suphew

you should always start your rocks on the bottom then add the gravel etc after. even if your fish dont dig just incase the gravel moves. if your really worried about silicon not holding and want to go a litle higher get a masonary drill bit, drill holes in the rocks and pushh in plastic pegs to lock them together.

I just replaced the glass in my 250wMH lights (3 of them) I used toughened glass since thats what the glass place told me my old glass was (showed them the broken bits ) has been working fine for a couple of months now. was cheap to, about $10 per light. Do you get any water splashing onto the glass? I have broken two of mine but both times I splashed water on the hot glass.

have to be careful with lava rock it often has heavy metals in it. Go with real rocks, I have never been able to understand why people pay money for something made to look like something you can get for free? it just doesnt seen right to me. I have only ever had 1 fake resin branch thing, the first time i scrubbed it all the colour came off. If you are worried about the rocks falling etc (which you should be) silicon them together before you add water to the tank or use stable flat stones

why are you using carbon?? unless you have been medicating or are trying to get the water clear you dont really need it. the reason the answer to your question changes so much is because carbon is like a sponge and fills up only as fast as there is something to fill it. It you have low amounts of chemicals in your tank it could last for months, or if you were say trying to remove medication you migt change it every day or two. Also be aware with leaving it in to long, once it gets full of a chemical it will start to leach out again

books from the libarary are fine but just be aware that the tech and knowledge in marine fish keeping has moved very fast in the last few years so a lot of what is in books is out of date before they are printed. You can use them to id corals and to see how things work but I sugest that ask here or one of the local reef keepers before deciding to do something from a book. NB: the same also applies to some LFS's as well, not their fault but as you have seen already sometime they pick up equipement and knowledge that has passed its used by date.

for me I see the WS, go oh look it must have been X that I did a week ago, then a couple of days later all gone again. ny fish only ever get 10 or so max. I'm pretty sure having happy fish and cleaner shrimp is what does the trick for me.

jaycar sells a litle transformer thing that lets you plug in 8 water proof led lights but not a cheap option From memory $30 for the transformer and $15 for each light. I have (and i think most others) have blue fluros that run most of the day mine go on at 7:45am and off at 11pm my MH lights start early afternoon and run till 10ish

200x200 was the smallest ultra glass would do, but suggest you give them a ring, they sent mine from hams to wellies so cant see why they wouldnt send direct to you. I had to pay when i ordered it. fireplace and mircowave glass often has a tint to it esp if second hand plus you cant cut toughened glass so unless it is the perfect size your out of luck.

I just got some made by ultra glass in wellington, but think they actually made them in their hamilton factory. just ask for toughend glass, mine were about 200x200x4mm cost about $10 each. your far better to get new glass, I replaced all 3 of mine since it was so cheap, new ones are heaps clearer and less likely to break than old glass. BTW I assume you have turned off the light?? Mine was only on for a few hours while I was at work and it killed a couple of my corals with the UV.

You will get algae in salt water but not the kind you want. getting seaweed/algae from the 'wild' depends on if you go cold water or tropical, none of the local stuff will last long in warm water. if you want to go cold water it needs to be really cold so to be really sucessful you need a chiller. PLus you will need good lighting to grow most seaweeds. most tropical salt water keepers will happily give you sponges and algae/plants to get you started, also cured live rock normally has 'stuff' growing on it.

he made 3 of my tanks, very good. he also makes stands.

that price for dead rock is really good, if possible I would also try and get some live rock, it will speed up the process a little and add criters to the tank. remember also that there are really two cycles in a marine tank, the first is similar to fresh water, amon, N02, NO3. the other one is what the live rock does, NO3 to nitogen gas, during this cycle you will get verious different algae stages, brown (diatom), hair, cyno, etc, cant remember the order , theres some things you can do help with it but really it just takes time (up to nine months). the best way to minimise this cycle is lots of well cured live rock. I dont know what the aqua one pump is but assume it is more of a jet that a wide flow of water, if this is the case the sieo would be a better option, but as pet plant says you take your chances with getting a good one. I have an old one that works fine, its on a timer and turns on/off every 15 minutes been doing this for over a year and always starts. others have them that dont start pretty much as soon as they put them in.

thats alot of water tp push through a SCWD have you checked the specs to see if it will handle it??

have ben trying to get one for my ute, have been quoted $340 down here. cheaper to buy off Trademe Aucklank and drove up to collect it.

sound like your LFS has the right stuff. just putting it in the tank is fine and just add it as you can afford it. The aim for marine is to have zero nitrates doing large water changes often will remove some of the nitrates but the live rock converts it to nitigen gas the rule about how much to have is about having an average skimmer, average bio load, to acheive low/zero nitrate.

if it was white/light gray is probaly is coral rock, the LFS should know, cause you wouldnt want to put it into a fresh water tank it would screw with the PH and other things. you can cure "dead" live rock in your tank but it takes time most of which will be spent with ugly algae problems. The price difference between "live" live rock and "dead" live rock isn't that great, it's getting your hands on it that is the problem. Some people buy a mix of dead and cured live rock which helps with the costs, the down side is you have to stock your tank very slowly while the dead rock cures. The cost comes from shipping it into the country not leaving it still in water for a couple of months while it cures. Regards curing in the sea, one of the best things about marine is that when you look in the tank you never know what your going to see. curing in the sea will seed your rock with all sorts of interesting critters. A couple of weeks ago I was up late and had a look in my tank with a torch, to my surprise there was a crab about the size of a 20cent sitting on top of a rock, never seen it before, and haven't seen it since

rock for local rock pools isn't "live rock" as we use in marine tanks. it doesn't have the pores for the correct bacteria to live in. you only have two options, buy proper live rock, or make it and cure it as per feeler posting, sorry for the bad news, you have to either spend the $ or do the time if it was as easy as collecting rock from the beach we would all be doing it. :lol:

myself I would aviod using the poly, two reasons firstly as feelers says the rock makes up a lot of the filter in the tank (turns N03 in nitogen gas) N03 being very bad for anenomies. secondly alot of the critters you'll end up with are going to want to dig themselves holes into your rock. anenomies can be shipped i had one arrive from auck just a couple of weeks ago. remember most anenomies in tanks are tropical so have been shipped over seas prob 20 hours or more in bags.

not sure about the order of media, every brand is different but sounds about right. some filters run the wool before the bio balls to stop them clogging up so fast. I would remove the ammo chip and replace with more bio media, if your tank is cycled the bio side of the filter should be taking care of any ammonia. As for cleaning, replace the filter wool, it's cheap just buy dacron (sp) from spotlight so not worth cleaning. also clean your filter pads, foam, etc, but unless you can see lots of crud on your bio balls leave them alone. clean everything in a bucket of tank water not tap water. if you do need to do the bio balls leave a week between cleaning them and cleaning the rest of your filter and just give them a quick shake in the water to remove the worst of the crud. also dont forget to clean your hoses every so often and your filter pump every clean, the impella will come out so you can clean it properly. motor and hoses can be cleaned using tap water.

Was huge, it had the chop the other day, was shading too many other corals, he has been selling good size chunks on trademe

Not sure I agree with this, by the time you consider different stocking levels, feeding levels, marketing exagration, quality of and amount of water changes, possible upgrades, etc I think going over size is a very good idea, I dont think you can over skim and you can always turn the air down if your worried about it.

leeches aren't uncommon esp if you friend has been collecting plants or wood from lakes or streams. the only way to know for sure is posting a picture.

all the waste is goodfor the plants, as Ira says you just move the siphon over the surface to remove the stuff sitting on the top.

I dont think human error was the problem, from what he says even if he had left his topup running or it had jammed on etc it couldn't have produced anywhere near enough water to do what happened. Eric is pretty high profile, I can't help wondering if it was misguided eco terriosts? There are some crazy yanks out there

Quote from Erics tread