cookie extreme

i just copied and pasted it to your wifes phone. nice knowing you wasp. :lol: :lol:

come on layton, the colours are awfull to say the least nothing looks real. even the worst Zeovit tanks with its washed out pastel colours would look more real. i always wonder why peoplr have to do that? i am more then happy to show my "mainly" brownish looking corals. but to photo shop to such an extend is stupid because nobody would really believe those colours. even the aqua scapeing stinks (as there is none). couple fully grown acro's with some colour enhanceing do not make a reef tank

to contribute to the question. i use approx. 60-70 kg in a 1000 liter plus sump system. less is more sems to be the case.

what do you do to keep the "flatmate happy(wife that is)"? $ 30 seems very cheap.

great looking fruit stand, reef tankl i guess not!! they also seem to be good with photo enhanceing the colours as none look real at all. even if i try! give me a slight brown picture with some colour and i would fully agree and that's a big BS. nothing looks real at all

i found the same with the BLV 14000k (haven't got a clue what all the hype was about with these bulbs). very poor light so changed back to AB 10000k

to far. i will come and pick it up for free!

very hard to keep, most will starve in a very short time.

bet you he missed it! otherwise bruce wouldn't have it. :lol:

insulate your sump setup properly so your poor heaters don't slave themselves to death.

something more challenging like food dependent corals, stuff that lives in caves, lots of small hardly noticeable fishes and other interesting critters. i will stick with NSW in the summer and ASW in the winter, its just to damn cold to collect it in my swim suit during the colder months. but it does save lots of money getting NSW even with the high fuel cost. well if money wasn't really an object (not taking tens of thousands here either) i would get some of the newer pendants with 250 watt and t5 in it. otherwise i am quite happy with my 150 watters as it looks so much tidier then before with all the "rubbish" sitting on the tank. (light fittings) and i really like to look into my tank from above not just the front. again a Q. of $. i am pretty happy with the 2 berlin classic's i run as i belive that some people overskim their tank (JMO) but would like a skimmer that takes the overflow water directly (which due to design is not possible with the berlin) this would inter link with the first question. i would run a very DSB in a separate tank not as nutrient export but in trying to get a better micro fauna would keep my little calcium reactor which would be more then enough after loosing all those SPS would do similar design as i have at present. i can't stand the look of pumps, pipes, all all the other horrible looking stuff people have in their tanks. it looks unnatural. would try to do closed loops (which would be pretty hard to do as my tank is 3 sided and only on side panel is against a wall. (room divider). would try a wave box which i believe would be very benefical in keeping soft corals. again i am very happy with the little rock i've got. i would say got more weight in corals now then rock. this also gives more flow to tha tank with less pumps. i think rock piles "great wall of china" is a poor excuse for not being pro active in designing something a bit more challenging. (no offence to all the rock pilers out there :lol: ) would still run carbon and some of the zeovit products (most likely different ones as the set upo would be different. but thats hard tell at present. never have, so can't really comment. uv maybe? ozone most likely not! yes amino acids for sure as i have seen great improvements, would say yes to most of the above if it makes an improvment (if its good = use it) yes to all the above most likely yes because of the corals i intent to keep and grow. would not have macro algae in a SPS only tank, fuge maybe.

you missed a question! "would you have started a reef tank if you know how much it would cost you once finished (if ever)"

increase your co2 rate to around 2 bubbles per second (best is to aireate the effluent in a container with coral gravel and an air stone to degas some of the co2). this will / should keep your KH stable. and check if your drip water has the right Ph when it leaves the reactor as well.

just a dumb question but how insulated are your houses? my powerbill in the summer wich includes gas for hot water is around $220 and goes up in the winter to $270 max due to more gas use to heat the water and also for the tank heaters. the house has polystyrene as floor insulation and pink bats in the walls. i could not imagine having a powerbill of 350-400 bucks. next to heating and lighting the tank what does it get used for? heating the outside due to poor insulation? might be worth while to look at and save some dosh in the long run. another thing is how well is the sump covered / insulated in paticular as many now have it outside or under the house?

3 * 150 watt AB 10000 1 * 400 watt Narva 14000

i have a brown monti cap and once broke a piece of and attached it by mistake upside down. well the colour is kind of greenish compared to the same pice right next to it which is still brown. worth a test with different colours to do the same? why it is different i have no clue. :-?

use a small metal object like tweezers. don't use your fingers :roll: also when applying use the tweezers (back bit) its clean and none messy

no not the warehouse! send me a PM and i will get you the contact details. can show you some during the week if you are home so you see how it works and looks. either on wednesday, thursday or friday.

use speed glue from zeovit it cost less then the epoxy even if you buy it from the warehouse, looks much better and cements frags in fast and properly. 5 minutes after attaching a frag you would be hard pushed to notice that its glued.

the same was said about sps 15 odd years ago too. and look how things have changed. how easy it is to grow acropora these days.

i reckon its because we are not doing it right! we try to keep our tanks so nutrient poor, skimmed to the extreme with not a piece of plankton in the water collum, removing all silicate and other potentially needed stuff (?), we don't feed at least 12 hours every day (no twice a day for 2 minutes doesn't really count) to keep these corals healthy. we are spending a small furtune on lighting but don't invest a single cent in a automatic, low pollution feeding system and we still wonder why so many "hard to keep" corals die on us. what does that tell us? we can't be very bright to say the least :-?

not quite. they are Nephtyigorgia spp. (in older publications often referred to as Alcyonium)

as fully agree, but you guys didn't have 15 degrees lately did ya? as far as i remember snow melts above 3 degrees (and i lived with it for over 18 years :-? )

i guess an ice pack would have not made much of a difference with your weather down in the south island! may be it would have kept the corals warm! freezing temps is a bad thing with sps, hey why do all of you keep your tank above 24 degree? save yourself the money and unplug the heaters.