suphew

Didn't these systems used to be called having a sense of community? Where I am we still have it to a degree, I have an elderly neighbour, I supply and manage her computer, do odd jobs, cut down tree's, keep an eye on her, etc, for this I have a key to her double garage (I don't have one), she collects my mail, feeds my pets when I'm away, keeps an eye on my house, etc. Same with friend's everyone has different skills and we help each other out. I only difference I see between what we do and the "barter systems" is there isn't a middle man taking a cut to run it.

All my tanks have lips, but as has been said if the stand is tied down and there is still enough movement to tip the tank off I'd be more worried about the house coming down.

Yep, nailed, bolted, depending on what works best for the stand.

I think they need to start targeting mountain bikers and other cyclists, they get hit by cars as often if not more, but at least motor cyclists try and wear some half decent protective gear. There's no reason they couldn't have a registration just like other vehicles on the road, or as a start charge a levy when bikes are sold same as "on road costs" they charge for other vehicles. I don't ride anymore cause I could see how dangerous and stupid it was. But to give motorcyclist's their due, at least most of them can spell motorcyle. :lol:

I would think cutting a hole in a security door may well affect the structural strength of making it useless as a security door. I'd either check with the installer/manufacture (surely it must come up all the time) or just remove the door. I like the 'through the wall' option as well. I have man hole in a cupboard that allows access to under my house, I used to use this for the cats, the only problem was its in my bed room and got a bit drafty in the winter.

Sooner or later using tap water will cause problems, no matter what you keep or the size of your tank. No tap water is pure, but the water that evaporates from your tank is, all the impurities are left behind in the tank. If your tap water is cleaner, all that means is it will take longer for the heavy metals etc to build up and cause problems. All a TDS meter will tell you is that there is 'something' in the water, you might have a TDS of say 35ppm which on the surface is pretty good. But you have no way of knowing if it is 35ppm of something really bad. For example that much copper from old pipes will kill all your corals (soft or hard) pretty quickly. If you just 'getting your feet wet' with a nano, I'd suggest that you buy pure water from the supermarket (unless the LFS sells it cheaper), in a nano you wont go through much, one of those 6 liter bottles will last you a month. If your going to use ASW rather than NSW then maybe think about investing in a RO unit sooner. BTW if $300 is worrying you, maybe you should do some research and work out a budget. One thing I have learned with marine is going cheap will do one of two things. Either make you fail, or cost you more when you replace the cheap stuff with what you should have bought in the first place. I don't want to put you off, but price wise salt water is a big step up from fresh water. Also smaller volumes of water are far harder to make work than larger volumes, I'd either have fish OR have some corals, trying to have both makes a tough job twice as hard.

House movers would do it for you, but good luck getting it there in one peice. Why not hire a van for the day and go collect it?

Bunnings only have a few sizes, mostly the small ones, I don't think they go as large as 32mm but if your close to one it worth a quick look.

A 20mm pipe will flow about 1300lph. here is a site that has some useful information about this sort of stuff. http://dursostandpipes.com/ When you are looking at pumps you need to work out the approximate dynamic head height, personally to do this take the rough distance from the water line of the sump to the water line of the display, then add half again to allow for pipe work, taps, bends etc. Any good pump will have a 'flow curve', you look on the curve for the head height you have and it will tell you how much flow you'll get.

I don't travel up your way as much as I used to otherwise I'd have a go at it. You might be able to convince me to lend you a drill bit though. How thick is the glass? Did they give you a reason for advising against drilling? I've drilled maybe 8-10 holes in tanks, and never had one break. Although they have always been thicker glass.

Yep, my mistake, thought the blue line through the pipe was the end of it.

Most plumbing places have them, but if you don't have any luck I know for sure that Mico plumbing stocks them. I hope they are still in business in the Hutt, the one in the Wairarapa has closed down and moved to Mastertrade. I'm pretty sure zip plumbing stocks them as well and the Hutt shop has a sale on at the moment.

I'm not sure why you need to reinvent the wheel, drilling a tank is simple and safe, I have done it many times, even have my own drill set. The reason glass shops say it is hard is because if by chance they do break the glass they know they will have to replace it. Suddenly a $10 hole costs them $100 in glass and a 1 hours time fixing it. If you really don't want to have the tank drilled a proper weir is really the only answer. The problem with all the systems discussed above is none of them will reliably self start, they might go into idle fine most of the time, but if the syphon stops (which sooner or later it will) they wont restart. All a low water alarm is going to do is, tell you your fish are dieing and your floor is getting wet, not much use if your two hours away from home. Not sure if you drawing is to scale, but it looks like 3/4 of you tank is going to drain if the power goes off?

Personally I have spent time in countries where people including children sit on the side of the road with bleeding stumps etc begging for food. I'd rather have a "state funded until you can afford user pays" health care system any day.

The reason the setup in the first link you gave works is because it is setup like a weir box stopping the display tank end from being out of the water. The second link if you look half way down the page he added a check valve and link to a powerhead. This does the same job as your sucking on the starter, but relies on the check valve and air tube not being blocked, and the powerhead starting. IMO an accident waiting to happen. Livingarts change will work sometimes, but relies on having the correct water levels and the amount of air in the rest of the pipe. The problem is the water level and amount of air in the pipe is likely to change depending on how long the syphon has been off. As the water inlet (in the display) gets further below the 'T' it becomes less sensitive to having the correct amount of water in the pipe (this is the same idea behind how the first link you gave works, basically using the whole tank as a weir). Marine keepers have been using sumps for a very long time and tried lots of different options. You will only ever see two types, weirs and drilled tanks. Because these are the only ways to have 100% reliable self starting systems. Proper weir systems have the air hose and power head system as well, but this is to remove air build up from the top of the "U" not to restart the syphon.

As spoon says, it is to give you the option of feeding a tank top filter like the Jebo's have or sucking up through a corner filter like the Juwel (I think) tanks. You should be able to block off the one you don't need. If your not convinced put it in a bucket, plug it in, and try it out.

A few of problems off the bat, if the water level in the tank drops below the intake level (which it will) it will suck in air and loose your syphon. if you loose power you will also loose syphon causing a flood when the power comes back on. the syphon can only be started if you have both ends of the overflow underwater (or otherwise blocked), depending on how you have it set and how much it flows this could be a problem. When the pump is off the display tank end will be out of the water, when the pump comes on you may only have a short window before the sump end is out of the water (assuming you are actually home when the syphon needs restarting). :lol: Do a search on "weirs" it will do what you want it to, will be a lot safer, and use a lot less expensive plumbing bits.

That's the other thing that's skewing those numbers. Personally I have seen many more pedestrian and cyclist accidents than motorbike accidents. How often do cyclists fall over themselves, or potholes, road markings etc etc. What about adding an ACC levy to new push bike purchases, and a levy to shoes. Although that would disadvantage white upper middle class woman who could claim that although they own over 200 pairs of shoes they don't actually ever walk anywhere in them, that's what the X5 is for. :lol: This new thing they are looking at bringing in about no ACC when committing a crime is going to be interesting. I wonder how many people have thought it through. You think about burglars cutting themselves climbing out windows, etc, but speeding is a crime, how often is speed involved in car accidents, none of those people will get ACC, not stopping at a red light, if you rear end someone, come 1 November if you have an accident while talking on your cell phone and driving, no ACC Regarding private insurance and user pays, although I have insurance, I really don't want to live in a country where you can be bleeding out on the front step and there is a guard asking to see your insurance papers before he lets you in.

I don't know if is the reason but there is a very high mortality rate with LMB's. They eat a huge amount of algae and the goal of most tanks is to have as little algae as possible, most stave to death.

I have a friend that recons they should remove the airbags from cars and put a hand gun in the steering wheel. If you have an accident you know you are going to die, would stop stupid drivers over night (one way or the other). I heard that cars with anti lock breaks are more likely to have accidents, for some reason people think ABS is going to stop the car faster and better than being a competent driver.

Personally, it's the cost of running government based things that that annoys me, not the exact place the money is coming from. After all while the cost is there it is going to need to be paid for. Would anyone be happier if there were no ACC levies and our income tax was 10% higher? Also like most systems in NZ it is unfair, routed by some and not given fairly by others. There was a lady on the radio during the week, who took her daughter to the doctor to have a splinter removed. The nurse did it and it took less than 5 minutes. She paid about $20 at the time, then had a call from ACC about 'her claim', she asked them what the doctor had charged ACC and found he made almost $90 for the 5 minutes work his nurse had done.

The tanks should stay at the same temperature as the room, if you want them 27 keep the room at 27. The reason it doesn't work the other way is because fish tank heaters are a very poor way of heating the room.

Perhaps you should reread mine? I was suggesting that importers are flaunting the rules, and that it does the hobby no good if we support them doing this. I didn't direct anything at you personally, my point was to the posters who said they would go look and post if Redwoods had them.

I think there is confusion between two different heat issues. If you have your Mh light enclosed in a hood, depending on what the hood and other surrounding bits are made from, very likely you will need to remove the heat from the hood, or risk melting, setting fire to or otherwise damaging it. A computer fan or two is ideal for doing this. The water may or may not over heat from the lights, sometimes the heating can work in your favour, sometimes it's a pain. The simplest way to combat this type of overheating problem is to have a fan directed over the water surface (a $15 warehouse deskfan works well for this). This increases your evaporation and cools the tank. There can actually be a third lighting heat issue, the room can also get too hot or be full of moist air. I have a ducted extractor fan taking the warm damp air from my tank to outside.

Lawn mower Blennies are no longer on the allowed list, I'd suggest not posting that a shop has them if they don't and if they do, as a responsible fish keepers we shouldn't support any banned fish being imported. I'm aware of one shop that has already been 'visited' by MAf because of importing Lawn mower Blennies under a different name. As much as we may not agree with MAF's reasons for removing some fish, flaunting the rules is not going to help get them added back, if anything it's going to increase the likely hood that MAF will want to start DNA testing all imported fish to confirm what is coming in.