suphew

must be the wind in wellies, I use rain water too. I checked with nwia, they said wellington rain water was very low risk.

You are correct but there are two points to consider, first the more devices you have (restrictions) the less flow you will get from your return. Therefore you will require a big pump that costs more to run. The second and more important is return's will syphon when the power goes out, therefore you need all the return outlets to be as high in the tank as reasonable plus ideally have anti-syphon holes in each either above or just below the water line. Any water above your outlets or anti-syphon holes will go to the sump when the pumps is off.

There are advantages and disadvanages to corner and square over flows. Corner, less space to work in, less area for water flow over the top. But you only have to set it up once, you will gain more space in the tank, plus the square ones are harder to aquascape around. I would advise you leave the over flow outlet in the bottom of the tank that way you can leave the bottom join in your stand pipe unglued so you can pull it out if you need to, I guess you could do this with a side exit but its would make it harder, and add atleast two extra bends to your costs. The return pump is the one that is going to be doing all the work (pushing water up hill), if it was me I wouldn't put anything on that is going to restrict the flow, so would run it into a sea swirl.

A lot of the treatments have formalin in them. But I still think the ground up pill system is better because the treatment is all in the food so very little ends up in the tank and filter etc. I would also treat all your fish, even if they are in seperate tanks there is a good chance that you have transfered the worms etc on nets, your hands etc. Like most fish problems good healthy fish often don't show any signs but chances are all well have it and will just re-infect any weak, stressed fish.

Gold fish release a chemical that slows/stops there growth, they they are the only fish that I know off. Do you know anyone with a tank that has been setup for a while? if at all possible the best thing you could do is swap filters with them for a couple of weeks, this will put a mature filter in your tank and cycle your tank in no time, plus will give your filter a chance to mature (cycle) in an already cycled tank. Next best option would be to swap some media out of their filter, dont clean it just take it out and keep it wet and put it in your filter. I would at very least ask for your money back on the fish that have died (and sorry but there is a high chance you will lose some more), you are with-in your rights to do this because they have given you bad advise. I would advise you to take back the loaches and some of the others if you can. Once the tank has cycled your can have a FEW of the larger fish, but this will reduce how many smaller fish you can have. [edit=cees]11:16 22-05-05[/edit]

Sorry don't know about this treatment, but I use dog or cat worming tablets. Just ground up and added to their food, works for me. How often are you treating them? You tank is a closed system so you should only need to treat new fish or if you see a problem. I don't like adding any treatments unless I need to incase it affects the filters.

There is always a way to get into the impeller, becuase it has to be cleaned. You will also need to pull out the impeller and clean the hole and shaft, the shaft normally comes out to to make cleaning easier. Often the plate over the impeller just does a 1/4 or 1/8 turn then pulls off. When you pull the impeller out it will feel like it is being pulled back in,this is just the magnet. Once you have the impeller cleaned put it onto the shaft and see if there is much sideways movement, this is where they ware out and what generally causes the noise, you will see what I mean when you get it apart.

How long has the tank been setup? Thats a lot of fish if the tank is new (i.e. less than a month old). A new tank takes time to cycle, which basically means the bacteria that eat the fish and food waste need to grow, if you add too many fish to quickly the water gets over loaded and it can kill or damage this fish. If your tank water is ok and this fish isn't being hassled anymore it has a good chance of making it. It only take a few days for their fins to grow back.

One other thing, if you don't have a good diffuser for your CO2, you can hook the CO2 in to the venturi fitting. I've done it and it works well, but you need a bubble counter so you can see how much is going in.

Some fish like more or less current, my tetras spend most of their time swimming in the filters outputs at one end of the tank, my discus almost never go down that end and spend their time in the filter intake end where there is far less current. Out of interest, I actually setup my filter this way to acheive that result, i.e. so I would see more of the Discus. It's not so good for the tank because the water dumps onto a log and in the middle of all my plants so doesn't move the rubbish off the bottom as much as it could.

Dump the UGF, as it will limit the plants you can grow. I strongly suggest you put in two smaller external filters instead of one larger (or since you already have one just get another and run them both on the same tank). I dont think I would worry about trying to get a filter with heater build in, no matter what the shops tell you heaters ALWAYS fail sooner or later, in the end it would be a waste of the extra money. Of course if the filter takes a very standard heater so you can replace it then thats a different story. I always try and run two heaters, just so that if one fails you have a back up. It makes no difference to the efficiency etc, no matter what it takes X amount of power to heat X amount of water doesn't matter if you have 1 or 20 heaters.

I have a mature tank (2 years old?) with no algae, I dont even no where my magnet is now. I beleive this is because, 1) I added all the fertiliser etc to the substrate when I setup the tank and never add any to the water, 2) I run two largeish external filters, 3) I never feed my bristle nose plec's and they breed like crazy

It not abnormal for this to happen in a new tank, as Brian says check that there are no dead fish (just after a water change is a good time to look because the water will be less cloudy) otherwise the best thing to do is just wait, it will suddenly start to disappear, it might only take a week but will sometimes take a while. Do the water changes, you might also want to look reducing your feeding and don't add any more fish. Algae rid products wont really help because you not removing the cause of the algae so it might help clear the water for a day but in the end you will just be wasting your money. Good move getting a second filter, do leave them both running, but keep an eye on them, if the algae is really thick it will block up the filter wool and/or sponge, when you clean them just clean one filter then wait a week or so beofre cleaning the other. When you do clean them just give then a VERY light rinse in fish tank water you only want to remove the algae thats blocking the water flow and not hurt the good bacteria that is growing.

Well done for waiting, we all know how tempting it is to put fish into a new tank.

tile cutter, either borrow, beg, steal, a little table one or buy a diamond saw blade for an angle grinder, they are about $20, next option would be one of those brick cutting chisle things you hit with a hammer. Shame your not in Wlg I could have lent you any of the above!

Working with it at school (many years ago now) we used fine saws (like hacksaws) and metal files, also make sure you support the side of your cuts so it cant bend and snap. It really easy stuff to work with if you are sensible.

Where are you from, out of interest? I assume your coming from oversea's and if your bringing house hold goods, I'd stongly suggest you bring as much hardware as you reasonably can (skimmer, etc) most gear here is imported at a very low volume or as a one off and so the shipping costs are huge. for example one of the locals purchased an RO water filter recently I think he paid around usd$150 for the unit but the shipping was another usd$100 so almost doubled the price, and even at that price it was still cheaper the sourcing locally. As far as getting stuff from with-in NZ most of the shops either login here or there staff do, just post for anything you are looking for. Also check out the commercial section for contacts.

The shop in Kapiti is the one attached to and at the back of the mall, there is anoth shop round there that had marine tank, had no skimmer and was so dirty I could hardly see the one sick looking fish they had it

Pethouse, the guy that owns it is really nice, but very old school, and doesn't know much about coral, take all his advise with a grain of salt

There is one shop in Kapiti that has a very limited stock (but will order stuff in), he has one large fish only tank and a couple of nano's that he puts corals in waiting for sale (NB often most of his stuff is pre-sold because he orders in only what he know people are looking for), and one other in the Hutt that sometimes has things like sand and salt but otherwise will also order things in. Most of us tend to buy stuff from people we meet here, or via the internet. Be great to have another marine keeper in Wlg, we also swap frags etc between us locally and combine orders from Auckland to save shipping costs. There is no formal reef club, the Kapiti fish club is great and a few salties belong, but otherwise we generally know each other and visit from time to time If your planning on purchase large amount of rock etc to get started I would suggest you plan a trip and transport it yourself, the shipping costs are huge for heavy stuff same day.

I would be surprised if amonia would build up so fast in a tank with only two neons (unless it was very small). I think it was more likely one of 1) Chlorine in the water, did you use tap water? Did you let it sit over night before adding fish? Chlorine will kill fish and takes 12-24 hours to get out of tap water if left to sit. 2) Incorrect temperature, your temp should be at about 24 degrees cent, but can be so low as 20 and as high as 28 with out problems. Quick changes in temp will also kill the fish. 3) Soap, bleach, etc in the tank, did you clean anything that went into the tank? 4) Fish not accliatised correctly. Fish need time to adjust to the temp and water parameters of your tank, to do this you need to float the bag with fish into in the tank for 15 minutes, then slowly add water from the tank, say 1/4 cup every 5-10 minutes for 1/2 hour.

I have a couple of tubes over my main tank with Arcadia fittings running them, one of the tubes has been knocked into the tank a few times now. I freaked the first time it happened but after carefully turning off all the power then removing it I opened it up and found to totally dry, ever since I just pull it out by the cord (just in case) and put it back on the tank.

I think you would find that manually having to add CO2 would become a pain, plus what happens when your on holiday or even at work, I would go with Ballistic's suggestion and add a bubble counter there are plans for DIY counters on reefcentral.com, they are really simple. I just made one for myself using a hospital drip and filling the drip counter part with water, and bending the tubing on the CO2 feed up past the main drip part so the water doesn't drain back when it runs out of gas. As far as the diffuser I would be looking at something that was more actively mixing the CO2 and water, with the contact area being so small I'd be surprised if it helped much. Most commercial diffusers force the CO2 bubble to follow a long path in water to get them to mix. I have to DIY suggestions, I have used both to good affect 1) used a piece of 1inch tube (from an UFG uplift) about 4-5 inches long, feed the tube from the CO2 down the middle then wrapped it round the outside in a sprial going back up. I connected the CO2 tube to the larger using cable ties. The clever part is to put a small hole near the point where the CO2 tube reaches the bottom and starts to sprial back up. This hole allows the CO2 to draw water in as it goes past. With mine I could see the bubble of CO2 shrink as it traveled up the tube and diffused in the water, there was no bubble by the time it reached the end. NB: doing it this way also saves you making a bubble counter because you can see the bubble going up the tube. 2) The best diffuser I setup was to put a hole in the start of the return hose from my external filter (I actually put the hole in the rubber part that holds the hose in place so it had a good seal) In the hole I pushed a plastic air line joiner thing and connected the CO2 to this, by the time the CO2 had worked its way up the hose and into the tank it was well mixed. As an aside do you have any air bubble things running in the tank? If so you might want to think about taking them out, the surface turbulance and air movement will drive the CO2 out of your water.

Is there a reason for your suggesting such a small gap between baffles? I would have throught that you would want a gap at least big enough so you could get your hand in to clean them or remove anything that get trapped?

I know this is how Pies does it, wish I could get a power head into my topup. At the moment I'm try to decide if I should invest in a new topup container with a wide mouth so I can put a pump in or just go the whole hog and use my 60 drum outside and run a longer tube in the window. Using the bigger container would save me having to fill it so much (weekly job at the moment) but its too heavy to move full of water so I would have to carry water to it which would be a pain.