suphew

Wow thats a really nice looking setup. Have you done lots of research on plant requirements? Some of the plants you have in there are going to need a lot of light and proberly, fertilizer and CO2 to do well. General rule of thumb is if a plant has red leaves it will need very strong light, and you will have to balance the other two (fert/co2) to match or the plants still wont grow and you will get algae.

I don't think it is quite as simple as that, needlewheel skimmers are popular in NZ, but this isn't true in every country, and I don't think it is safe to say "generally regarded as doing a better job". If you use the deltec config as a model, a skimmer that size would need maybe 4 pumps, even if it only needed 2, they cost $500-$600 each for an ehiem needle wheel pump (correct me if I'm wrong here, have never actually purchased one). You could get a large lauguna or iwaki pump to drive a venturi for half that. And regards power 1260 x 2 x 40w (?) = 80w Laguna 7 = 100w. Maybe my numbers for power are wrong, even if the venturi skimmer uses 100w more power, a tank that needs a skimmer this big is surely going to be using at least 1000w of light plus all the other power hungry stuff, does an extra 100w really make any difference??

I have to agree with Alan, it looks alot like the new leafs did on my E. Orisis, hence my post. But either way, iisfaq, it just depends if it is a new leaf or not, which only you can answer. If your not sure you could leave it a few days and see if it grows (and if the condisions are right it will grow really fast) or you do as DJ says and chop the whole top off the plant. Either way its not going to hurt the plant. By the way if it is a red melon sword (and alot of other swords to) it will get quite large I had mine in a 4 foot tank and it took over a 1/4 of it. If you haven't given it lots of room now would be a good time to move it. If you do move it and haven't done so already cut the roots so they are only a couple of inches long, it will take a little longer for it to really start growing strongly again but you will get far better root structure. Good luck.

I'm in brisbane later this week for work, so will miss another meeting but might be at M&J's tonight so will drop it off. Think the thickness is around 10-12mm, it's been 6 months or so since I looked at it sorry

Damn beat me by a minute to! Are you sure the leaf in the picture isn't a new one? Its a bit hard to tell but newer leaves are often reddy brown, there are no holes or different coloured patches etc which makes it look like a new one to me?

It's not uncommon for swords to die off when they first go into tank. They are often grown with only there roots submerged in water, this makes them grow faster, requires less light, stops algae in the leaves etc. The down side is the leaves produced out of the wtaer are different from submersed leaves (normally small and harder), they will quickly die off and be replaced with new ones. Just keep an eye on the other plants, there will always be bits that are dieing, is it possible that you have only noticed it after looking more closly because of your sword?? If you still think this might be more than just a little normal die off post some more details of your tank, size, lights, substrate, additives, etc.

I have a peice you can have "aquired" it for the same reason it's about 250 dia and 2 meters or so long. Problem I discovered is that usless you know some one (which I don't) the rest of the plumbing cost soooooo much its just not worth it (like $100 for end caps that size), then you need to add on the cost of pumps, etc etc, it would easy set you back a couple of thousand. You can save yourself the cost of pumps by using air driven, which a lot of the DIY guys in the US do, but you would need a massive air pump and have to run 6-12 ofv the longest/biggest wooden air stones you can get and have to replace them every month or so.... Sorry dude there's no cheap answer, IMHO you best bet for bang for $ is the beckett from ocean werx like Chim says. Through it might pay to wait a couple or 3 weeks till those that have been ordered arrive and are run for a bit. Anyway back to the point, if you have a plan and still want to give it a go you can have the pipe, let me know if you need me to messure it etc.

They only need to be replace when they start to fall apart (which is never, or years atleast!) Just rinse using tank water as Caryl said, depending of the filter size number of fish, tank size etc, you might need to do this weekly, monthly, yearly,..... just keep an eye on the amount of flow coming out of your filter.

Both my tank (old and new) are 600mm high, I can only just comfitably reach the bottom, I also run 250w Mh and wouldn't like to go much deeper with out moving up to 400's. But really when it comes down to it, the answer is determined by how much money your willing to spend I recon. I don't think there would be any argument that the deeper (higher) the tank the better its looks but how much is reasonable (for you) to spend on lights (fittings/power/bulbs)

I know its nice to say but you do have your own source....... Same way as the fish do.

On anolgue phones there is a 50v (dc I think) on the line that makes it ring. You need to find out what sort of outlets you have, there is a 2 wire configuartion and a 4 wire (4 wire isn't common now, but if you using an old socket it might be 4 wire. The 4 wire setup has the ring tone (ie 50v) on seperate lines from the voice, therefore if your using a 4 wire socket with a 2 wire system you will get the dial tone but no ringing. There is one other possiblilty I can think of, on the bottom of your phone there is an RAL number, basically this number equates to the amount of power the phone needs to ring/fuction properly, the way it works is you add all the RAL number of all your phones together and they have to total up to less tham 5 (I think, gezz it's been years since I've dealt with this stuff! So someoone please correct me if I get it wrong)

Yes but its all about getting theright sized transformer. eg the mains power out on the bigger lines is 11,000v those big green boxes either on the side of the road or at the top of power poles are stepdown transformers converting it to 240v. So the point is you just have to get a big enough transformer so that it doesn't get too hot running all day.

What happened to innocent till proven guilty? The only thing I can see that the guy has done wrong is not speak english very well. Come on he used the word cage instead of seperator, or breeding net, and you guys are making death threats!

No because your using the same amount of energy to do the same job. But it also cost you some energy to do the step down as well.

He posted explaining what he was doing at 1:53 on the 19th, he then posted a couple more times asking people to actually read his post, then at 5:34 on the 19th this comment "I'll leave you in there until you die then we can discuss it in hell..." was made by someone in NZL. I think you all owe him an apology, at the very least.

Always going to need to top up anyway, arn't you? It's just the amount that would change.

Bit like a ski season pass, only 5 times (or so) the cost of a day pass, great if you live up that way, bit of a risk if you dont

I think you guys need to look a bit harder at what he is doing and how what you have been saying comes across. Which is basically like a bunch of red necks. I will admit he is having some problems with his english which is causing him problems explaining himself, but I have seen some pretty "retarted" questions and poor english (myself included) on this site, and english is the first language for most of us. As I understand it he is putting the clown fish into holding pens ("cages") while he is acclimitizing them to aquaruim life, this doesn't seem at all unreasonible to me, he is doing this as a favour for friends so that he can increase their chances of breeding. and so reducing the need to remove fish from the reefs. What is so wrong about this?? I haven't seen the QT systems used in NZ but imagine there are far more fish (including clowns) packed into tanks here than what he is doing.

If this was the case why would you ever use Phos-sorb or vodka? Wouldn't you just wait for it to go as part of the cycle. What about phosphates in food, etc. I don't know and am happy to admit that I'm no expert (not even close) but I would be willing to bet that there is far more phosphate in food and topup water, etc etc than would ever leach from the PVC? Are you saying "huh?" cause you didn't make those statements regards DSB's? (I'll say sorry now if I got that wrong), or because you dont understand my statement, it seemed pretty simple to me... Again, how is vodka going to "fix the real problem" and phos-sorb or similar wont?? If it is "unnecessary" to use phos-sorb why would it be necessary to use vodka. Neither of them are going to fix the problem, you still have to put food in. My point is that vodka is an unknown and possibly risky option where as rowaphos is pretty well understood.

So if thats the case, in a new tank, vodka isn't going to be a long term solution? Cause the phos going to keep leaching, and and theres some limit to how long you can do this because of bacterial diversity, so what are you going to acheive? A cleaner looking cycling tank? Plus is it going to help with diatoms anyway? Which from what I have seen are the main problem in new systems (for the first 3-4 months anyway). But besides this I'm kind of surprised after all the debate regarding the "possible" risks of running a DSB, that you guys are so keen to use a system that so unknown. Wouldn't it be far better and safer to just go with the tried and true and run rowaphos or some other phos-sorb product?

If theres no live stock in the tank wheres all the phosphate and nitrate coming from? There could be a bit of nitrate from stuff dieing off on the live rock (assuming it isn't completely cured) but this should only last a week or two.

Costs me $25 for my one, think it is about 4-5kg.

But your no expert either aye? So we should take what your saying with a grain of salt?? So is that a grain of salt, of a grain of salt, of a grain of salt?? At this rate we'll be able to make a couple of liters of ASW out of this thread before too long! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Can't really see what difference this makes to aquascaping. Are you concerned about plants that need low PH? I would be surprised if it really make that much difference to them? I would think that correct amounts of neutients, light and CO2, would be far more important. If you want softer water for say amazon type plants the eaziest way I have found is to use rain water, just adjust the amount (tap vs rain) till it settles down to the softness you want.

If you care enough about the PH to adjust and test it then you proberly need to worry about the KH as well. For two reasons firstly because KH buffers PH (i.e. keeps it stable) if your KH isn't about right your PH will be forever changing (will even change alot during the course of a day as lights etc can affect it) changing PH is not so go for the fish. Secondly fish types that care about PH levels tend to also like either hard (high KH) or soft (low KH) water as much as they like the high/low PH. But in general there arn't that many fish that require correct levels of PH/KH to do fine, even discus unless you are trying to breed them are quite happy at normal neutualish levels