reef

ira kiss your fish goodnight, you have killed it, how can you cycle a tank with fish, your rock has to cycle and ammonia is going to go sky high, this is not a freshwater set up. it takes 6-8 weeks to cycle a marine tank. If you want to speed it up get some ammonia chloride, this will spike the ammonia. The amount of ammonia your fish is going to products is so small it wont make a differance. The fish might be ok for a week but then it will be in fish heaven. If you want to make a go of marines i suggest you speak to pies again. His tank looks great.

my spelling is great too.

pies. t5s are not cheap, however you do pay for quality. t5s can work out cheaper as you need less tubes. each t5 tube is about 4 times briter than a t8 tube. 6000 k 4ft tubes are available at any wholesale electrical store. i think philips and osram do them

i dont think a sump is a good idea in a planted tank as this remove c02 from the water when the water drains into the sump. canister filter is a good idea but when the tank is setup for a few months the media can be removed as the dirt will trap in the canister a cause excess phostphates and nutrients. Once the tank is establised the plants should be using most of the nutrients. t5s would be the way to go for lighting.

tropical marine is the way to go.

the aquapro lights are 5000k, no good for reef, need at least 6500k.

ira if you are going to want a succesful tank you will need more than 10kg of rock. you can go and add more rock latter unless it is cycled rock. i would get enough rock to finish the tank so that the tank will be fully cycled. skimmer is very important so go and buy yourselve a xmas present. i would budget min $4000 for a tank, if this is not possable maybe goldfish would suit the budget. i have seen so many fail due to cutting cost and most of the advice you get from the retail store will be that you can do it cheaper which is incorrect. Prices of Marine fish/coral is always going to go up due to world demand and collection restrictions. my advice is do it right the first time. get a decent book like the modern reef aquarium, cost about $150, but will save you thousands in the long run.

the tank should be ok, what type of skimmer are you using??

prizm skimmers???? i dont rate them, cheap and nasty. the red sea prism skimmers dont pull enough air into them. they did test in germany and they could not even get a reading because the air flow going in was so low. any skimmer will skim .In tests they found that most commonly available red sea prizm utilise only 40 - 80 lts of air per hour and are in no way suitable for the tank volumes that they recommend. Any skimmer will remove waste from a tank when it is at dangerous levels Skimming is very important as it will give you a margin of error in terms of water quality.

ira the skimmer that you gave the link to is too small and would not do the job. i good skimmer will cost about $600

i have a iwaki 40 for $200. does about 6500 litres /h email me if you are interested

$80 FOR A PERC CLOWN.

i would have to agree that you should complain about selling these small bowls. These fish require good water conditions and it is cruel that they should be in such small tanks.

flower horn is not allowed in the country, there is not such thing as a none allowable list , only a allowable list and you will find that the flower horn is not on the list. Maf dont make the decision on what is allowed in , it is done by ERMA.

peety what you have is not a reef tank. a reef tank has live corals and fish

there are lots of stock available, howver doing it on the cheap is not a option. there animals required very good quality water. before you start get a very good updated book and do things slowly. it is important that you get a very good skimmer and good lighting. cheap does not work.

Aquanet aucklands new marine wholesaler has released its first shipment. Contact your local retailer for stock list. www.aqua.net.nz

only available if you have won lotto. they are very expensive. if you are going to set a reef tank up i would go for 250w as 150w does not give you much options to go to a bigger tank, also the arcadia light look great except there is major problem with there timers as they cant handle the loading of the halides. i have seen many complaints over the net

having looked into adding new species of fish/coral to the allowable list i think it is very unlikly that MAF is going to allow new species, Any new species of fish etc needs to be approved by ERMA not maf as maf only police the allowable list not determin if new species are allowed. To get the species on the list it will cost thousands as you have to do the research and pay to get ERMA to process the information. The only way to can get items on the allowable list is to prove that they were in new zealand prior to july 1998, this is covered under section 26 of the HSNO act.(http://www.ermanz.govt.nz)

If MAF found out that importers are bringing in not allowed fish then the importer is going to be in big trouble. Some importers will place the none allowed fish under a different name. The problem is that the MAF officer checking the fish is not that good at identifying fish. IN terms of MAF reviewing the fish list I think they may in 20 years I don’t think it is on top of there priority list.

that’s the problem, sea water is not that clean and has a lot of organics which algae feeds on, I guess you skimmer is way to small to be able to remove large amount of organics. so if you use sea water you will need a big skimmer. Also how do you replace your evaporated water ?? i lose about 5 litres a day and have to replace using a DI unit.

it sound like you got cynobacter, which is cause by excess nutrients, do you use a dioniser to filter your water. and how do you mix your salt. do you filter your tap water? also your skimmer may be to small,

if you looking at aquamedic products you have to deal with jansens as they are the nz agent. any systemised reef tank is going to be expensive and if you dont have the cash you would be better to get a tank from a specilisted aquarium store like hollywood fish farm or jansens.

it could be that you are over feeding, what size is your tank and what type of protein skimmer are you using?

When getting a test kit I would get a good quality test kit as most like hagan and drytab are a waste of money and very inaccurate. i have seen test done in germany comparing test kits and the results were that the above two were the worst Try seachem or salifert