designs when I started out!! How things change!

Tank looks great to me! How long has it been setup? If it's been going for less than 6 months I wouldn't worry about the algae it can take a long time for a tank to find its balance, plus you will alway have some just a fact of life. Do you have good filters running? I run 2x204's on my 4 foot, took one off for a few months and noticed the algae increased so put it back on, within a week all good again.

Blenny was dead this morning, not surprised, more surprised it lasted as long at it did. Thanks for the suggestions, I already have a computer fan (actually a 240v fan from a mainframe printer) running, I have moved it so its blowing over the top of the tank and lights, I'll see how that goes.