suphew

Was watching mine 'at it' the other night, lots of humping and cloudy fluids!! Felt like a voyour, just about put a cover over the tank to give them privacy. Haha. Quite a few eggs about now, hopefully I'll be removing snails to keep the numbers under control in a few months!

Sounds like your doing okay so far. Normally you would put the sponge first in the flow of water then the noodles. The reason for this is that the sponge acts as a mechanical filter (collecting all the bigger solids) the noodles are the biological. Notice I also didn't say put the noodles on top or bottom, you need to look at the water flow path, some put the water in the top and drain out the bottom some the other way round. The bacteria in the biological part live in the small pores of the noodles so you want to avoid too many large particals clogging them up. Of course as with everything the rules aren't hard and fast, some filters are designed to use noodles as the first mechanical filter to catch the really big lumps, then a sponge to get the smaller, and then noodles again. Your best bet is to follow the manual that comes with filter or if it doesn't have one go into their web site and check. (NB: as you wil see if you have look through posts here SOME LFS workers lack the knowledge that they really require so always take their advise with a grain of salt, and get a second option if your not sure). Putting the noodles in your sons tank is a really good idea, if you can get some water flow over them it would be even better, some gravel is a good idea to. Goldfish are a great fish for kids to start off with, they are really hardy so you cant go to far wrong, plus are very interesting to watch. The most likely problem you will have is over feeding, kids like to show their love by feeding lots! There are a few nice plants that will be okay in cold water that the fish wont harm to much, Java fern, and indian fern are both easy to grow and IMO nicer to look at than the usual oxygen weed.

Yeah I looked into this for a while to, and found to too expensive. The best option I found was the systems they sell at hydroponics shops they have sets of dosing pumps and controllers for them. You could also use a dosing pump and timer like marine guys do for kalk topup, these run to $100+ each. Of course the simple option is to dose your top up water, but this doesn't give you control for each tank unless you run multiple top up tanks.

What do you guys fed them? and how often?

IMHO I would put a cannister filter on any tank over 100 litres, I think you would have to have a very light bio load to not need one in a tank that size. FYI the through put of the filter doesn't really give an indication of how good a filter is because it always comes down to amount (and quality) of media you can put into the filter, and an internal filter is never going to be able to match an external cannister for volume. There is no harm and lots of benfits to running more than one filter, it really comes down to if you can stand having an ugle filter sitting in your tank.

I'm not sure why this is has become so difficult, it seem pretty simple to me and yes plenty of people do it, alot of ponds also, and alot of larger fish shops use similar (animates in Wlg for one). What you do is have an over flow pipe, this sets the water level in the tank, you then have a feed from your top up supply with a value on it to each tank, this could set the water flow by either (or both) a timer or a restricter (i.e. only open the tap a little bit), put a bucket under the outlet to messure/set the number of liters per hour (or per day) this gives you your base setting. Try it out, if you find you need more open the tap or increase the timer. And look not a calulator in sight!

Some one in Chc is selling a whole setup on trademe at the moment for $2500, there's no pic and very little detail but it might be a very good place to start. One of the other local reefers might be willing to go and have a look with you, it's pretty easy to work out the value of all the bits and pieces, most of us keep an eye on second hand prices. I wouldn't worry about the size and shape of the tank cause this is usually one of the cheapest parts, the value is in the well cycled rock corals fish etc and of course the hardware (pumps skimmer etc).

Just so you know, I don't use carbon 90% of the time cause I like the yellowy colour of the water I think it looks more natural. You don't 'need' to use carbon unless you are trying to remove some thing specific like a medication. Carbon doesn't remove particals, there shouldn't really be any still in the water by the time it goes through your mechanical filter (sponge) then your bio filter (noodles), but of course there will still be some because no filter is perfect. What the carbon does is obsorb chemicals out the of the water, like tanins (sp?) which make the water yellow, that the bio and mech don't remove. I'm not sure the full procedure for cleaning carbon, but I know it involves heating it to a higher temp than I could manage at home so I didn't bother looking any further, plus its cheap, but make sure you buy a good brand because some of the cheaper ones (so I have been told) release phosphate (can cause algae).

The carbon doesn't really add anything to the bio filtering of your filter so removing it wont hurt the filter, althrough I would look at replacing it with noodles rather than wool, the noodles offering more biological filtration, wool (floss) being more mechanical. Depending on what you are trying to acheive of course, also remember mechanical filtation should be at the start of the filter process not the end where the carbon would be. Just a note regarding the carbon, I assume you know that if you leave it in too long it will start leaching stuff back out into the water, whatever you decide to do I would take the carbon you currently have out, how long it lasts depends on the amount of carbon and how much work it is having to do. Carbon is commonly used to keep the water clear (esp in Discus tanks because soft water tends to have a very yellow look) if its not keeping the water clear then is should be removed. Also used to remove meds from tanks.

Be careful if you put the UPS into a box, they generate a lot of heat when the load goes on the batteries, plus when the batteries give off hydrogen when they charge. If you put it into a box I would install and small fan in the side

Cheers reef. FYI my phosphate read zero, which I'm gald about having never tested for it before or used any phosphate removers. I put in some phosphate remover anyway, I have a very small amount of hair aglae, will be interesting to see if it goes.

Wont phosphate cause algae problems? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Stick to peat moss, it cheap and proven

I have a Salifert phosphate test kit with no instructions, would someone mind typing them in for me please?? I have the colourcard etc so just need the number of drops etc.

Also if it looks like your going to lose the fry anyway (which it sounds like you are) you might as well try treating them.

Raising the temp doesnt kill whitespot (until the temp gets so high it would kill the fish as well) it speeds up the w/s life cycle making it easier to treat (i.e. med's dont have to be in the water for as long to kill them all). Raising the temp might be making the problem worse because you will a) be stressing the fish b) lowering the O2 in the water (stressing the fish more) c) make your filter less affective because of the lower O2 in the water (can I say more stress?) d) the faster life cycle will infect your fish faster. IMHO, I think you should (once the babies gone are or survived) completely clean out your fry tank (if your using one) even giving it a bleach wash to kill any w/s in there, and do a really good treatment on all your other tanks. w/s can be in your tank and not show up on fish until they are stressed (like when breeding) plus if you are using the same nets, water change containers etc etc, it can move between tanks.

316 is stainless. Will be fine assuming its not saltwater.

Yep baking soda etc raises your PH making it less acidic. Also I'm interested to hear what 'brightwater' is? It's seems surprising to me that any gravel (I assume this is what it is) would lower PH, normally anything gravel puts into water is some sort of mineral, which increases the KH making the water harder and raising the PH. This is why I use rain water, because as it evaperates it leaves behind all the minerals making rain water softer.

I use about 50% rain water when doing my water changes to 'soften' the water and lower PH, I find it is a lot easier to keep constant that adding 'stuff' that you might forget, over/under dose, or runs outs.

You can get other bands as well, the fluval ones seem to break plus the floating bit that takes in the surface water keep getting sucked underwater.

Sounds like you did all the right things, maybe you need to start looking at your water supply? Would it be possible to get water from your old house and do a large water change to see if they perk up? If its your water, there could be lots of things causing the problem, like to much copper if the house has been empty for a while and the water has been in a header tank, or maybe there is some thing in your header tank? People drop some stupid things in then cant reach in far enough to get them out. Maybe there is something dead in there like a rat?

Have you checked the amonia (sp?), if you have killed all the bactria in the move you wont have any biological filtation yet therefore would have low nitrite/nitrate, i.e. the same as early stage of tank cycle.

Yeah if you have another tank to try it out on that first. I tried the yeast method for a few months but gave up cause I got sick of fiddling with it to get it run right and having to make it up so often. So I build a DIY unit that used a sodastream bottle, this worked well and I used it for a couple of years. One day I realised that I was putting alot of effort into making my plants grow fast then spending an hour each week removing them! So I removed the CO2. Making it safe just takes time and fiddling, there is a posting under technical with instructions for making the system safe from putting yeast into your tank. To stop the PH swing you just have to make sure you have a constant supply of CO2, i.e. make up another batch before the first runs out etc.

CO2 is fine with Discus, just watch if you are planning on a yeast type cause it is hard to get the output stable which might cause the PH to swing.

I would also suggest going for the external cannister. It wont really cost you much more, its seems like it cause you pay for it all in one go but when you add up the cost of your UGF plates, air pump, air lines, valves. Then find this isn't enough and add the aquaclears........ External cannisters are great, should cost around $150-$200, once they are set up you never have to worry again, they are silent and will need far less cleaning than most other filters

The oil is normal but stops the air getting into the water, directing your filter outlet to break up the surface normally fixes this.