suphew

The temperature (topical or cold water) would depend on the biotype you were type to replicate. Estuary is a pretty broad term http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuary With regards rockpools, you would need a pretty sizable tank, maybe a single rockpool would be a better target.

Another option is to to have corals and no fish, if you have no fish you don't need to put food into the tank, no food no waste.....

Don't forget you will need to figure out a way of keeping the tank cool, round 15 degrees or less I believe.

Get some of the poly they use for putting under concrete, it's about 40mm thick and line the sides as well as bottom. It will be fine, there are plenty of fish rooms round made of less than your laundry will be

India Fern grows just as well on the surface as it does planted and will give you the long hanging roots for fish to spawn it.

Do you have strong lighting or weak? Do you want a plant that will cover the whole surface, maybe one with long roots for spawning, something for fish to eat? A few that spring to mind are Indian fern, riccia, and your common duck weed.

The highly reflective ali used for reflectors can be cut using scissors. Ira, I have a couple of lumarc reflectors that I built, to spare, there were a couple of people interested in them but I haven't heard from them in a while.

Going to grow some "tomato's" aye The ballasts are the same, no problems converting.

Edit was made because of reference to trademe. But as pointed out exceptions can be made for item you have a genuine interest in purchasing so have reinstated. Apologies to you kiwiplymouth

Bottle brush? I find the tommy tippy (sp?) one the best, it has a little brush in the handle that is great for cleaning really small places like the hole in pumps where the shaft goes.

We use it as well, couple of inchs and then plain gravel on top. Just don't syphon the gravel.

Sounds like you are taking about two different things, a filter sock and an inline filter. Bunnings sells inline filters and I assume spa/pool shops would too. Have only seen filter socks at Spa shops.

Most spa pool shops sell them

Yeah it depends on what type of drain pipe you want to have. What noramally seems to happen is salt water tanks tend towards having the hole at the bottom of the tank, with a stand pipe and over flow box. Fresh water setups tend to just have a hole near the top and just a grill over the outlet. But there are no hard and fast rules.

Is it for fresh water or salt water? You could wander down to your LFS and have a look at how a Jebo tank is setup, they have a filter in the hood similar to what you are describing. BTW drilling a tank is very easy, or you can use a weir, so don't let the lack of a hole put you off setting up a conventual under tank sump. It would give you far more room and flexibility. There are also some other down sides to having the sump above the display, like, access, water level issues, and the risk of having that water up there.

Second that, the new shop in Petone is nice as well.

PM sent

No idea about the product, but you can't beat water changes for nitrate removal.

That sound idea, just make sure you don't have anything sitting in the bottom

I find the 20l are about as much as I can carry, one in each hand balances out the load, the 25l are just a bit too much.

Here's a map to the secret collection spot a lot of Wellington reefers use. 8) Further to what Ira said, wait 2-3 days after rain before collecting

Until you get your filter, the next best option is pure water from the supermarket (just make sure it's not mineral water), next best after that is rain water, so long as you collect it cleanly.

Ro/Di filters usually go for round $350-$500. Ideally you want at least a 4 stage unit, this will have a couple of pre filters (Carbon and sediment), then your RO filter which gets the water ~99% pure, and lastly a DI filter which does the last ~1%. Watch out for the retail filter shops, they seem to think they can charge crazy prices, I was quoted between $700 and over $1000, there is a shop in Auckland, Prestons I think (?) or is it PSI filters (?) that supplies a lot of the marine keepers at reasonable prices. They come up second hand sometimea but be aware you are really just buying the housing's because you'll most likely need/want to replace all the filters since you wont know how they have been treated or how much work they have done.

Are you using a skimmer yet, do you have much live rock? Lack of both of those will cause more algae. Problems with impure top off water is a long term problem rather than a short term since the pollutants build up.

Regarding LFS water on or in bags getting into our tanks. Remember that most countries don't have the strict quarantine that we have in NZ. LFS water in some countries may have either water treatments like copper or antibiotic's in it or be full of fish diseases, parasites etc. The risk from a small amount of water might be low but you also wouldn't (I hope) use the same net from a hospital tank in your main tanks.