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Helping a newbie with tropical Marine


Fallen

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I have cut and posted this in the beginners corner, due to the fact i will be a beginner to tropical saltwater, I have had for 2 yr's a native cold water marine tank and before that tropical fresh water tank for about 6 yr's, so not new to fishkeeping but a complete noob to tropical marine.

Hello all, I mentioned that in the welcome page, i was thinking about starting a warm or tropical seahorse tank, ie, H. kuda and a few ozzy's, and did some investigating today, about what i need, ie equipment and cost.

I found out I know crap about what i need and that there are NO stores in Wellington that can show me on the shelves what i need, though I found a guy at Animates called Jamie, who was helpful but i had to order though him what i wanted and as a newbie, i don't know what i need, so a bit buggered there.

It's so different to my native cold water marine set-up, I have a fuval 204 and thats about it, plus light's of course and I change my water about every 2 weeks, I collect my water from Pukarua bay. Thats all i have done and I have had no loss's in over a yr, minus the baby's dieing

So this post is about, what do i need equipment and environment wise. Plus any site's were i can read anything that would be helpful and of course i supplier that has reasonable prices. I know of Eric at Wet Pets/Touch of Country in Palmy but there must be other places who i can deal with.

Thanking you,

Malcolm.

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Fallen

I am in Wellington and have Marines up and running. I also have a good book you may borrow or if you want to buy it "The Natural Reef Aquairum by Tullock". Its the bible on modern reef keeping & Fish keeping.

Things have changed, i.e. no one I know is using a canister filter on there marine tank, and not many are using wet/drys either. I don't even use filter wool anywhere in my tank... Nothing other than a skimmer.

I have had my tank up and running for 3 months now. But I was planing for much longer prior to this.

I also have some VERY GOOD contacts to buy fear through. I personally think its wrong to support a shop like Animates by buying Marine supplies from them, when they can't be bothered making an effort to stock anything. I can find you all the equipment you need, and much better prices than the shops.

I know who Jamie is. And he is probably the best person in Animates when it comes to fish, but he has never had marines and his way of thinking is quite 'old school'.

If your serious about it, pop over, look at the equipment and livestock. I can lend you a book or 2 if you want. When you are closer to actually purchasing you equipment I will help sus it out for you.

The biggest mistake you can make is to purchase from your LFS on their advice, its very expesnive to keep buing the same piece of equipment over and over again. Do it once, do it right.

Pies

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All I have to say to that pies, is "HEll YA". Any help would be awesome and actually seeing a working set-up would be awesome, just hope you can put up with a million and one questions and probably quite a few blank looks like this :o , :roll: or :-?.

Thx's for that tip on the book, i will see if i can find a second hand copy some where.

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Give me a call, 9732713 and come ove rand check it out. I am in Ngaio, which is by Johnsonville/Khandallah.

You would be lucky to find the book 2nd hand as its quite new.

What do you intend on keeping fish wise other than sea horses? Also what size aquairum are you going to have? There are a few people with pretty mini seahorses around. There are also the ones from here in NZ. If you dive I can take you out and we can find some. You dive? You night dive?

You said in one of your posts where you get your saltwater from. The best place BAR NONE is the south cost, less polutants and cleaner than anywhere from the west coast. Also less silicates (we have tested the water). Remember that NZ water is low in calcium (380ish not the 450+ you want) so its and additive required for warmer water.

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No, I do not dive, it's something i want to learn but either don't have the time or the money to do it at the same time. :(

But i will call you later in the week if that is fine and borrow this book, if that is fine also, and do a little reading and see if i am up to having a tropical saltwater marine tank.

There seems to be a whole lot more involved that i first figured. As for fish, i was going to get anything that wouldn't annoy the seahorses, so have to be very peaceful

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Heya Pie's, I will have to hold off from getting a marine tank up and running now :cry:

My Car has crapped out because of that rain on Tuesday, I hit a deep puddle at the bottom of Saint Micheals cres, and the electrics are buggered, so need to spend my spare monies there, *sigh* stuipd modern cars!!. :(

Though i wouldn't mind borrowing that book still, if that is still alright. I need to try and get my head around the set-up and maintance of a tropical marine tank, and decide if i am up to it or not.

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