reef

i use a aquacare calcium reactor. it runs two hours a day. this is the only reactor that can keep up with my tank, i have tried them all. the ph comes out the reactor at 7.3. all other reactors you will be lookig at 6.8 There are other options like dosing with kh buffer and calcium supplements. these are fine if you have leathers and a few stoney corals. Calcium reactors are only required if you have many hard corals as they can be more of a problem in not a well established reef tanks due to the excess of co2 which will cause algae problems. cal 420ppm dkh 10 magnesium 1300 The advantages of the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor: 78 to 82% less free CO2 in the outlet: AquaCare has developed a neutralization chamber that raises the pH of the outlet to 7,0 (unit 1) or 7,3 (units 2-5). This neutralization stage lowers the growth of algae extremely. no over dosing of CO2 in the reactor: the new control unit without measuring the pH of the water allows a very safe working with the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor. Every time there is the right volume of CO2 in the reactor. No calibration! The control unit works with 12 Volts. lightly phosphate removal with chemo sorption. extrem water velocity: every AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor is filled with special granules. The water is flowing this very high speed along this material. So, CO2 bubbles cannot be caught in the granules. The flow through the granules system is constant. No flow channels can be build. new chalk granules consisting of calcium carbonate: the new granules are dissolving 2 to 5 times better than other materials e.g. lime stone or coral stones. So the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor is more effective than others. easy de-aeration of wrong gases: if the CO2 is not pure, the efficiency of every chalk reactor decreases with the time. To de-aerate the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor you only have to shut off the circulation pump. The inlet drives pushes out all gases. If you start the reactor again all incoming CO2 is pure. Normally the Turbo Chalk Reactor is driven with a timer - only 2 to 4 hours working per day is enough to raise calcium and hydrogen carbonate in a reef tank. in every Turbo Chalk Reactor is a CO2 bubble counter, water inlet inspection glass and a ball valve: with these parts the AquaCare Turbo Chalk Reactor works well. If you want an automatically driven reactor you need the control unit consisting of a solenoid valve, check valve, CO2 sensor, transformer and the control box. For the proper working you need a water inlet (bypass of the main pump or another small pump), an small air pump and a simple timer.

have a iks computer with all the bits

thats still cheap, whats $40 bucks these days. freight is so expensive.

i would not be playing around with chemicals at this stage as you will put the balance out betwwen kh and calcium. they are both balanced and if you raise your calcium it will drop your kh. calcium chloride will also add too many chlorides to your tank. The best way would be to a big water change with seawater or mixed salt water. also 80 ppm as a reading is incorrect, i cant see how it can be that low. Test the seawater first to see if the test kit is not faulty,

get some sea water and test this, sea water should be around 400ppm. colour on test kit should change from pink, purple then blue.

calcium 80?? i dont think this is correct, you should recheck.

they do, but you have to use their bottles which are too big.

Jansens has stopped suppling co2 in auckland. how can we get someone to fill our dupla co2 bottles. i cant find anyone who will fill them.

The add looks cheap and nasty for a reef tank. Don’t use canister filters in a reef tank, the skimmer will be a small air driven toy. Lighting is totally inadequate for a reef tank. So it pays to research as it is better to start of correctly as you won’t have to upgrade again in the future. To get good advice you should get hold of, pies,nicks,jetskisteve,lduncan. They have got great tanks so they obviously know what they are doing. Even better go and see some reef tanks.

yep, if you can afford $5k then you are in business. some try to do it for less and generally they fail or their tanks look like crap. important equipment skimmer. good skimmer will cost $600 plus. can get cheaper but not worth skimping on this important equipment. can use t5 lighting, however get metal halides as they will allow you to keep a wide range of corals. min 150w, cost between $400-$1000 and that is about it, the rest of the money can be used for rock and stock.

joes juice will nuke them, available at hollywood fish farm

lets hope that it is sold, so we can get more marines.

its must be around huntly/hamilton. whats the price? any details of filtration? hopefully they dont use berlin skimmers . what type of metal halides do they use?

two sumps, works great for me, without fludised bed filter. fludised beds are not for reef tanks'', but big skimmers are great.

why use a fluidised sand bed filter . this will cause high nitrates

cold water marine will still be expensive, as you will need a chiller.

do you have the tank size in mm or cm

lack of water movement will kill anemoes, happens all the time, give it heaps of water movement

i think he means, no other shop would purchase any livestock from him as a importer as he could always undercut them when he sold it in his own store. if a shop in auckland was going to start to bring in corals, then they will have a real problem getting freshwater stock as brooklands and other importers who bring in freshwater will not supply them as it is conflicting with the marine stock. It all sounds easy to just set up and bring in stock, however when you start to do it as a business full time you will be lucky to survive. as you have to earn enough to eat. The only way it would work is if you sold it in bulk. Most stores dont have the expertise to set up a importing sation anyway.

wont work if as importer opened a shop as when you buy stock overseas your buying power is reduced as you wont be able to sell 20 plus boxes of stock. most suppliers wont supply you unless you have a min order. prices will never come down as most of the cost is not purchasing the stock, but airfreight,maf cost. so expect prices to go up shorly with the US dollar getting stronger.

as stated chch is cheaper as they bring in there own stock, in auckland they dont as they have to buy them from a wholesaler.

Not much truth to that I don't think Reef.

the prices in south island is cheaper as some of the shops bring in there own stock. However when you see some of there cheap stock i think you will be happy to pay more. Most stores dont spend the money on filtration so they cant hold on to their stock for very long, so they have to charge more to cover all the deaths. I think prices are not that bad as they have come down. when i look on the internet our pricing in NZ is not that bad.

Which shop supplies the best marine fish/coral? Just wondering were everyone shops and who has the best looking display tanks. My favourites are a couple of small shops which most hobbyist probably aren’t aware of. Massey pets in Auckland are a very small shop and has 4 marine tanks, which always look very good and clean. NORTHLAND aquarium has a very nice shop. The tanks look very nice and clean and the stock looks really good. ORGANSIM IN CHRISTCHURCH has a very small marine section, but I have heard that they have very nice clean looking tanks and maintain them very well What would hobbyist like to see in the marine stores?

Tank does have great potential. I think you will need to invest in a very good skimmer, should be in now, as you need to start removing waste. Tunze stream would be a nice addition for water movement. Very underestimated, as it does make a big difference to coral and fish love it. Upgrading to 400w would not add much more light as 250de are almost as bright as 400 se. Also you can’t get 400de as they are not out yet. I would add another 2x250w halides and a serious skimmer as organics are starting to build up looking at the rocks. I would add a school of yellow tangs and purple tangs. trachphllias at the bottom would look nice, also I would add mainly leather corals and a few hard corals. Also don’t add too many fish as it would be hard to keep organics under control