suphew

CO2 bottles are checked and certified just like LPG heater bottles. They are just trying to screw money out of you by making you rent. There is always some one round who will refill them, usually smaller guys that also do fire extinguishers. Building up your own system is far cheaper, I had a fire extinguisher converted, bottle (including valve, cert, and fill) was about $120, the regulator was about the same again. This is about all your need, the rest is just a needle valve, some hose, and you can DIY a diffuser The setups with small swap bottles will be using soda stream bottles, these are fine but expensive long term because the bottle's don't last that long and cost a lot more to swap than a bigger bottle is to refill. But with saying that when I was running CO2 in planted tank it wasn't long before the plants had grown to the point that I was just pulling them out each week, so I removed the CO2 to slow them down.

I caught a fish in Aussie than had a huge one crawl out of it month, was pretty creepy. Collected water at night once, and the collected water was teeming with them, no problems in the tank.

Famous for being famous? I don't think she has actually ever done anything (besides celeb treasure island hahahahaha)

Okay, dog's don't sweat to cool down (they pant) therefore they sweat very little, therefore lose very little salt, therefore it take's very little to make them sick. Dog sweat http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/7929 From here http://www.gomestic.com/Pets/Five-Foods-That-Can-Make-Your-Pet-Sick.50984

My money would be on the salt. Dogs don't sweat so salt can easily build up and make them sick. I used to feed my dog pork bones and he would get sick, it wasn't until my neighbour (vet nurse) told me about the salt and not to feed port bones that I clicked. I'm not sure what the cure would be but I guess getting the dog to drink heaps and wee it out would be an option?

Last one I paid for was Minuit- the guards themselves I was given Flight of the Conchords on the weekend.

Sounds like Cyano, theres plenty of information on here if you do a search.

Think I'm missing the logic there somewhere.

Car battery well be fine for a one off, but normally you should use a deep cycle battery, like a marine battery. Are you going to leave this setup and going while your away?? Bit dodgy if you ask me, my old UPS (was a decent APC smart UPS) was over charging the batteries, they got all swollen and split, made a mess of the inside of the case.

I just used one and put it on a power box, all the outlets on the UPS will be wired in parallel anyway. Actually thinking about it, it's wired onto the end of a extension lead now, since I can't fit my UPS under the cabinet

Probably why it took 5 weeks. I've worked for the government, most employee's have little or no say in how things are done, just work there way through a great big boring pile of paper. But every once in a while some one tries to wind them up, so they take great pleasure in returning their paper work to the bottom of the pile.

Just reading consumer mag, their reliability survey rates Sony, Dell, NEC, Mac as the top. Since Sony are over priced, and good luck finding an NEC laptop, that leaves Dell or a MAC.

Maybe you should read the whole thread before posting

The tanks will be fine for the day without filters, but the less time you have the filters off the less bacteria will die in them. If they are in a spare tank you can have them came back on as soon as the power comes back on and get aerated water flowing in them, without having to worry about die off getting into your tanks.

Wish I was able to help Ira. how about setting all your canisters up on a spare tank (or bucket etc) and leaving them plugged in so that they start working again once the power is on to keep the still living bacteria going, but don't dump toxic crap into the tank. You could hold off feeding for a couple of days before hand, to lower the bioload a bit on the big day. If you have a heater with a thermostat maybe you could keep the room warm to so the temp doesn't drop too much in the tanks, otherwise wrap the tanks in blankets, poly, newspaper

DSE, warehouse, jaycar, take you pick. http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/48816e24081615e0273fc0a87f3b06af/Product/View/M7319

Go to this web site, it is part of NZQA, do a search and it will list all the NZQA certified courses and the provider. I just seached on "pet" and had 10 courses come up. http://www.kiwiquals.govt.nz/index.do

Yes you can do this, you might find it is even cheaper to go to an electrical wholesaler, I recently priced up 400w ballasts at $100 from a electrical wholesaler (no I don't have account etc, this was just walking in off the street). There are a few things to know, firstly you can get magnetic or electronic ballasts. I haven't priced up electronic but expect they cost more. However they use less power, give off less heat, and are far lighter, I have also read that your bulbs will last longer and keep their colour longer. Next with some bulbs (DE 250w I think) there is a 'German' and 'Chinese' version that use slightly different voltages (and therefore current) if you have the wrong bulb in the wrong ballast it wont last nearly as long. Lastly like most things ballasts are not all created equal, plus some brands of bulbs work better in some ballasts, cheap ballasts can shorten bulb life, etc, etc. But the problem is in NZ there is almost not selection so unless you want to import ballasts IMO buy the cheapest you can find, it's probably the same as the more expensive one anyway. Some light reading if your keen... http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/index.htm

Anyone else had the cat not notice the top was off when doing a water change. Hahaha funniest think to see, never seen a cat move so fast or look so embarrassed

Mines been painted for a couple of years now and no sign of it coming off, the tank before that was second hand and had been painted for 5-6 years at a guess. I made sure it was very clean before I started and did lots of light coats (spray can) to stop it from running. Because the coats are so light it only took a few minutes to dry before I put on the next one. I cleaned the glass with isopropyl alcohol. Fish tank glass doesn't move that much because the temperature is pretty constant

I've owned a couple, never had any problems with hoses. They do tend to hold their shape though, so once the hose has been bent over the top of the tank for a while the hose will pretty much have a bend for ever.

Check out a new shaft as well. Once you have replaced both parts it will basically be a new motor, there are no other serviceable parts (in the motor)

It's not abnormal for the impeller to move a bit on the magnet, they usually spin 1/4 to 1/2 a turn. The movement you need to look for is sideways and up and down, or if it turns completely. But the most common problem is the impeller and magnet moving on the shaft. New impeller are pretty cheap so there is no harm in buying one, but you might just find it was air trapped in the canister making the noise.

No skimmer just a HOB filter (with no filter media) that gave it water movement held carbon and PO4 remover. It was a very cool little tank had a few SPS and small LPS corals.

It really depends on what you have in the tank. I looked after a micro tank (4-5 liters from memory) for a guy for a few months, because it had no fish, shrimp etc just corals, it only needed smallish weekly water changes.