suphew

beach side? have you seen the price of ANY property in Auckland! I've just been offered a 50% pay bonus to move up there and it still not worth it

1200meters! Gez if I fell of the sunny deck at the front of my office I would end up in the sea... ok I would have to bounce 5 meters but you get the idea..

Sorry haven;t looked at the pic's yet but will do in a second. There certainly is no harm in feeding extra vegies as long as you don't over feed and are careful to remove any that doesn't get eaten, as you say if one is geting thin it might help. Do you have some wood in the tank? Plec's need this to chew on.

Is this the same tank as your clouding water problem? If so the pea's etc could becausing it. Unless there is a shortage of algae or (maybe) if you are breeding the plec's you shouldn't NEED to give them treats, and remeber fish have very short memory spans.... "oh look a treat!" 8 seconds later... "oh look a treat!" 8 seconds later...

Depends but nzd$60+ each, how much are they there?

Do you know if there is a reason you don't have many pod and other critters in your sump, if they have food they breed pretty fast. Unless you have an idea why they aren't there in force I would assume the population has balanced at that level because of lack of food, therefore....

You should see the ammonia spike with-in a day or two, but it is very short and sometimes not very high, people often miss getting any high readings.

How long has the carbon been in the filter, they only have a limited life (I'm guessing about a month in a hang on filter) after they are 'full' they stop working, and I have heard release chemicals back in to the water.

Haha now I have your interest..... I have two cleaner shrimp, one smaller than the other, alway throught I had one of each sex cause one always has tons of eggs, that seem to grow (the 'eggs' have little black spots, I'm sure are eyes and they get bigger before the release). However I noticed yesterday that the smaller one is now got egg's as well?? Can they be both sexes? does the sex change?

Don't you have a ton of pod's and mytis shrimp in there doing that anyway?

I was a bit surprised about the 1ml thing too when I got salifert test kits but yes it is correct.

But bare bottom tanks are far easier to clean, a major bonus for a pet shop, plus they would likely have one huge central filter so this wouldnt be much of a problem. Personally if I had a choice I would buy fish from a clean bare bottom over a dirty tank with gravel. Of course clean and gravel would be even better....

You could see if your LFS will test your water for you, most do now and either free or only a couple of dollars. The trouble with buying all those test kits is you only do two or three tests while the tank is starting up then never use them again unless you have a problem, which if you do your house keeping and water changes shouldn't happen. Plus the tank IS going to cycle, it has to, its just a matter of how long it takes. If you test you MIGHT be able to start adding more fish in a couple of weeks, if you dont test (and save yourself $100 in test kits) you just have to wait a month to be sure it has cycled. Personally I would wait the extra few weeks and spend the $100 on fish instead of test kits that only get used 2-3 times.

Most oxygen gets in your tank because of the water surface area contact with air. The air pump only helps a little with this because a) a little extra surface area on the outside of each bubble b) because it makes the surface move. It doesn't actually put oxygen into the water. I don't know if oxygen stones work or not and I can't see why you would need them (assuming your tank isn't so over stocked that your fish are using all the oxygen, and if this was the case you would have far bigger problems than lack of oxygen), but anythick that does temperary changes to PH is asking for trouble, fish dont tend to like things changing esp quickly.

If you don't have the test kits, just put 1 or 2 fish in to get the cycle going and wait for at least a month before you add more, and even then only slowly (couple of fish a week). Unless you can test you need to allow plently of time so you can be fairly sure things are going ok. The tank will cycle it's just a question of how long it will take, so if you wait a month then take it slow you will be pretty safe.

It's called a durso standpipe, it helps stop the noise of the water flowing down the overflow pipe. Well worth the trouble.

Just make sure you get the right type of silicon, there are two types so make sure it is maked for aqurium use. (Some also have mould inhibiters in them as well which is bad for tanks).

I'm sure I read that flexible pipes have a far higher frictional resistance, not that I guess it would matter too much with the short plumbing involved in the closed loop. Also the plastic must be softer so the elbows would wear out faster :lol: :lol: :lol:

Need to be a little careful using old glass, it can be harder to cut as it is more brittle and might have other scratches, weak spots etc. Is there any reason you aren't looking at perspex? its far easier to work with, you can cut it with a saw, file it, drill it, etc etc, its no problem to silicon into a sump because you have equal water pressure on each side so there is no strain on it.

Now that is cool! Any of you importers got prices etc yet? PM me if you like. I would be keen looks like a better option than streams.....

Just noticed some interest in daphia from reefers, was wondering if they are ok to feed in marine tanks? And while on the subject what other live foods can be used? Maybe with hints etc like how often they should be feed because of high fat, pollutant problems, etc. Ignoring pods etc, White worms? Brine shimp Mossie larva

That used to happen to my hang filters when the sponge got to clogged. If its been runing for a while I would take the whole thing apart and give it a proper clean. Rinse the sponges in tank water then leave them in some water or in the tank while you take the rest of the filter apart and clean it. Use a 'bottle brush' to clean out the pipes etc, you should also be able to take the impeler out of the motor and clean that as well.

yep you sure do. I have mine after my bubble counter just before my calc reactor. just use an air pump style one.

Skimmer should pick it up to, the couple of times I have had to move the sand round in my sump the skimmer has gone nuts and cleared it pretty quickly. Last big move round I did (moved every peice of equipment in the sump and all the sand) I couldnt see an inch into the display tank, but it was cystal clear the next day