suphew

If you want to grow anything other than basic plants (low light) plants I would suggest 2 double 4 foot light (i.e. 4 tube in total) you might also want to look at T5 lights, or power compact, etc etc, read the postings there plently of info around. The more light you have the better depending on the $ you can offord, dont forget to look into the cost of replacement tubes/bulb as well cause they all need to be replaced every 6-12months. I favour putting in two smaller filters over one larger, I use two fluval 204's in my 4ft and they work well. The 204's will cost the same or less than a 404's becuase they are more commonly sold, animates almost always have them on sale for $150 -$200. The benefit of two filters are, redunacy, you can clean one at a time, you can spread the in/outputs, capacity (2 x 204 being larger and pumping more water than 1 x 404). You can also buy one now if $ is problem then add another later once your tank is cycled and you start adding more fish. Oh and lastly if you need to set up another tank you can just move a filter over and the tank is cycled almost instantly. Which raises another point, if you can buy one filter asap and start running it on your small tank, this will get the filter cycled and make starting up your new tank a lot easier

I have read a bit about people with goldfish in the UK having there ponds completely ice over for weeks with no problems. As the water gets cooler they start to slow right down and pretty much hibernate, the only advise they gave was to stop feeding once the temp gets below about 10 degrees cause the goldfish stop eating and the food just rots. I have wintered my goldfish (althrough they are just plain old style) and WCMM's outside with no problems althrough I dont think my pond has ever frozen over.

I looked into this for a fresh water planted tank, but quickly decided it wasn't worth the cost, hassle, difficulty of servicing, safty risk, etcetcetc. Not sure why you would want to do it for a marine setup? Its suppost to help in planted tanks by creating very slow water currents through the plant roots or some such (theres a bit of debate over the whole idea), other than hiding the header I cant see any pluses?

CO2 diffuser

I have feed CO2 into the air intake hole on power heads before, but the best I ever managed was to drill a hole close to the pump end on an external filter outlet hose, push in one of those air line joiner thingies and connect the CO2, it was well defused by the time it can out into the tank. Just make sure the CO2 unit is above the tank level so you don't get a syphon when your gas runs out.

You need to calculate the number of fish based on the full grown size not the current size UNLESS you plan on upgrading the tank size VERY soon because fish grow pretty quick. I dont think the PH is THAT critical for Cichlids, as long as you know you are in the right ball park you dont need to be exact. DO vacuum when you do the water change but just do the top 1/2 - 1cm or so of gravel, deeper down there could be nasty stuff that you don't want to stir up into the water. This is normal, the plants will enjoy it being there.

Hi Fay, what sort of queen is it? I've got one of those little queen turbos that I got given but never plugged it in cause I didn't think it was worth it. I run a berlin (now waiting for the flaming) I'm getting 100-150mil per week from my approx 400L setup.

I wouldn't restrict the flow out of your filter, it will reduce the effectiveness of the filter and ware the pump out faster. Its a good idea having the out put at the opposite end of the tank. The water flow shouldn't be a problem for your fish, remember they come from streams etc that have natural water flow all the time. Also the flow helps pick up the rubbish sitting on the gravel and get it into the filter. But if you are worried just direct the output towards the glass or similar.

I have a low pressure hot water system with a couple of huge header tanks. My bath room also has low pressure cold fed from the same header tank. With my high pressure cold I can smell the chlorine but not the low, so if your on low pressure water and have a header tank... But in saying that for my main fresh water tank I use hot water from the bath room to warm it, and the rest 50/50 rain water and chlorinated water from the hose. I change about 50% of my water at a time. So that equates to about 20% chlorinated water. I have never used chemicals or filters to remove chlorine in any of my tanks, I have only once had a problem and that was due to leaving the hose running in my goldfish pond over night cause I forgot it, don't know if it was the chlorine that killed the fish but don't really know what else it would have been. The water was pretty clear afterwards through!!

How about some pics guys?? I had (from memory) a 4 foot cold water marine 20 odd years ago, ran it for about a year. Funny thing was the inverts lived with no problems, but the fish died with-in a few months.

Mine came from Auckland, but mark got one form the same supplier a couple of days before mine and his is fine. Think it was just bad luck.

Haha, no was a good deal on the fish. Was dead when I got home last night. Problem now is its under all my live rock, no way of getting the body out unless I tear down the tank, so I guess its worm food. Hope it doesn't hurt the rest of the tank too much.

Ive heard that bio wheels are good but very noisy. I think a good trickle fither would be better, same princible (i.e. large air to water volume) but far larger media volume. To me its like comparing a hang-on to a external cannister. That little gravel is a bare bottom tank with a little cover to stop it looking ugly. I can't see how you could hold plants down let alone grow them. I suspect if they have plants they are in pots.

RIP

Add your location to your profile, not much point asking for supplier locations if no one knows where you are. Are your numbers correct?? Im having trouble picturing the shape but it is gona be HUGE, thats floor to ceiling plus sun for an average house! Do you have a scuba set for when you drop that frag??

For a cheap starter you could try a few different kelvin rated bulbs. First I would look at would be 14000k or 20000k, they will look alot more blue. Water absorbs (if that is the right word) red wavelength light the most so blue light might work better. Try visiting a light blub specialist instead of your LFS, theres a guy in central Wellington called 'the light bulb man' who sells the same tubes as the LFS but at about 1/2 the price (round $25 each) you might get that past the wife? Next step is to upgrade the fittings to either T5 or metal halide, MH is getting a bit extream, but a lot of people run T5's (like normal fluro tube only thiner and give out heaps more light). Power compact lights is another option but the correct tubes seem to be difficult to get (in Wlg anyway). Lastly, do you know how old the tubes are? Their useful live is only 6-9 months so if you arnt certain of there age maybe you should just replace them.

Works both ways to, I have Java fern and moss, swords, val, etc growing in my outside pond. They grow a lot slower and don't look so nice. I use my pond for storaging stuff I don't need in a tank but don't want to biff out.

Go as big as you can with-in reason, you cant redo a hole and it is easy to reduce the plumbing to suit the device, remember also that the bulkhead takes up alot of the hole. can't remember the numbers but eg a 35mm hole once bulkhead is added will only leave you 25mm hole. I would go for 35-40mm at least, that way if you want to T off water to a sump or drain etc you can do it without adding another hole. Your Squid hole can be what ever you 25mm(?) bulkhead needs which I think will be 32mm. Remember also that volume of water through a hole is a squared factor, i.e. 2 x 25mm hole dont equal 1 x 50mm hole, in fact far from it.

Added a six line to my tank on Monday (along with a few other fish all of which are doing fine). On the first day he was swimming around having a good look for food etc (there are/were plenty of pods shrimp etc). Didn't see him at all yesterday until late in the evening when I spotted him at the bottom of my rock pile hard up against a rock, I checked again this morning and his is still in the same place. He is breathing (maybe a little slowly but hard for me to tell cause hes new) and his eye moved round to look back at me but otherwise no movement. I was wondering if he is in trouble or if this is normal? I know that they do commonly 'disappear' in tanks for days at a time, plus there was tons of live food about, I'm hoping that he has stuffed himself full and is sleeping it off.

Gez I new I should have asked around, Ive been loking for a while. But yeah have two now, seem to have paired up really nicely, no fights, but slept in the LTA last night

Coming.......

To clarify, bigger surface area = more oxygen transfer into water. There are so many factors the question is impossible to answer accept on a case by case. Off the top of my head, you need to consider things like the fish requirements (althrough remember most fish come from water far deeper than any tank), plants due to shape and light requirements, physical location of tank in room, servicing of tank (i.e if you can reach the bottom), etc etc

Thanks for posting the pic pies. Added 3 x cleaner shrimp, purple tang, six line, and clown mate. All doing well. Was a bit worried about the huge jump in stock, but I have been looking for these fish for a while and due to lack of shops in Wlg it pays to grab stuff when I can. (I have been waiting for the only supplier in Wlg to get any(!) fish in for over a month, let alone stuff I actually want). The clown is a Amphiprion Melanopus, very much like a tomato but with black pec fins, commonly called fire or black clown. The purple tang is stunning, I put him in the tank, he looked left, looked right, then started chowing down on my algae, hasn't stopped, got a big fat belly now.

If it is black beard algae (which it sounds like) it is caused by too much phosphate. Excell is suppost to work, but I cant see any point treating the symptom unless you fix the cause, you will just be wasting your money. Suggest you reduce your feeding, over feeding doesn't doesnt do your fish any good, and is proberly very bad for your babies cause they will be swimming in poluted water and rotting food. If you still have a problem after a week or two of reduced feeding buy a bag of phos-sorb or similar, will last about 3 months for $25.

Try running phos-sorb or a similar product, will only cost you $25 odd and will remove the cause of your BBA instead of just the syptoms.