suphew

Pies, I was talking a flow engineer mate last night about your return plumbing, he's suggested that your plan of plumbing the return to one end will cause you more problems than it’s worth. This because you would get uneven pressure at the outlets, the first outlet getting higher pressure (the water to the second has to travel through more pipe/turns and therefore higher friction). He suggests using a ‘Y’ junction instead of a ‘T’ and using ‘wide radius elbows’ which have around half the friction of normal elbows. I also discussed using a larger diameter pipe than your pump output to lower friction. He says that any friction gain you made by lowering the pressure (going to bigger pipe) would be lost when you convert back to higher pressure (smaller size at the outlet), it pretty much evens out accept (!) that you also add turbulence and other nasty fluid things changing sizes making it a waste of effort. Craig.

Agreed in principal, but I have seen very few hang on filters that actually do this well, to get proper trickle/wet dry the filter media has to be in the air with water running over/through it, ie. not immersed in the water, just as Dan has done with his breeding trap. If it is in the water it is no different from a canister filter but with less flexibility and a far smaller surface area. Other things to note, hang on filters tend to be noisy if you don’t keep your water level very high, and they get in the way of light hoods and glass tops.

The amount of filtation you get is directly related to the amount of surface area in your filter media, the water flow of course must be correct for the volume of media. (There are other factors like the amount of air, but you need to go to complicated trickle filters to benefit from this) Compare the amount a media (sponge, bios balls, gravel, etc) between hang on the back, cannister, and UGF filters. IMHO:- For a tank this size a hang on the back filter would only just be okay if the tank was well balanced and had lowish bio load. But give you very little flexibilty for adding media, carbon, etc, etc. UGF have good have good surface area but again no flexibilty, are no good if you plan on growing plants (their roots don't like water going through them). Must be cleaned (usually after a year or so) or you risk 'toxic tank syndrome' due to crap clogging the gravel under rocks etc Cannister filters have good surface area, the best flexibilty for adding changing media, carbon etc, can be unplugged and cleaned away from the tank so your not carrying dripping sponges etc over you tank and carpet. Check out www.trademe.co.nz there are always cannister filters for sale at less than $100, a fluval 204 or larger would be fine. I have run 204's in 3 foot tanks for long periods with no problems.

Just as a random comment, friends in London call the 'drinking' water "7 kidney water" because thats the average number of people the tap water has passed through

Any comments on using rain water other than it being quite soft? I've used to for years with my Discus, done basic water tests on it, all clear, and checked with NIWA who say no pollutants because of winds keeping air clean (yeah for windy wellington!).

Check out the circuit for a power-on delay timer at this link, it's a 12 volt circuit but the relay can be used to switch 240 volts. also replacing the timing resistor with a variable resistor (pot) would alow you to change the delay. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepage ... #therm.gif

Hi Jude, I have two type's of anumbias, but not sure if either are barteri. One has small leaf's 10-15mm the other large approx 50+mm. I also have a sword, I think called micro chain sword which grows easierly. I started growing it when I had no luck with novae-zelandiae which doesn't seem to like the heat. If you don't mind coming to pick them up you can have cuttings for free, PM me your details.

I also have 3 half full sacks of darker gravel that are just taking up room in my shed I'll PM my details and you can come and have a look.

Sorry, understand your question now, you are correct algae and plants (algae are just low order plants after all) do both need light, + co2, nutiants (sp?). The trick to controlling algae is to get your plants to use up all the nutiants and starve the algae, because algae "genarally" need less light and more nutiants the easiest way to do this is good lighting and keeping the nutiants in the gravel not the water collum (where the algae is), hence we do water changes to remove the no3. ps sorry about the spelling, I was never born to be an english treacher!!

I think the SAE do it more because of agresion than food, I know they do this because I had one that left marks all over my discus, I might have just been very unlucky and had a bad one. I guess just some thing to watch out for. Interestingly I had Otos after I got rid of the SAE and never had any problems, I just couldn't keep them alive! Think my water was too soft.

FYI SAE's are good when they are young but get lazy (i.e. stop controlling algae) when they get to full size. Also some have been know to damage (suck on to) larger slow flat fish like your angels. I could be wrong here and it might be the other fish commonly sold as SAE that does this. Telling the difference is a little tricky I haven't done it for a few years but from memory the stripe down the body goes into the tail in one and not the other, check the web for details thats how I found out. Have you considered a bristlenose plec instead? Good algae eaters, none of the problems as with the above and as a plus are very (almost too eazy!) to sex and breed. Watch you don't get over run!

Spooky, As I understand it the reason the color matters is because water absorbs light at a different rate depending on color, from memory red end of spectrum the most, blue the least. Fresh water plants tend to grow closer to the surface therefore like redder light, marine corals etc deeper which is why marine tubes are blue.

NW I have a planted tank the same size running 2 double 4 foot tubes. i.e. 4 tubes in all. My advise, go to an electrical wholesaler and buy your fittings and tubes (they might have to order the tubes in for you) a double fitting will only cost you $30 odd dollars tubes around $15-$25. LFS prices are ALWAYS 2-3 times as much as RRP from an electrical store (or a hrydoponics store). If you think you are ever going to have an interest in growing plants get 2 doubles even if you don't use them all now, (or at least setup your hood to allow for 2 doubles) the fittings are cheap, replacing your hood expensive. If you get into plants in a tank that size you WILL want more light.

I have a big tub of cleanish sand that I collected from right around red rocks in the 4x4 was going to use it but never got around to it, you're welcome to it if you want to pick it up from Tawa. I don't really know how much but I can only just lift it so guessing 70-80Kgs worth.

Hello all, just quick question and an interesting comment from an electrical wholesaler. Firstly does any know where I can get the correct marine tubes for PC fluro's (the 36 watt ones with 4 pins at one end) in Wellington and or what the best tube is. I have been to all the wholesalers close to work and they only have up to 4600(?)Lum listed. Secondly I asked about T5 tubes and was told by the wholesaler to keep away from them, he claims that because the technoledgy is still quite new they have alot of problems, specifically tubes and ballists etc over heating and blowing, he's just done a job where 60% of the tubes failed with-in 3 months. Just a comment/warning.

Try turning off all the room lights, and keep the room dark, this helps with reflections on the glass, I have a great pic of my tank with a fire going in the middle! Also get the glass out side and in really clean, any scraches, algae etc show up plus can make the camera focus on the glass not the subject. Try playing with the macro/micro setting its usually a button with a flower and mountain (couple of triangles), this sets the focal length (I think) and tell's the camera if you are really close or far away from the subject. Setting the 'metering' to spot can help to, this tells the camera how much of what it can see to use for auto settings. eg when set to spot it sets the focus, light etcetc, just to what is in the center of the picture and ignores the rest, normal (matrix) gives you an average across the whole picture. Regarding flash, I always take a picture with flash on and off, generally they are better with it off, but my BEST pic's always have it on, more light is always better with tank shots hence flash on but it's really hard to avoid reflections etc

I got what I think are a pair of these last week form my LFS ($90 each), they were sticking together like glue at one end of the tank with another Bangaii right at the other end. Fingers crossed.