suphew

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't his stuff a ferterliser? Most algae's are there because of too many or an imbalance of nutients in the water, why would you add more?? IMHO you need to find out why you are getting the algae before randomly adding stuff to your water. You might clear the algae for a short time but it will just come back, in the mean time you'll clog you filters with dead algae and cause yourself more problems. IMHO the best (only) way to combat algae is to get the plants to use the nutients so the algae starves. To this end you have to have the correct balance of light, nutients, CO2. On a four foot planted tank I run 4X4' fluor's (of the correct type). Looking at the colour and "brightness" of the plants can be a good way of knowing if you have enough. Take a good look at your plants, look for small holes in the leaves, brown edges, things that doesn't look healthy, there are charts on the web that will tell you what nutients you are missing. CO2's is a bit harder, but it is possible to DIY with yeast, CO2 is the closest thing to plant magic!

Well the good news is the algae blenny seems fine (tho how long it lasts..). The bad news is my dottyback also jumped and was very dry! I'm blaming the tomato clown for chasing them but maybe the cats found a new game. Anyway the tops are back on now, just have to figure out how to keep it cool now.

Put an Algae blenny into my tank on Saturday, got a call from my cleaner this morning to tell me there was a fish on the floor next to my french doors and that she had put it into a glass of water. So best I can figure, the fish jumped, the cat has picked it up taking it into another room, the cleaner has found it and put it into a glass of cold tap water! She went back to her own house cause she didn't want to call my cell phone from my home phone, I then had to convince her to put it in the marine tank instead of the fresh ("cause it's not very colorful and looks a little like the other fish"), it's now back in its tank. Was still swimming last time the cleaner looked!! I'm expecting a death by the time I get home tonight, if it lives I think it should get some sort of award!

I used to have one, they eat just about any sort of meat, just leave it in the tank with it, just make sure you remove any uneaten food before it rots and fouls the water. I found it takes a while for them to take to dried food. If it has been in the wild for a while you could try an earth worm or two, it might be used to moving food. MIne was never injured so sorry can't help there.

Yeah I'll be there, but will have the youngster with me so wont be able to stay long

If you looking for a cheap but good filter why not build your own? I meet a guy in J'vill who had a great one he was using on his discus breeding tanks. Really simple, just used a tray (some thing like PVC guttering is good) drill holes in the bottom of it (or just let the water drain out the ends) fill it with filter wool and a cheap power head to pump water up to a spray bar over the wool. Hang it above the waterline, and you have a excellent wet dry filter. Should only cost $20-$30. The only down sides is they are ugly, noisy, and you have to have your water line lower to fit them in, could proberly solve these with a bit of carefull design.

I was thinking maybe to add to the side of the pump to increase the power???? pies?

Pies, there's an outfit in Wellies that sells rare earth magnets, one of my mates picked some up just to play with they were only a couple of buck each. I'm trying to get the name/address of him now. Is there anything special about the ones you need?? If its just any old rare earth magnet you need try ripping one out of a hard drive, they are great fun and very powerful.

Are you still looking for a thermometer? There's a guy on trademe that sells them. I got one from him, it came pretty quick with no hassles buit was just a cheapy. If you just want one to set your temp controller I have one you can borrow. http://www.trademe.co.nz/Lifestyle/Pets ... 699029.htm

Hi Pies, Was talking to a mate today about lifting your lights and he suggested using car electric window motor (s), they are geared down and lowish power requirements. You would just need to get a drum to wind the cable on. If you want I'll swap your mushie rock for one with nothing much on it, might save me some chopping and glueing!

Sorry guys the lenth of hose does make a big difference, if for no other reason that the longer the hose the more algae etc you have growing in it slowing down the water. Sugest that if you have had a filter running for a while you run a cleaner (bottle brush thingie) thu the hoses and see how much gunk comes out and how much better they work! And thats with out taking into account the resistance of the hose and bends etc. But Jude there are so many things that affect your filters performance there is no way of knowing if you have enough without setting it up and running it for a while. Let I said before set it up and see how you go, just allow space to upgrade later.

I've used Melafix for years, magic stuff. Never tried the other stuff so don't know if its better or worse. I never use any other med's accept for an outbreak of whitespot 6 months ago with a new fish, just wanted to treat it quick and sure before it spead.

FYI Animates have 204's for $149 at the mo. HOwever I have found in the past the Hutt pet shop normal filter price is cheaper than animates sale price! Regarding the flow, I have 2 X 204 running in a 4 foot approx 200L tank, inlet's at one end outlets at the other, and can't really even see the water flow.

Beware that the rated tank size can be misleading, as I understand it it's calculated based on turning over 2-3 times the tank volume per hour, the problem arises because the flow rate ie liters per hour (LPH) of the pump is stated with no head, no fittings, no crap in the sponge(!) etc etc. Putting the filter a couple of feet below the tank (as most of us do) and pushing the water around bends, taps, and outlets etc will easily half the actual LPH. Therefore a pump rated for 200L may only be good for 100L. Of course you have to take into account bioload, and other filters (plants, etc). My suggestion would be to go with what you have BUT allow for extra filters so you can easily add them later, ie allow extra power plugs, holes, space etc. To answer question re hoses, as soon as you attach a hose efficiency is lost, the questions how much can you lose before needing more filters (see above). three things affect the efficiency, 1)frictional lose in the hoses (smooth rigid best, flexible ribed worse), 2) Number of fittings (bends, taps, joins etc) put in as few as posible. 3) Water head, this is the biggie for example a quality ehiem 1250 pump will deliver 317gallon per hour at no head ie straight out of the pump, pumping up 5 feet will only deliver 140GPH! and this doesn't include loses from 1 and 2. So put your filter as close to the tank hight as practical, make the hoses as short as possible, and use as few extra fittings as you can. Then you can only try it out, test the water and see.

I have plenty will PM me contact details.

Sorry Pies dont know the name of the pump place. There's a sign on old hutt road by the lights. But turn left at the lights then stay left, its in the second or third building on your left. Price for iwaki 40 was $875 ish, dont think this was the RT (?) model. Worth having a look on your way past they have some big sexy pumps! Down boy!

Called into the industral pump shop at the bottom of Ngauranga gorge yesterday, they have hansen fittings (might save you some travel time) and can also order in PVC 'Y' connectors (same stuff as your closed loop pipe work). I guess you already know this place is there, but just letting you know incase you have missed it. They can also order in Iwaki and ehiem pumps but I'm guessing it would still be cheaper to buy via the net. Regarding the Y verse T, it would be interesting to know the restriction difference, I'm guessing it would be about half. But if the friction of a T is not much to begin with then half of not much is still not much. Also I'm guessing that if you use taps to balance the flow this would negate any friction gains you made, surely a half closed tap is going to do really bad things to your friction?

FYI bunning's in Wlg are selling pleated carts, seem cheap to me but I don't know what wholesale prices are like. 4 foot tank with 2 x 204's, but the best filter........ tons of plants! Also got 3 HOB unused, + some internal (can't remeber how many 2-3?) unused.

Still have a sore head from reading that link yesterday! Still seems strange to me that going from a larger pipe to a smaller pipe "sudden contaction" adds similar or less friction than a simple elbow. Hanging my head in shame now, but I put the blame squarely on the NZ educational system.

Haha surviver night aye!! Ben will be at my place from 5ish, I'll be home at 6ish, we normaly pack up around 9-9:30, just let me know, txt or ring on tuesday if you like. I hope you succeed getting the math sorted, I would be nice to have all the foruma's and rules posted so we can all work it out with out having to remember physic's lessions from 15 odd years ago!!

Yeah, I sort of agree regarding cheap starting, the difficultly is knowing where to draw the line between making a cheap start and spending money on things that end up being upgraded in six months anyway. I have a number of small tanks, air pumps, UGF plates, hang on filters etc etc, that are now just a waste of money because my interest in the hobby out grew them. But I guess there are plenty of people (you can see most of them on trademe!) who invested huge money in big tanks and good gear before realizing they didn't like fish keeping.

Pie's my mate is going to be at my place on Tuesday if you want to come round and have a chat to him. If you have the time I think it would be well worth the effort esp as going from 1x25mm to 2x20mm adds a whole ton (or is that tonne!!) of extra factors!! Just a few of other things for every one, 1) when thinking about pipe "size" going from say 20mm to 40mm is double the diameter BUT many times the area (volume) so to put twice the amount of water through a pipe doesn't mean going to twice the size pipe, far from it in fact. 2) don't confuse head of water (which is constant no matter the volume) with weight of water (increases with volume). 3) friction is really hard to get your head around and isnt as simple as bigger pipe = less friction, the friction between two surface's is constant when going to a bigger pipe you are increasing the surface area of the inside of the pipe therefore the friction increases! But if your pump can do it you are also increasing the volume of water in the pipe so the ratio of water to (friction causing) surface area increases (or is that decreases??) giving less friction, hmmmmmm confused, I am! After all these years I finally found a use for all the physics study! Craig

Be interested to know how deep your gravel was? I have run tanks with UGF and 6-7cm gravel and only been able to grow easy plants like vals and indian ferns. The problems with UGF and toxic tank is pretty well documented on the net, and there are lots of varibles that would change length of time before or even if the problem occures, the yearly clean is just a general rule of thumb, I'm sure that in the past when canister filters weren't commonly used many people ran systems for years (and still do) with no problems but the risk increases as more time passes.

I'm no expert either but the guy I talked to is, he's certified high pressure boiler engineer, certified mad to. As I understand it you are correct going smaller to larger does reduce fiction/increase flow, BUT at some stage you have to go back down smaller again, this is where the problem is, it takes so much energy to put the water back into the smaller hole that you lose all that you have gained, esp once you add in turbulance etc that is created. Another point to remember is that the fiction of straight hose is pretty low, making the water fight gravity and go around bends has a far greater affect.

Nice idea but liquids don’t compress therefore where you add friction in relation to the hight of head makes no difference. It’s a bit confusing and very hard to explain! But the amount of water your getting out is the sum of speed x volume. The water going in is the same sum of speed x volume (it has to be because you can’t get more or less out than you put in) therefore at any point in the system you have the same sum of speed x volume. To make this simpler to understand if the pipe size was the same at every point (ie constant volume) the speed of the water in it must be the same at every point therefore is doesn’t matter where you add the friction!