DiverJohn

No Glass (or lid) would mean the water is constantly evaporating and you will be refilling it all the time and (depending on the temp of your water) all the insulation around the outside will be of little value as most of the heat will simply escape out the top.... Have you thought of using acrylic or polycarbonate as a lid?? As this isnt for "show" are you sure you even need a see thu lid? If you install all your lights in a hood you could just put it over the tank? Insulate the hood with something like foil backed house insulation and you get a refelector too. Could probably use that insulation around the shub as well? (Stuff i am thinkin of is like the "hot water cyliner wrap")

Just a thought on the length of the plastic container.... Remember your standard flouro tubes come in 30, 60, 90, 120 cm lengths John

Hi Dubbie As you can see from Eric reply ours arrived safe and sound. Was a bugger to open the container, but then i took the tape off! :oops: Thanks very much if it grow like you say I will have some to pass on in no time Maybe we should organise a plant exchange like the marine guys exchange bits of coral?? John.

Hi Dee_Jay I agree with what has been said already, but notice you have not mentioned 1 thing... What are you using to remove the chlorine from the water just before you do a water change?? I there are many products out there for doing this. I use Aqua Plus. You need to de-chlorinate the water before putting it in the tank, otherwise i suspect you will be fighting a loosing battle as the chlorine will kill the bacteria you are trying to "grow". Good luck John.

Great thanks Cees and Alan Didnt evn consider it might not be used @ all. Must be popular overseas tho...

Hi Mad I think cookie is right... If space layout etc... allows i woudl be inclined to look at setting up the whole lot on overflows ( search this forum or google for "Durso") from what i have read its pretty much the bee's-knees in how to get the water out of your tank! Run the whole lot into a large trickle filter , one (maybe two) good pumps you'll be sweet. For the trickle filter just use one of the tanks you have bought. Plenty of DIY plans on the net. I have the phone number of a guy who can drill tanks. Again as cookie said "cheaper in the longrun if not rightaway!" my $0.02. Good luck... John

Hi Alan, Just on the Chlorine.... Apparently Chloroamine is more common and much more stable than chlorine. Does the sitting for 3 days remove chloroamine? John

Hi Niloc ( and others ) Thought you might be interesed in this. Its a CO2 solenoid I purchased from these guys http://www.valves.co.nz. It runs on 240V, is uneffected by polarity ( just dont connect Phase to earth!) and is open when current is on. In this picture I have wired the soleniod into a "piggy back" plug. This is plugged into the timer for my lights, when the lights come on the CO2 comes on, when the light go off... I guess you can work it out eh? :lol: Cost: About 80 bucks I think. Just a wee caveat - if you dont know what your doing... find a sparky mate to help you out like i do As for a CO2 cylinder, BOC gases was about $120 hiregae for 12 months on the cylinder. Fills are ( i think ) about $12. Cost of gas is almost insignificant compared to the hirage. If i go through 1 cylinder in 12 months that will be $120 + $12 = $132 /12months = $11 per month hire + gas. The gas portion of that is only $1 per month.

Thanks very much Dubbie, Eric you want to sent it to you place or mine? NO problems to get it sent to my work either. PM me with what you would like to do??

Yes please mee tooo

MAxy, I notice you say on your profile you are a farm worker. Maybe some contamination off teh farm or something getting in to teh tank some other way? HAve you got lids on your tank? Have you tested the water you are adding?? It is unlikey but worth checking... HTH John

HI Jude, I accidently left my filter off for about a day, just switched it on no problems.

Thanks bill, yeah the freebies are good Just need a few more cos a I have a few people to give them too

If your using that kind of anaolgy then I think it woud be fair to say that to a plant, CO2 is like "Air" to us humans.

Ok maybe not as flash as baby fish but hey, thought you might like...

Hi Pene CO2 is a tricky wee beastie. And I suspect that the best thing do say is that "yes CO2 could harm your fish" but as in most things there is a but, several infact. On its own, uncontrolled addition of CO2 to pure water will lower the pH (7-) due to the formation of (and correct me someone if i am wrong) carboxylic acid. A particularly low pH is undesirable in most aquariums - but that depends on what yo are doing - my community tank is between 6.6 & 7 with the CO2 running. This can be corrected with the addition of buffers to increase hardness, but this should be done in moderation as too much buffer can cause the ph to rise (7+ ) And there is more to it than that.... BUT (theres that word again!) when i started trying to get my plants to grow better i used yeast CO2. results were good. So perhaps you could try this... its what i did... Add your CO2, keep your air pump working, note the ph. test your ph regularly over the next day or so if everything looks ok, try putting your airpump on a timer and turn it off during the day for 6 hours. It would be a good idea to test ph morning and night. if it starts dipping too low, turn the air pump on for longer. If it looks OK, turn the airpump off for longer until the airpump is off all day and on at night. Anyway hope that helps, i just kept an eye on things and took it slowly, then you get annoyed with yeast!!

Just a thought.... http://www.eheim.com/technik_zubehoer.htm !/2 way down the page, flow through or suction model. To be use with another type of filter, so I would have thought it cant be all that bad if these guys make it :-?

Hi Damo, Where you are getting these filters from, I would be interested in a couple of 2026's or maybe a 2026+2028 (or 2x2028 ) depends on $$ Could probably help out with the importation side of things through work. John

IN addition to teh advise above, when you do a water change chuck some (all?) of it into the new tank. If your thinking "logical bumps" If you had the new filter running on the old tank for a wee while, it would be cycled with the batcteria from the old tank.. ( Like a fully charged battery ?). If you were to do a 50% water change on the old tank and put the water in the NEW tank instead of chucking it down the drain ( or on the Basil ) And install your freshly "charged" filter, you would effectivly be doin a weekly 50% water change on both tanks. Only downfall might be that the new tank will need some fish straight away to keep ammonia -> nitrite -> nitrate cycle ticking along - is that a problem?? :lol: the logic seems to work for me, just a thought... John

:lol:

Jude you joined up before me!!

Hi Nic G, You said Not trying to sound condesending but the acceptable "levels" for Ammonia and Nitrite are zero, Nitrates can be zero too. Unless there are real plants in the tank as well... .maybe 5-10 ppm max (?). How long has it been since the water was changed?? Most people would do "something like" 10 - 20 % per week. ( up to 50% i hear ) If you decide to do a water change do it using a bucket that has never had detergents in it ( I have a dedicated 15l Bucket) need any more help just ask Hope that help DJ

Do you have the CO2 setup as well?? I think you will find that conventiona wisdom suggests you do not need to run O2 when running CO2 in a planted tank. If you have a look on the net you will find that in a planted tank o2 concentrations can actually exceed saturation (I read 120%) because the O2 plants produce is difused into the watter far better that any "bubble maker" or venturi system. Just recently my tank has started "fizzing" at night with the plants streaming O2 off the leaves. My fish are all doing fine, without the addition of extra O2.

Hi heather, Dont use them myself, but I think you will find that this little bit of tube sucks in air and mixes it with the water to increase the oxgenation of the water. Does it have a valve @ the end? This is to vary the amount of air being sucked in. but you could try here... http://www.aquariumpharm.com/filstardirections.html HTH John

Yeah same thing here too Everything looks pretty sweet untill you get up close eh??Do you notice the algae on all the leaves or just the ones nearer the surface (closer to the lights)? I have had my lights down to 8 hours per day trying to get rid of this stuff, no luck so have cranked the lights back up to 10 hours and added a 6th tube tonight (180W total). See if that helps at all. Very frustrating eh?