suphew

The 'L' bits have slots in them, I use cable ties through them so they don't pop off. I also heat the tube in hot water where I wont to bend it, you dont need to do this but it helps it to stay in the shape that you want.

You could check with your local council to see if the water supply has changed?

Your bulkhead (the plumbing that goes through the bottom of the tank) should have a fitting on it so you can add a pipe. You can get bulkheads that just end with a flat dome, if this it what you have think about lowering the water level in the tank till it is below the top of the over flow, then remove and swap over the bulkhead for the other type. IMO this is the best way to make it quiet, but the other option I have seem to to fill the overflow with bioballs, have some filter wool on top, this gives you a nice trickel filter as well but could still make noise. Plus there is a little risk that if you forget to change the filter wool or have a lot of stuff go through it from a tank clean etc it might block up enough to overflow the tank.

You haven't added any new rocks have you?

Nice! Are you able to give us an idea what something like that would cost joe public to buy??

Would be interesting to know what these equate to in pmm?? anyone??

Always!!!!!

Because you will be using so little your better of buying bottled water. You can get it in 4liter bottles which should last a while.

Just confirms I'm right thinking I'll never by sony again. I have had a few sony devices that have played up, and too many friends that have had problems to. Better off paying for quality than a name :lol:

Lol can't remember the reading but it was about 30pmm from memory, a little better than tap water but not much.

Sounds like you can't make it much worse! What brand is it??

Hahahahahhahahahahahhahhhahahahahaaha Check out that direct importer shop, they have an online store but I can't find it. They seem to be the cheapest I have seen.

Friend has a high end Sony that started doing the same, we puled it apart and cleaned some dust of one of the internal lenses, bugger if he knew how it got dust in there but it fixed it.

I used to do this, till till I tested it with a TDS meter one day

You shouldn't add anything you cant test for, they can both be poison if the level gets too high. Plus as I understand it there is no proof that corals 'need' strotium or iodine, in the wild they do have small amounts in them but this could be just because it's in the water, not because it does anything for them

Last I heard they were going to start the resource consent process again. One of the panel wasn't able to make it so no agreement was made, and with how the system is setup it's easier to start the process again, rather than get a non-agreement changed. It was proberly 6 months ago I heard this so I don't know what has happened since.

It could well be your filter of the water level isn't as high. Also are you adding extra stress coat because its a new tank?? This could also be helping make the water bubble. BTW most people give up using stress coat pretty quickly, it seems to be an okay product but you definately don't need to use it.

I wouldn't remove the plants and rocks to vacuume, its just not worth disturbing the tank so much. The plants will do better have the 'food' and you should be getting too much under the rocks. First thing is to be sure you are testing the PH at the same time of the day, I don't have a fresh water tank anymore but in my marine tank I have an electronic PH meter, my PH goes from arounf 8.0 or lower first thing in the morning and up to 8.3 in the evening. Fresh water tanks will do the same thing, it is mostly caused by the plants (or corals in my case) changing the amount of C02 as they use more or stop using it as the lights go on and off. In a fresh water tank I would expect it to change at least as much because you are unlikely to have anything like as much buffer (kh) holding the PH stable. Also that PH reading (7.6) is in the completely acceptable range so don't try and adjust it.

It could be that your filter is sucking in air. Do you move or play with any of the equipement? It's possible you have a loose hose or you filter has air trapped in it that is slowly coming out. Also often tap water has a lot of mirco bubbles in it, but they should have gone pretty fast.

Your UV filter shold be taking care of the green water, and to a degree the the other algae as well, have you changed the bulb resently?? They only last a year or so. There are a number of other things you can also try to lessen the amount of algae. Water changes, through a bit difficult with that much water. Lots of plants, they will use the nutriants that the algae is currently feeding off, and shade the water stopping the algae getting so much light. You could also add a filter to the input of your return pump, this could be as simple as a plastic container (ice cream container? but the bigger the better) with holes drilled and full of filter wood or sponge or some other filter media. If your unable to syphon the crap out from the bottom of your pond I can't thing of many ways to clean it out. You could empty each pond, one at a time leaving a few weeks between. Or use a pump to suck all the stuff out. But my pick would be to add lots of plants and call the crap on the bottom plant food.

I have killed a few timers. Pretty much wouldn't bother with non-digital timers for lights. The best seem to be the puddney digital, but they cost about $40 each. I spoke to a guy at advanced electrical one day, he said spa pools use an HPM heavy duty timer, but they didn't stock them, and I haven't been able to find any so haven't tried one.

a lot of us reefers have "euro bracing" on our tanks basically a 100mm or so of glass that runs round the top of the tank, it helps to stop fish jumping, water splashing from streams etc, and I guess water sloshing out during a smaller earthquake. Really hope your keen to setup another reef tank, there aren't enough of us here in Wellington!

Your best bet is to work out all the fish you would like to keep now, and then work out a plan on how to add them to the tank. You don't need to add an algae eating fish first, just plan on wanted to add one early on. I'm sure others will give advise as well, but I would be looking at adding a pair of clowns first, they are hardy and wont get too upset when you add other fish later on, as tangs might. You could add a blenny now, but you would have to be very careful what type since some will ONLY eat algae.

I wouldn't bother unless you start having problems. Most LFS will test your water for a couple of $. It's one of those things the shops love to sell you but once you have tested the water for a few weeks you realise it doesn't change, other than when cycling the tank, and you know if your cycling anyway and that it will take a couple of weeks, so why waste money testing to tell you what you already know.

The main problem is feeding them, they require very small live food (rotifers) for the first few days which is very had to get in NZ. Raising fry isn't uncommon overseas.