suphew

There are a number of factors that come into play. But firstly don't get too caught up in LPH ratings, it is a useful general guide to the size of a filter but is really pretty meaningless when it comes to a filter's capacity. What we really should care about is the media volume and type of media in the filter, it's the bacteria that is doing the job and this is where it lives, the flow of water to the bacteria is secondary to this. Small internal filters tend to have just sponges or in some of the top end ones like the fluval U series just a few noodles 1/2 a handful at most. This is a pretty poor surface area for the bacteria compared to a canister full of noodles. If you added up the power usage of individual internal filters to get the same media volume as even a low end external, you will find you use many times more power. The intakes on small internals are usually small and will block up pretty quickly compared to an external. Meaning a lot more filter cleaning. Fish tanks are for looking at fish, not for looking a filters. Depending on where you live heat might be factor, internals will heat up the water cause they are sitting in it. Internals are sometimes quieter cause the water bocks the noise, but an external can be shut away in a cupboard so you have more control over the noise. If an internal is noisy even in the tank there is nothing much you can do about it. One power cord verse many. There is not really any cost saving, 2-3 internal's will cost as much as the same quality external to buy. No filtration system is perfect there some advantages to internals over extranals but I hope this helps answer your husbands question

A bit of research will soon start to show the negatives, most forums he posts in become annoyed at how he is "selling" his idea's and start to pull them apart. Some of the common points are coloring of the water, difficulty of maintenance, overstatement of how well they work, risk of the algae crashing, safety with some of the designs, power usage, etc

Why don't you just direct the pump outlet elbow down so it doesn't disturb the surface so much?

Or when they find out you don't need to clean your glass if you don't have nitrates. It's been 4-5 months since I last did mine. Or realize the main reason for water changes is removing nitrate, if you have no nitrate........ I should really keep quiet, it could ruin a lot of peoples hobbies if they no longer have reason to spend their weekends doing maintenance :lol:

Take Stantamonica's word with a bit of caution, he posts on a lot of forums, only about scrubbers. To put it politely he is very enthusiastic over the positives and dismissive of the negatives. From his posts on the NZ marine forums I believe he also sells scrubbers. Although after saying that, I have been wondering when freshwater fish keepers are going to cotton on to things like algae scrubbers and deep sand bed's. A lot of us are doing it already, a tank with a deep layer of substrate that has been running for a while is effectively running a deep sand bed

"The Pet Centre" shops in Wellington sell RSM 130d's for just under $1500 they will sometimes ship, check out their website for contact details.

Some new organisms have been added to the list recently, although salt water rather than fresh. My understanding after talking to the guy that arranged it was it costs 10-20k and a couple of years per organism. Plus there is no guarantee no matter how well dotted your I's are that it will be added to the list, from what I could saw it almost looked like they felt that they needed to only allow a few new one's on to discourage too many applications.

The Marina heaters are designed for people wanting to heat plastic tanks. So basically safe for kids to use, unbreakable, safe to remove from the water while plugged in, don't run burning hot to the touch. They work very well for the purpose they were designed for, but are a compromise and poor heater if your wanting it to work like a traditional heater but look pretty.

Any system will benefit from having a sump, if for no other reason than extra water volume. Do a google on "weir" it's the only way to do an overflow without drilling

Any plumbing store will have the plastic tube you need, it will be a little flexible but for the short little bit you need it will be fine.

Moved to a more appropriate forum.

My ~800l marine doesn't have any extra floor support and has been fine for round 7 years now. It is against a load bearing wall and runs cross the joists.

For those that are in the Wellington area, the KMAC meeting this coming Wednesday is on drilling holes in tanks and some basic plumbing. We made tanks last month this month we'll try breaking them by drilling holes!

Thanks for the help, the link was great. I will pass the information on next time I see the guy.

So has no one been through the process of getting a licence? If possible I'd like to hear from someone that has actually done it, I'm assuming it's one thing to have read the official process but quite another to actually go through it. Assuming of course there is actually a licence you have to get?

The colour (kelvin) of those LED's is a bit low as well, for marine you want to looking for 10'000k or higher.

what legal stuff, from DOC or MAF is needed to keep native gecko's? Is there a licence or cert etc? I know a guy that found a bunch under a house that was being pulled down. He is trying to do the right thing but isn't having much luck finding information. He rang MAF and was told they have no idea what is was talking about.

Will cost you round $100

Just make sure you get one with auto temp control (ATC) 99% of them have it now. There doesn't seem to be much difference between brands.

Yep this is completely doable 1) yes 2) as big as you can, stability is the key, but if your limit is 2 foot then it's 2 foot. 3) yes you will still need to feed the brittle star, and beware most of them grow quite large (1-1.5 foot arm span) 3a) of course, if you don't mind regular large water changes 4) you can't have too much light.

Beware that you really get what you pay for with power heads, the cheap one's tend to be unreliable, noisy, very large, and inefficient, parts are also often a problem to get. Also a lot of them have metal shafts which are no good if you are using it in salt water.

That's 4 shops plus the one up the coast, by my count, 2-3 more marine stocking shops than Auckland has? The stock in Wellington also come from 4 different importers that I know of (it could be more). That's plenty of competition, options, and stock to choose from, I'm not really sure how much more choice you could have? BTW Petone and Miramar may be owned by the same company but they are managed quite separately. The Porirua and Hutt stores aren't owned by the same guy, however the four owners are all related. Carbon should be replaced pretty regularly if you're going to use it, at least monthly. I'm guessing that if you don't replace your carbon your P04 resin has been in there a while to? It depends on how much P04 it's removing, but I'd be replacing it at least every month as well.

If the impeller is clogged up, you just need to open them and clean them. There is really no substitute for a good clean but if you just want to give them all a soak try using white vinegar, about 1 cup per bucket and soaking over night usually works for me.

There are at least 4 shops in the Wellington area that stock Marine, admittedly two are the same company but have quite different marine set ups. I'm sure if you asked any one of these they would get a Salifert test kit in for you. P04 is really hard to test for, I don't know that there are really any hobby test kits that will measure the low enough to pick up levels that will still cause algae. Do you use tap water for your salt and top up? Do you use a PO4 remover? Basically you need to look at what is putting P04 into your tank, frozen food, poor quality water, bad quality carbon, rock leaching; and what can do to minimise/control it, P04 resin, macro algae, algae scruber, RO/DI water

Not sure why would I need to know more about the SPCA because I work in a pet shop, I look after fish not cats and last I checked the SPCA don't have a lot of interest in fish? I did check the web page, nowhere under the cat adoption page does it state cats are chipped. I also notice in you other post regarding Whangarei SPCA that cat's aren't chipped. http://www.spca.org.nz/adoption/cats.htm I was not trying to sell my product here, just refuting claims that SPCA kittens are cheap when they are in fact more than twice the cost of a pet shop. I'm not sure how you can call my integrity into question when I clearly stated by connection with the pet centre. Do you have some connection with the SPCA, the passion of you response makes me wonder if maybe you have more than a casual connection to them?