suphew

Been reports for year's in NZ waters I've even spoken to a couple of divers who have seen them, makes you wonder why MAF still insist on banning their importation.

As big as you can fit, cause you can't over filter but you don't want to under filter also bigger equals more time between cleaning it out. Also think about how long you plan to use the filter, you largely get what you pay for. I have fluval filters that are over 15 years old now, still running fine and I know if I do ever need parts I will ALWAYS be able to get them. There is nothing wrong with cheaper filters but only expect a few years life from them and once the store is out of stock it's unlikely you will be able to get spare parts.

+1

Spoon, it's a piece of cake running two displays off one sump system. Each display will only feed back as mush water as is put into it, so you can just divide the current return pump if it has enough grunt or add a second one.

No help to you, but some one I know just named there new baby girl "Meadow Gardener" :facepalm:

The volume actually makes no difference to the filtration, if fact given the same load more volume will let you get away with less filtration. Discus are meaty food eaters but like very clean water so you would wont to go with more filtration than a standard load in a tank that size. Unless you can spend $700 on an FX5 or similar I'd be looking at building a sump for filtration. I note you have budgeted for the tank but have you considered the other costs? The tank is only going to make up a small part of the total cost. Filtration I have talked about, but there is also heating, a couple of good quality 300w heaters will set you back $200, a deep tank is going to need really strong lighting just so you will be able to see the fish, so T5 or better. You might also want to think about how you are going to do water changes, maybe plumb in an overflow.

The pet centre sells it, sorry can't remember the price off the top of my head. When your buying it check the % on the bottle, $50 per liter isn't cheap if it's only .05% active

There is nothing fancy about either, I used plastic rods I got from "Spotlight" they sell them as curtain pulling rods but some people use PVC pipe. Use a masonry drill bit to make holes and the plastic rod to pin together. Cable ties you just thread though the rock to tie bit together. The beauty of doing it this way is it's easy to take apart if you don't like it. There was a massive thread on reef central about building reef structures, do a bit of a search in the DIY area and you will find it.

Aqua-Kneedit and similar products are okay but a bit fidley, messy, and they don't actually glue rocks together just sort of set round them. Personally I just use plastic rods and/or cable ties. The amount cycled rock helps will depend on how much and how cycled the rock is. A small amount wont help much with the cycle and not much of the life on it will survive the ammonia etc spikes. Pest anemones however seem to have a knack for making it through the cycle so it might be more trouble than it is worth. A 1/3 or more quality live rock would make a big difference speeding the process up but you are still going to have to wait a few weeks before adding fish. One of the advantages of dry rock is you can spend time arranging it and building bridges caves etc and rearranging with out have to worry about it drying out. BtW it pay's to arrange your rock so it only goes 1/3-1/2 way up the tank, the upper half will look a little empty to start with but once the corals start to grow you will be glad of the growing room.

Yes most do. The usual shop rate is about $17kg for cycled rock. As I said the advantage is it is new clean rock and wont be loaded with phosphates and what ever else another inexperienced fish keeper has dumped in there before they failed. The disadvantage is cost, and shop rock is usually not fully matured (ie will have been in water for less than a year or so)

So you'r saying the tank is a week old and has 50+ fish in it? I'm amazed it's just a few guppies having problems.

You do get what you pay for, these pumps are fine for what they are but the build quality and flow rate wont be as good. But the main thing is most of the Tunze pumps are DC where this is an AC pump. Turning DC pumps on doesn't really wear them. An AC pump will have a tiny amount of damage every time you turn it on. I have a tunze pump running my wave box it switches on and off every second and has been doing it for years, an AC pump would die in weeks doing the same thing. Also my pumps are round 10 years old and I have replaced 1 propeller in that time. With cheap pumps I'd be very pleased to get 2 years from one.

Hi Terry, 1) Ryan is correct, but I'd just add, if you get cycled second hand rock be careful, it is often more trouble than it is worth. Sometimes people are selling rock because they have failed and the rock will likely be covered in algae, full of phosphates (or worths medications), and covered in pests. Look for good clean looking rock, ideally with red coraline algae growth which is usually a good sign of health and get it from someone with a good healthy tank that is selling because they have extra. Using dry dead rock is a safer option, but be ready for months and months of ugly algae while it cycles and matures. LFS's with marines also sell cycled live rock which can be a good option because they do it by leaving it in a tank of water so lesser problems with phosphates, med's etc etc 2) I have never used a chiller, at a guess round 10% of reef keepers in NZ do, most of these would be up north where it is warmer. I wouldn't panic too much about this now, you can add it later if needed. The RMS250 has two fans in the back of the lid that remove some of the heat, and you can always point a fan at the tank in the short term if the temp goes up too much. 3) you can cover the tank and turn off the skimmer (which is sucking in air), but your best bet is to just avoid spraying in tat part of the house. I sometimes spray surfaces with ripcord rather than constantly using fly spray. 4) Yes you can in special cases, but after one post you might be pushing it a bit. PM Zev, she is site admin, it might be simpler to just get her to open a new account but she will advise you of the best option. Best advise, ask lots of questions, take your time, don't add anything you don't test for (and don't let a LFS sucker you into thinking you need to add load of expensive chemicals). And lastly before you buy anything (fish, corals, gear, etc), research, ask questions, research again, then sleep on it for a night. Most of us have draws full of crap we should never have brought and spend hours getting fish back out. HTH

Just as much as there would be underlying reasons for needing to do large water changes as was suggested early on in this thread. A rule of thumb has to be kept in context, I'd assume Phoenix44 deals with a lot of people over stocking new tanks, something very common to a person new to the hobby, in that context 30% water changes could be necessary and good advice. The tank in this case isn't over stocked and while still newish, should have finished cycling etc by now, so the usual rule as I understand it should apply. There are risks involved in doing large water changes particularly for beginners, and sometimes suggesting water changing your way out of a problem that should be addressed more directly is also not great advice.

Really, it's been the rule as far as I have known forever? Also not sure why it would vary for tank size, I would think bio-load would be the main determining factor. I think you will find that other than breeders and specialist fish keepers very few people do more than 10-20% per week. With the exception of a Cichlid forum a quick google search results in most beginner sites suggesting 10-15% and a couple that say no more than 25% It would be interesting to run a pole and see how often and how much members here do actually change. Personally change I round 50% once a month but my tank is properly larger than the average (~500l) and breaking it down still works out to about 10% per week.

I'm still wondering why the 30% changes? I don't disagree that a 30% change could be fine, heck some breeders to daily 100% changes, BUT the generally agreed rule is 10% weekly or 20% fortnightly. With out having a nitrate test result or obvious problems why make a fish keepers life harder. A 10% is give or take 1 bucket (okay a bit less but it's no harder to do a fullish bucket than a half bucket). But a 30% change is two buckets, or twice as much work, and for an inexperienced fish keeper can have as many risks as benefits. Siamese fighters are named because the males can fight to the death, but when it come's to other fish their slow moving and flowing fins makes them targets for most other fish. Also they don't compete well for food.

The main purpose of water ager is to remove chlorine which you can usually smell if it is strong in your water supply. Letting the water stand overnight with a small air pump going will also remove the chlorine (but who can be bothered doing that). Water ager will also remove chloramines which wont go from leaving the water to stand. They also neutralize heavy metals and ammonia. With out testing there is no way of knowing how much heavy metals etc your water contains. You only need to add enough water ager for the new water your adding to the tank so you don't need much, and if you buy a good sized bottle it costs very little per water change, well worth peace of mind.

Why such big water changes? Aren't the rules 10% weekly or 20% fortnightly? Tank doesn't seem over loaded and the Rekord has a good filter system. While bigger water changes can be a good thing, they can also be stressful for fish, big Parameter changes, temperature changes, particularly if water conditioner isn't used because the filter will also take a hammering. Ram's are often very sensitive to stress.

Aqua one do a black sand that is nice, your LFS would be able to order it in if they don't already have it.

Frozens won't help, they are an algae eater, you could put in some Nori, if your lucky he might eat it but it's not really in the right form for him to eat. There mouths are designed for scrapping algae of surfaces

The cannister filter idea is a no go, it just couldn't work. With the cost of plumbing and the hassles/risks involved it would be far simpler to get a tank the length of all three and put some divider's in.

Hope your LMB does ok, he's pretty skinny, don't clean you glass for a while it might help.

Seems a shame to let the cats have him when you could cook him up yourself :lol:

Once told a guy I was using it to run my car hahaha

I got bailed up by some local surfers once, not quite sure what they thought my taking 250l of water was going to do to their surfing, but there you go.