reef

Hope to try it on my tank. Current slr is good , but i need something small to carry around , and since it works underwater that is even better.

Cyano is caused by having high nutrients in your tank. I have never had major cyano problems and i put this down to water quality, You need more current in your tank, i dont think you have enough, do you use RO or di water? what salt do you use. skimmer is not the greatest but should be ok for your tank. got any photos?

If you are looking for a small digital camera i would look at this one. http://www.olympus.com.au/component/option,com_product/id,297/task,detail/Itemid,69/ Great for underwater pics, getting one next week,

My algae is starting to take off, having to add ammonia to get feed the algae. Should have good coverage in a few weeks. skimmer runs only at night,

No problem at all. Ardie has sold a number of deltec skimmers and Tunze products.

tangtastic you out of touch with reality, Deltec skimmers are available at most stores and most are pre ordered as it cost money to hold these. In fact most specialised equipment is on indent due to costs. Do you think pet shops have unlimited budgets to hold products for such a small niche market? Again your perception is based on limited knowledge of the industry or business philosophy. We are pretty lucky in nz with the livestock we get and top quality equipment is available. as mentioned is hard for a retail stores to justify the costs of holding these. Its a fact of life that things cost more in nz because retailers cant work on low margins due to low turnover, its not like overseas where they have far higher turnover so they can work on low margins. Even importing these for a wholesaler is very costly due to the stock that has to be held and that is why the main wholesalers in Nz dont supply any top brands due to the costs, thus it is only small suppliers that brings these in. and done part time as no money in it to make it a job. Once again misinformed and there is always a exception to the rule, You seem to overlook that he runs a massive pump on the skimmer and has more experience in keeping a reef tank than most of us. As above. comes down to costs and will only improve if hobbyist ask the retail to stock them and the retailer has to see that it is worth holding them , no good just sitting on the shelves collecting dust.

well put, as you still have to invest in good quality equipment to get a mint planted tank. maybe not to the same $ amount as a reef tank but more than a diy special. Also good to get new hobbyist starting with a good setup so we get a better standard of tanks in NZ. rather than some ok and others looking like they did in the 1970s.

looks basic to me to achieve that, reef tanks are way harder to get looking what i would class as mint as you put it.

tangtastic wrote That is another way of exporting nutrients, buy having a living ecosystems in the sump. So if you dont use a skimmer you do it another way. You still missed the point of having a good export solution. a Ineffective skimmer does not do it. You must have so lets see some mint reef tank pics if it is easy. i am still trying to achieve a mint reef tank. Not sure what you mean as most stock is decent 90% of the time. hard getting 100% quality stock when dealing with wild fish. Corals??

No, and that was the biggest mistake i have ever made in reef keeping, wasted so much money always upgrading. Baby steps are started with freshwater then you move onto the big steps with marine keeping.

Mairnes are not like freshwater as they need good water quality, best to start of right as livestock is not cheap and it is a limit resource.

The bottom line is that you have to export organics in a closed ecosystem, A bad skimmer does not cut it as waste will just build up. Most tank with a decent skimmer look far better than tanks with ineffective skimmer. The Deltec method here are 2 philosophies regarding the operation of a successful marine aquarium. One is to is to have an average performing skimmer to take out some of the protein but also have a large amount of biological filtration to deal with the resulting breakdown from the remainder. This type of system will normally lead to a trend for rising nitrate levels. The second way and the preferred Deltec method is to install a highly efficient skimmer that removes the majority of waste before it breaks down thus requiring less biological filtration and resulting in a lower level of nitrate that is much easier to cope with by the reducing bacteria in the system.

two species found in NZ https://www.nabis.govt.nz/resources/doc ... ineage.pdf

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-03/totm/index.php

should be no worries at all . get a small battery operated air pump from the pet store to run a air stone.

Does not work like that. If the skimmer is not working well then organics keep building up as you cant remove it quick enough. Bit like a having a bucket, slowly put in some crap and if you cant get it out fast enough it keeps building up until it overflows. So a poor skimmer is not better than none. only way to overcome this is to get a good skimmer or make big water changes every week.

Try using the Queen skimmer as an ornament in the garden

They come in s few times a year , Hard to keep alive. I have had a few in my tank, they do ok for a year and then die for some reason,

Cannon 30D, 24-105mm L lens

Pretty much the same as you have so many freshwater stock to look after. Freshwater you have to import many fish to make it cost effective as you can only add so much to a price of a guppy vs marines where you can add more. 6 weeks quarantine for freshwater is a long time.

There are about 10 fish importers and some likely to close as they can’t sell enough fish, over supply. It does not cost much to set up, The main problem is that it is not like keeping a fish tank as it is a lot of hard work and responsibility Buying stock is cheap but cost a lot of money for MAf/ air freight. And cost are hard to recover unless you import large quantities.

you cant use a TDS meter to test saltwater as the has to many minerals in it TDS is for freshwater only. I would stick with chch tap water as it is pure.. where did i read that..

some updated pics. My colours are looking good after loosing a little colour when adding the miracle mud. However things really picking up over the past week,

That does not really matter as gutloading these is what breeders have been doing for a long time. we have many foods available to gut load them. In fact i have never gut loaded them for baby banggais as i keep the brine shrimp for only a few days. I found that if you have a tank with no fish you will end up with millions of copods. I am finding that since using Miracle mud my sump i have thousands of copods Feeding coral food like reef booster and reef roids helps as they like the very small foods floating in the water.

Why do you need pods? Pods are hard to raise and a alternative would be roitifers and brine shrimp when they get bigger. Some micro alage species are also available since the Auckland university got it approved some time ago. However found it unnecessary if breeding clown fish and banggai cardinals.