suphew

The round thingy is more likely the starter

Sounds like the perfect size for a first Marine tank

Gorilla grip, use it on the building site for most jobs.

As livingart says, no algae on corals, reef tanks that a long time to cycle mature, sometimes up to a year or more, during this time you will get various different algae blooms. But once this is over the tanks need to be keep with very low nutrients for the corals to do well, so algae doesn't really do so well. I clean the glass ever week or two and that is about it for algae.

I did a water change on the weekend and took the chance to take some top down photo's with the pumps off. Thought you guys might like to see some. Montipora tuberculosa Tri-colour Acro And a different Tri-colour Acropora millepora, this is the pink one. I also have a green one and recently got a blue one as well, but both are frags and just starting to come right And lastly a little critter I spotted crawling round one morning.

The point of having a DSB is to create an area of no oxygen (or dead spot), this is the same way that denitrifying coils work, the bacteria that live in this environment consumes nitrate and produces nitrogen gas which harmlessly disperses into the air. Live rock in salt water tanks works the same way, the bacteria lives deep in the porous rock with no oxygen. In a salt water tank you would aim to have zero nitrates at all times. The only time these bacteria become 'bad' are when the sand beds are disturbed. Do some research on remote deep sand beds (RDSB) or "sand bed in a bucket". I agree to a point but each of these targets a different area, FSB's are great at do the ammonia to nitrite to nitrate part of the nitrogen cycle, but you still end up left with nitrates which have to be removed somehow, usually with water changes. UV just kills stuff, bacteria, parasites, algae's. As I said denitrifying coils do the same/similar job to a deep sand bed, but are far more expensive and complicated to use. All a DSB needs is... some sand, if you want to have a fancy expensive setup, you buy a bucket and pump.

Most salt water skimmers have needle wheel pumps in them now, extra performance is gained by doing whats known as a "mesh mod", do a search on it for details but it basically involves replacing the impeller or needle wheel with a mesh disk that really chops the air up into fine bubbles. You really get what you pay for with skimmers, a cheap one wont work well with salt water let alone fresh water. BTW a nasty cheap skimmer with pump will cost you well over $100, paying over the $300 range will get you into the okay cheap skimmer range To be honest IMO there are better ways to spend your money that will give you far better results. A sump with trickle tower for example. If you want to have a go with some leading edge stuff look into deep sand beds (DSB), these are really commonly used in marine tanks to reduce nitrates, there is no reason they wouldn't be just as effective in fresh water. And they are very cheap and simple to DIY. Algae filters are also making a big come back in salt water, again there is no reason they wouldn't work just was well in fresh water, they reduce both nitrates and phosphates, and again are cheap and simple to DIY

A salt water skimmer wont work with fresh water, it just wont foam enough for how salt water skimmers are made. I guess it's possible to skim fresh water with a skimmer that's designed to do it, I understand skimmers were originally used at sewage treatment centers, but I have never seen a fresh water skimmer for sale. I'm no expert but I would think adding O2 rather than CO2 to the intake of you canister would be the way to go, after all wet/dry and trickle filters work so well because of the large amount air they supply to the bacteria. CO2 would make the water very acidic in the canister.

Sounds like he needs a Holden Ute then

Also only a bandaid, it will get rid of your green water but not the cause of the green water. If you have multiple tanks on a single system UV can be used to stop parasites and disease spreading

The calculator asks for panel height, panel thickness and safety factor, using 1200, 400, and 1.5 I get 4.3mm. Using a water height of 300mm (1200,300,1.5) gives 2.79mm I did just actually measure my tank, the sides are 5mm and the braces 4mm. With regards the colour of the glass, your correct it isn't uncommon for the water in fresh water tanks to have a tint of yellow. But the colour in the glass does significant impact the viewing. My marine tank is made from 10mm glass (sides are 600 high), when I have visitors I often get them to look down from the top rather than through the glass and they are stunned at the difference. Some things are completely different colours, I have a clam for example that changes from fluro blue to fluro green

The thickness calculator is interesting, the panel your interested in (1200x400) gives a safety factor of about 1.5 when using 4mm glass. What I would like to know is want is an acceptable safety factor?? To me 1.5 indicates it is 1/2 again as strong as it needs to be to safely hold? I also have a professionally made standard 4 foot tank that is made from 4mm glass, I aways thought a pretty standard glass size for this size tank should I be worried about it?

Personally I would use the calculator, you want the glass to be as thin as is safe because unless you have low lead glass it changes the colour more as it gets thicker. Of course it also costs more as well. It's the height of the sides that really dictate the thickness, the tank your looking at is pretty standard, I think when you do the calculation you will find 4mm glass is okay

The tank might be a bit small but we will upgrade to a bigger one soon. :lol: Was a very long day yesterday, but the result was well worth it

Not at all, would work just as well on a smaller tank. But the issue is cost, filters for small tank are pretty cheap, the costs for building a sump setup don't really change that much as you scale them down. I guess space is also an issue, if you only have a small tank would you really want to double the space it takes up so you can run a sump.

Here is a link to the Durso web site. The advantage of the durso is you only need one hole drilled in your tank, the disadvantage is that because it sucks in air you get micro bubbles in the water. Which isn't really an issue if your setting up a wet and dry filter. If you do choose to setup a durso, make sure you follow the directions on the durso site, most directions are incorrect (the diagram on the herbie site is missing the reducer required at the bottom of the standpipe) and can result in the durso not working correctly. http://dursostandpipes.com/

There's really not too much to know, 600m is quite deep so you might want to look at T5 lights rather than the older less bright T8's, although the T8's are usually a bit cheaper. You can tell the difference because the T5's are a lot skinnier. Also a fitting with two or more tubes again because of the depth. You can get lights that just have the caps that attach to the ends of tubes rather than actual fittings with reflectors etc all build in, if you go down this path make sure you buy reflectors for the tubes

It's not going to break the bank to try both. The actinic blue I just added come from an electrical wholesaler and cost me under $10. Here is a link to dicksmith LED's $12.99, although you would have to find a 12v dc power supply as well. http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/4a2b19db013133cc2740c0a87f3b0688/Product/View/Z4271

Well I'll have to eat my words. I have my lights on two timer one tubes comes on early and off late. I just swapped the tube for an actinic blue I had laying round, give's a fantastic affect and is staying in there now.

Plywood is also very expensive, it will be far cheaper to use 4x2 and thinner plywood. If possible you should also get marine grade plywood. Standard plywood will delaminate if you get water in it.

If money isn't a problem go with either metal halide lights or get solar tubes installed. Of course you also need to look at what plants you are trying to grow, not all plants do well under extreme lighting. I think using actinic blue light (this is what marine tanks have) would look funny on a green planted tank. A lot of marine people are using blue LED strips for moon lights, they are cheap from Jaycar or Disksmiths and might give you the look your after.

If you open it up and have a look at the electronic ballast it should have an operating range written on it. As long as you stay with-in this range you can ran as many and what ever size you like.

Haha you have the same carpet as us! So ugly, but so good, if like us you have 3 cats, dog, bunny, 2 birds, 3 fish tanks, and a baby due very soon!

A black out is really only going to treat the symptom but not the cause, algae, like plants needs, light, nutrients, and CO2. By removing the light you are just temporarily changing the balance again, as soon as you put the light back the algae will come back, if anything it wil be worse since you wont have addressed the source. How old is the tank? What changes have you made? Have you done any maintenance like cleaning your filters? Power cuts? Had the filters unplugged? In the mean time your best option is water changes, lots of them. Most chemicals wont be of any use to you, don't be tempted to try any 'miracle algae cures', even if they work, it will again only be treating a symptom and your algae will come back. A couple of useful chemical's you could use are carbon, and phosphate resin.