suphew

Theres been a few go on trademe lately, be a good place to look for market prices.

if you work round there be best if you go and see him, he likes having a good chat to people and the longer you talk the cheaper it will get! lol.

Pete at port nick glass in petone is the guy to talk to, built most of the larger tanks in the area and supplies most of the shops. he's in the phone book.

no nothing about arro's but have they checked the water parameters, fish sometimes get skitish if the water is not right.

checked a couple of mine and the only identifing mark is +GF+ on the handle and swiss made, guess this makes them george fisher?

Agree they are getting heap cheaper, the cheaps one tend to be noisy which I guess isn't a problem in a fish room. Plus the installation costs are still the same, normally round $500-$600 I understand.

welcome steve, nice to have another reefer in Wlg there are 5-6 of us locally, im about 20 minutes away from you. couple of us have gotten close to breeding clowns, mine have just started laying again after a tank move, but we have problems getting rotifers in NZ which makes breeding pretty hard

Bill, feel free to call in on the way to one of the club meetings, i'm just down the road at the south end of tawa.

SteveA visited the other day and tried out his new camera on my tank. Fish Very fat Royal grama, was shy to start with, didn't see it for the first couple of weeks, been in the tank 6 months or so has grown half again from when I got him I just got more Pajama Cardinals last week, have gone from 3 to 13, they school really well and look great in a group. The orginal 3 have breed in my tank. Chevon Tang, often described as brown and ugly, I kind of like it but it will lose it's colour as it gets older so I'm told. Corals

both the guys who I know that either supply or have these are banned at the moment, lol. Give radium (sp?) lighting in Auckland a call, I think this is where the came from, they are remote ballists.

hay have you considered going to a single 400w?? normally i wouldn't think this was such a good idea becuase you wouldn't get the spread of light over the whole tank but you could put a bommy in the middle of the tank for the anemone, 400w right over top of it. you can get a new 400w ballist for around $100 and no need to have glass between the bulb and tank with SE bulbs so making a reflector is easy

anemones are as demanding if not more demanding of light then hard corals, and h. magnifica is one of the harder ones to keep (i.e. more light more flow). would be a nice tank, IMHO save the money now and go straight to the 250's I think you would have to upgrade soon if you go with the 150's

my old tank was about the same size only 450 wide (f/b/) I run 2x250w, and it was ok, I tried just 1x250 and it wasn't enough. so I'm guessing youll need atleast 2x150's

i'm a little confused, I understood from other posts that siphon systems were as safe, easier to tune, less complex, and cheaper than durso's?? Layton cracker tel Classic stuff, love it, think I will stick with the seriously flawed durso for now.

cheap enough from spotlight

fish often get larger in the wild and of course the genes form the parents makes a difference so there is no way to give absolute numbers. the size quoted is often the max you should expect a fish to get to, but is some times the average size. your best bet is to check a few sites to get an idea.

I used 32mm pressure plumbing, I think it was over kill but 20mm would have been far to small for me. I figured I could alway reduce plumbing to match the pump etc but can't increase the size if I found I needed to.

yes they can, nitrate is the last stage of the bacteria cycle and is only removed by plants using it for food or water changes, is in fact the main reason for doing water changes. Now your tank has been set up for a while I dont know that you need to worry to much about getting a test kit. as long as you dont over stock, dont have messy fish, and do regurlar water changes is shouldnt ever be a problem.

as i understand it (and could be wrong) it isn't the volume of crud collected that the contact time changes but what type of proteins, some take longer to 'attach' to the surface of the bubble. so if you run too much water some protiens don't have time to get skimmed, if you run it too slow you don't process as much water as you could be.

I only have sponges growing in unlit parts of the tank, like under rocks and in the sump. if yours are growing in the open where you can see them maybe you dont have enough light?

stick with the recommended, there is a correct amount of time the bubbles need to be in contact with the water, increasing flow will decrease the contact time so it wont work as well.

because you rock was uncured and dead you have to expect a long period of algae. all the above will help but you still have to go through the process. keep a close eye on your anenome they are one of the more difficult animals to keep and generally not recommended to go in new tanks. it might be ok, but i would have a backup plan, i.e. see if there is someone near by who will put it in their tank for a few months.

Sweet, your onto it then, not a brand I have seen, hence my confusion.

you should be testing with just tank water, not sure why your are mixing it with tap?? from what you say it sounds very high, I would do a big water change anyway because it can do no harm only good. If you cant figure out the instructions on your test kit take it back to the shop with some of your tank water and get them to show you how to do it, I would also get them to test it using there own test kit so you know if yours is reading correctly.

I assume the phos remover is a liquid? if so I dont know how well it will work (poorly from what I have read and seen) keep a close eye on your filter because it might clog up with dead alage. A better option to remove PO4 is a resin, it doesn't cost much will last longer and actually works :lol: just put it in your filter or hand a bag of it in a high flow area maybe your feeding too much to have PO4 problems?? You have been doing it for a while so I wouldn't think thats your problem, do you feed frozen or live feed? this tends to be high in PO4. also didnt see what sort of filter you are using? UGF? maybe it is full of crap and need a good clean out.