suphew

I have a very similar setup too, but a 4 foot sump, directly under the tank. IMO the UP7 is to big for the sump, the water powers through it and I have lots of problems with micro bubbles. There is no need to pump hugh amounts through the sump I would go with the 1262

Also a good way to cause a flood if your plumbing blocks somewhere. Also cannister filter pumps are no good at pumping to a head. A better idea would be to have a sump fed from different tanks and the filter running on the sump, althrough if your going to have a sump set up a trickle filter it would be far cheaper and better. Add a UV if your worried about disease. As far as I have sen this is pretty much how the tanks at animates in wellington were setup when they had the central room thingy

It's "fish only" so as long as he can see into the tank doesn't really matter what he uses. Personally I can't see it staying fish only hahaha but hay!

I have 3 x 250w mh and a couple of blue T5's on my tank, just a bit over 5 foot. I couldn't see me going with less light than that

Ditto

Theres a guy that was posting here (tank-man I think) that makes large perspex tanks he would be able to help you. My father had a perspex tank years ago, it worked ok but had stainless steel bracing on the top to stop the sides flexing. It got quite scrached after a while and it discoloured.

Ok thats not as big a problem, however the anenome is going to go where its wants to not where you want it to. By moving it all the time your just making it want to move again. What you need to do leave it alone to settle were it wants then either adjust you tank (i.e. were you place you corals) to suit or change the conditions so it will want to move to where you want it to go. But anyway because it is new to your tank it will be stressed, and weak, all the moving round will just be adding to this. Leave it alone to settle where it wants, wait a few weeks for it to used to your tank, then start thinking about guiding it to where you want it

I wouldn't bother trying to feed it at all, unless it is bleached it doesn't need to be fed and the feeding will just add to your water quality problems. I have had my BTA for around 6 months and every couple of weeks it still goes for a walk round the tank. I have 3 other more diffficult anenomes that never move. I think you need to just leave it along to do its thoing and work on improving your water quality, this may just mean do water changes and waiting for the cycle to finish. You might also want to reduce how much you feed you fish to help with the water.

Nah will work better if it's the correct way around, you need to force the bubbles to the surface, if you go under first it will keep sucking the bubbles down.

Hi Blondie, don't feel too bad fish shops are often only interested in getting you to buy now. Goldfish are pretty hardy so they should be okay, but they are messy and do grow very fast so a bigger tank is going to be a must have. Often member here give away or sell small tanks very cheap, if you update your location you might get some one local offering you one. As Sharn has said water changes will help them, personally I wouldn't remove any of the oxygen weed it wont make much difference to the water surface area and as long as it's getting some light will put oxygen into the water which will help the fish. It will also add to the surface area for the bacteria from your cycle and last of all, goldfish love to eat it. I would hold off on feeding the fish will eat the oxygen weed if they get hungy, the food will just add to the waste in the water making it more toxic which the cycle is starting. Fish can easily go without being feed for a week or more

You need to load your picture to a image server first, photobucket.com is pretty commonly used.

I don't know of anyone that uses them, but I'm sure someone will yell out if they do.

LOL it's actually been pretty quiet and civil here lately!

I never have, but if your able to put it boiling water it can't hurt, plus will help it to sink if it's still floating.

Personally I have to disagree with GE fish, is any risk, no matter how small it might be worth it just to line the producers pocket? To me no, there are plently of great natural fish to choose from.

Ehiem pumps are normally pretty quiet, is it new? Check your impella and shaft for wear.

Running your refuge as part of your sump is fine. Most critters will go through the return pump without being killed and it will save you a whole lot of stuffing round. Most people 'accidentially' end up with a refuge in there sump anyway, even if you have nothing in there beside equipment you will end up with pods etc living there, but most sumps dont seem to stay empty for long, mine has bits of odd rock etc in there now that I use for attaching frags to and it's full of critters.

I have a racoon butterfly that cleaned up most of my tank in a couple of days. I have just spotted a couple hard to get to ones that it has missed, once these are gone its going for a holiday in pies tank, than maybe another large tank in Wlg. By that time I should have a nice crop back again! I only down side is I have had to remove my hammer and frogspawn which he was picking at

Try adding some more plants for cover, that might help.

How long has you tank been running now Duke?? They do crazy things for a long time before they mature and calm down a bit, it's not uncommon to have cycles of algae, cyano, etc for 9 months or more.

It's a good sign, it shows that they are growing

In a skimmer that size you will need a lot of air stones (wooden ones) and a monster air pump. I looked into at one stage but was put off by the cost to set it up and the on going costs (the air stones have to be replaced every month or two). With the low cost of needle wheel pumps now it makes far more sence to use one (or two) of them. If you look up recirulating skimmers you will see that you can control the air flow and water flow through the skimmer with this type of setup, it's also one of the more common commercial types now days. There is plenty of info on the web about DIY skimmers, www.reefcentral.com is a good place to start.

If anything it will make it worse, all the plants, algae's etc are compeating for food, if you kill one (the free floating) it going to leave more food for the other types. If you have an algae problem you need to find out why , not try and put a bandaid on the syptom. You have to remeber that you need a balance in the tank, light, C02, and nutirants, if anyone of these is out you will get algae problems. The most common is nutirants, through either, over feeding, not enough water changes, or poor water filtering

Would have loved to, because of the small numbers of us down here we tend to end up with a lot of the same corals. Unfortuately I didn't have time I was staying in Hamilton and just drove up for the wedding.

Theres a long line ahead of you in the queue for that anonome!