suphew

Have you tested your pH at different times of the day, eg morning then evening, if not it might be appearing to be stable but actually swinging during the day

Also you could try a test fish or two in the infected setup to see if it is clear, some fish well survive the infection but become carriers

I used a Soda stream bottle for a while, the adaptor was made for me by a friend who was boiler cert'ed engineer, but I don't think it would be hard to sort out. If I was you I'd start by visiting a gas bottle certifier and se if they can help you out. The Needle valve is the last stage in slowing down and controlling the gas flow rate. Can be part of the regulator but usually not. There are few ways to work it out, but just watching what happens in the tank (plant growth) is the best/simplest way. Next option would be to monitor the pH No, plants use far less CO2 at night so in some ways you don't need to add it but IMO the cost of a solenoid doesn't justify the gain. Some say the pH change overnight if you leave the CO2 on is a bad thing, but turning the CO2 off will cause just as big (if not bigger) changes in pH, just in the other direction. Do you know Fluval have just brought out a couple of cheap CO2 systems. I've had a good play the bigger 88gm unit and it works well, the kit will cost you $200 and comes with a disposable bottle, combo reg/needle valve, bubble counter, ceramic defuser, and tubing. A bargin since a regular alone will cost you over $100 for a normal (or soda stream) bottle.

Until things change I can see this just getting worse, when I worked in a office we used to have a qualified bio-chemist manning a phone taking bookings. For years there has been this push for university and a "knowledge economy" mean while less and less people are doing trades etc. Nurses and Teachers have been the latest to go from being tech courses to being degree courses. It's time NZ stopped training people to be accountants so they can work in a call center

I'm really sorry to read this, unfortunately it's the fault of the school, not NCEA. It's very easy to have reader/writers to help with exams, NZQA don't penalize for this in fact they encourage it since it give's a fair better measure of what your son could do rather than if he can write tidy. Where the system failed him was the school not either telling him he had the option or arranging it for him. But at least with NCEA all isn't lost, because it's credit based all your son has to do is make up the few credits he need, most school's offer catch up classes of the Christmas holidays to do this, or 1 or 2 correspondence courses. Under the old system he would have needed to redo the whole years study.

Bit of advise to anyone who's mark was close to one of the cut offs, is to ask for a reassessment. It used to be policy that they would never put a mark down so you can't be worse off, but there's a good chance you might be better off. Plus if they do change your mark you will get your money back.

I think you'll find it wasn't the class average but the group she was marked with, each marker will mark easier or harder, it's human nature, so they are adjusted at marker level to match the rest of the markers. Plus a certain % of the people sitting the exam need to pass, if they don't the exam was too hard, if too many pass, the exam was too easy so the group as a whole is adjusted.

I worked for NZQA and managed the data for NCEA a couple of years ago. It does take a while to get your head round, but it's actually a good system. Or at least would have been if it wasn't changed because people needed it to fit with the old school 5th form etc system. NCEA wasn't designed to fit into 'years' but to allow you to move up levels at the rate that suited you, and then carry on to higher level's once school wasn't enough. Also the Universities refused it come on board with the system. Students should have been able to reach level 4 and just seamlessly carry on into Universities. UE was tacked onto the end of NCEA because of this. Under the old system you could study hard all year then have a bad day and fail. Or you could do what I did and learn nothing all year, cram for a couple of weeks and pass. It also judged you on a small sample (what they choose to cover in the exam) if you missed or didn't under stand those parts, fail. And then there was the lack of choices, you got to pick 5 (or 6 if you were smart) subjects, and was it.

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It's likely you had algae in the water that was using up all the nutrients, killing the algae would stop it being consumed and the dieing algae would also add to it. Blanket weeds feeds by pulling it's nutrients directly from the water unlike most plants that have there roots in substrate

Plus's for Fluvals There is just have a lever to lift then the whole tap unit comes off in one lot, no taps or treaded bits to jam or break. The seal fits inside the bucket, rather than on the top so it doesn't rely even or correct pressure to seal properly. The Fluval hoses are far more flexible and they aren't clear so don't get algae build up inside. The priming pump is one of the few types I've seen that actually work. In the unlikely event that a Fluval does leak you see it straight away, some other brands like some of the ehiems have a big empty space in the top that has to fill with water before it starts coming out and you see it. The rectangular shape fits in cabinets better than round canisters. Because of the down one side and up the other design the sponges (mechanical filtration) in fluvals can be removed and cleaned with out needing to disturb any of the other filter media. There is zero wasted space inside the filter because there is no need for a pipe to run water to the bottom. Other than the FX5 they come with good quality ceramic noodles rather than plastic balls that cheap filters often have I'm sure there are other things like the volume of media and motor life, but the above are just the things I noticed using fluvals.

Again it depends what you are trying to do. But UV is only limited use for treating sick fish (unless you put the sick through the UV :nilly: ). I'm getting the feeling you like the idea of UV and are trying to find a reason to have one, really UV should be left to people clearing green ponds and large scale setups thats have lots of fish entering and leaving.

I think I'd save my money, if you are getting any reading for Ammonia or Nitrate it is too much it doesn't really matter what the reading is, the other tests aren't much use for salt water. High pH is about the only one you could use and people generally cause themselves more problems testing pH and trying to fix it than if they don't know what it is. Regular water changes will ensure your Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium levels are correct. If you have these 3 right your pH will be fine.

Because it de-gases so fast, it's needs to be stored under pressure as well for the same reason. Window cleaner on the other hand...

Cause they are pain to keep, the tank needs to be large and have a huge skimmer/filtration system because they are big eaters, generally only eat live food (and fresh water fish aren't good for them long term), can have very few tanks mates. But mostly cause MAF won't care where you got it

Some UV information http://www.fishlore.com/uv_sterilizer.htm The thing to remember about UV sterilzers is that they only affect what passes through them, running one on a single tank is all but useless because there is no way to get all the water through the UV, at best you might slow parasites down. Running a sump system or multiple connected tanks on the other hand they are a great idea and can be very affective at stopping transfer between tanks.

Coke once opened will go flat in a few days, or at least with-in a few weeks. Windows cleaner will last years with out loosing strength. Also oxygen and carbon dioxide reach a saturation level where you just can't add it faster than it will de-gas, because ammonia doesn't de-gas anywhere near as fast the levels keep building, if they didn't then it wouldn't ever be a problem in fish tanks

Ammo lock doesn't 'lock' ammonia, just changes the balance so there is more non-toxic ionized ammonium (NH4) which still produces a reading on most test kits and can still be utilized by bacteria as a food source just as ammonia would. If this wasn't the case then fish keepers that use products like Cycle would never cycle their filters. Ammonia and carbon dioxide may behave in a similar fashion, but how readily this happens is relevant, if ammonia 'de-gassed' as readily as CO2 then household cleaners would have a very short shelf life and I assume be pretty dangerous to keep in a cupboard. It's like how quickly a bottle of opened coke will go flat compared to how quickly a bottle of window cleaner will loose it's strength

Lowering excess CO2 with water movement is pretty well known, but I haven't heard of removing ammonia this way before, do you have any information on how this works? Here's a link to some simple information about ammonia http://theaquariumwiki.com/Ammonia And information on ammo lock http://cms.marsfishcare.com/files/scien ... .1.081.pdf

and what do you want it to do?

Interested to know why you say ammonia spikes happen more often in the evening? I thought Ammonia has to build up, bacteria need time to break solid waste down into ammonia, and fish continually excrete it. Also not sure how an air line helps with ammonia, I understand it might put a little more O2 in the water, but the problem the fish not being able to use it because of burnt gills, and being unable to excrete there own ammonia, not lack of O2. If ammonia is the suspected issue, the best course of action is either cycle or ammo lock (or a similar product), both will covert the ammonia to non toxic ammonium. The next best option is water changes. Most good LFS's will test your water for you, often for free, at the moment your playing a guessing game, If you have some cycle etc dump it in cause it can't hurt, and get your water tested.

The contacts have to be closed for the heater to operate, the light only comes on when the heater is operating, therefore the contacts would have to be closed and could be arcing. Heaters usually fail because of the contacts, they either fuse closed because of the arcing, or the arcing makes the contacts dirty so they don't conduct, I've pulled two apart in the last couple of weeks that were fused on, both had over heated tanks.

You need to give a bit more information. What are you planning on using it for, tank or pond, fresh or salt, what volume of water, what are you trying to achieve (fix), internal or inline, what budget do you have.

If it's flickering then it's likely you wont here the heater switch on and off because the bit that makes the noise wont actually be moving it will be the contacts arcing. A heater is one thing you don't want to muck round with cause they can kill your fish pretty quickly, I'd replace it as soon as you can. Also it's a great idea to use 2 heaters that are 1/2 the size you need that way if one fails things don't go pear shaped so fast.

Be careful when printing colour charts, the colours can come out quite different on different printers.