bawater

wah Hon, haven't buy furniture already done tank. i like your style very much. 6 footer?

The best is a water change. UFO, now reading 50ppm- sounds like it will go back up to 100 in a week or 2. The sugar is a temporary fix, used if u have no time for a water change. U have to find a permanent solution and try one of the many methods. If u test for no ammonia & nirite means part of your biological is working perfectly, & you have to find the source of the nitrogen cycle & do something abt it, e.g high fish load, dead fish,rotting food. The canister will not lower nitrates,no matter how long u wait. It is most probably your main workhorse converting the more toxic waste to nitrates. UGF is a good biological filter if u want to just keep a few fishes(& i mean very FEW small ones), but u need to clean the substrate & often people just overload their tanks thus overloading the UGF - its pretty much an old school method of keeping fish. But if we stuck to these methods, no one would discover protein skimming,DSB,plenum,berlin.......methods To get direct answers u need to tell everyone your tank details: tank size,sump/no sump,DSB/No DSB(or what is your substrate),filtration,skimming,No. of fishes & what else u keep.

i prefer AC versions- plug & play.That's the type i was talking abt. DC transformers get hot ovetime. victor- don't use the screws, just fill the gap with a piece of styrofoam cut to size.

Hon , most planted aquarium shops have them. very ex$ & not much use. i have a 6 in a row - these fans in a row are small(just a little bigger than comp. processor fan). ranges from $50 to $90 for number of fans(2fans,4fans,6fans). I would gladly swop for a 3 Toyo fans if anybody wants. i also use the big ones(the fans are individual) in which a single fan can do the same as the six in a row. Aquarium mounted sets(come with clip)retail for abt $40. Basement Sim Lim Tower- ToYo brand fans abt $15 each-mount yourself.

why not hook up the fans to in the sump? its still cooling your total volume. run more than 1, maybe as many as u got space. 2-3 units. Got to keep track of water evaporation. A 2ltr block of ice will take at most 20mins to melt in temp 26c. if u thinkin plastic bags, will melt in 10mins in 31c & how will u keep filling ice 24/7?. But ice while running fans will keep temp down, while the ice drops temp the fan will cool it enough so that temp takes a few hours to go back up. Ok to use ice for a quick fix(black out etc..) but if used everyday then your tank temp becomes like a yoyo. would u fall sick going from cold to hot to cold for weeks or months?

cheers ian. i'm using 13mm pvc return. cheers rrrobt

see what i mean! $18 for 1/2 inch! <_< i need at least 5 ft worth+3 outlets. guess i'll stick to good old cheapo PVC.Even the US still too high. thanks ian

Never tried on anything smaller than a 4ft. For 60gal- half teaspoon sugar dissolved in 500ml warm water- then let cool to room temp. 1st dose of 500ml in the evening/nite- 2nd dose next day morning or lunchtime. Cloudiness should appear within 2 days(if not means not enough sugar). Nitrates drop on the 3rd or 4th day. Stays down for another 4-5days. Skim as usual,feed fish as usual,lights as usual. No harm to fishes, most corals & clams still open.(the odd few will close.My rose anemone & some zoos). but one week later u are back to square one! only a quick fix & nobody dare try long term usage yet.

damn! I though 90% of the those were normal? sleeping near the tank,cycling sump first/chking MH out in Jewellery shops,etc etc. bridal shops got MH as well, but i did it fast & didn't get caught by the wife .Instead of asking how much package was, asking how much MH setup was!Again didn't get caught cause i'm not mad!or suicidal! btw they were four wall mounted dual 250w sets. & So running round the house in the early hours of the morning with a torchlight & staring into the tank just to look at worms not normal either huh! i just don't collect bulbs.

phang that was before he removed a 6foot worm the thread> before & after pics: 500 gal 6 foot worm

somehow i knew that was coming lona, Its for corals, its a subsitute for live zooplankton-if u have fishes that eat zooplankton then maybe they will benefit. Otherwise i would say its too small, to give u an idea- look at a woman's face powder(those compact power they puff on their faces),sort of peach/pink/skin tone colour. Golden Pearls look exactly the same. ( guys, April fools coming so u know what to do) No point buying it to feed fish.

Nope,i don't think so cause its a product by brineshrimpdirect- u need to mail order straight from them if they have stock. Otherwise u need to chk with anybody here who already has some & willing to let go of a portion.

made from typical aquatic food ingredients .but i find it Too expensive.! could be as simple as flake ground to micron sizes. Golden pearls can be classed as artificial plankton- AT, chanbi & i think clowntrigger got it. The advantage of golden pearls is that u can get them in different micron sizes, made to replace zooplankton. Brineshrimpdirect.com sells them & for less than US$10. Freight will be US$24,delivered in abt 3 days. u can read up on its contents there. A little goes a long way & u would be pleased if u can finish a small pack in 6 mths otherwise takes forever. As with all prepared foods: feed in moderation as it contributes to degrading water quality if uneaten.

I remember that one, The egg shells were not for seeding, they were used as substrate, reason caused the author tried to find an alternative cheaper means instead of buying aragonite sand. Egg shells ground/food processor gives a fine sand feeling- the idea is that the shell also contains calcium & will dissolve into the water over time. i think he used over 900 eggs & took a couple of months to collect so many. This one way out of my league for crazy ideas!. Seeding is when u introduce a source of bacteria & micro organisms-worms-creepy crawlies.(fauna) usually obtained from an already established reef, In the US they can mail order these kits.

As we discussed earlier, all corals require more than light in order to grow and reproduce. Most hobbyists who have corals in their saltwater aquariums pay close attention to the level of trace elements and calcium in their tank water. Keeping these levels as close to optimum as possible is an important part of a coral's overall health, but they do not provide any actual nutrition. Since one of the major goals of most aquarists is to keep their tanks as close to sterile as possible (with the exception of beneficial bacteria and trace elements) the average home aquarium provides scant nutrition to their resident corals. Adding extra food to your tank can be a double edged sword, however. If we try to keep the available food level in a closed aquarium system at the same level that is available to corals on the reef, it wouldn't take long for the average tank to crash due to the quantity of uneaten food decomposing in the tank's substrate. Many experienced aquarists have found that the judicius application of the proper mix of foods and additives to a coral tank is extremely beneficial to the corals. Active water circulation in the tank as well as a powerfull protein skimmer will dispose of the uneaten food and avoid the accumulation of decaying matter. Follows is a coral food recipe which was inspired by Eric H. Borneman's "Homemade Coral Ration" which he published in "Aquarium Corals - Selection, Husbandry and Natural History". It is similiar to what the oceans make available to reef corals in that it contains a wide variety of nutrients as well as elements and a variety of particle sizes, making it suitable for a mixed coral tank. A key factor for coral foods is that it possess properties which allow the mix to remain suspended in the tank for long periods of time, rather than sinking quickly to the bottom of the tank. Ingredients: Seafoods: 6 fresh mussels 6 fresh clams 6 fresh oysters 3 whole shrimp (fresh or frozen) These seafoods contain blood or blood components, which are rich in nutrients. If one or more of these ingredients are not available, you may substitute similiar items (not precooked, canned or containing additional additives or other ingredients). Frozen Aquarium Foods 1/2 package frozen sea urchins (aquarium pack) 1/2 package frozen fish roe (aquarium pack) 4 oz. decapsulated Artemia nauplii The decapsulated (deshelled) Artemia are readily accepted my most corals as they do not have the shells, which many corals will reject. Frozen brine shrimp may be substituted however, as with the Artemia, the shells may cause some corals to reject them. These ingredients are an excellent source of nutritional ingredients. Dried Seaweeds 1/4 cup of red, green and brown seaweeds after soaking. Dried seaweeds can be found in pet shops and health food stores or in the Asian section of most food stores. Do not use roasted or other products which have flavors or other indredients added to them. Seaweeds are an excellent food for zoanthids and other soft corals which feed on plant matter. Natural sea weeds are also an excellent source of iodine. Aquarium Foods & Supplements 2 oz. (1 small container) Marine Flake Food 2 oz. (1 small container) Tiny food pellets 1 tbsp Liquid vitamins (Selco, or other vitamin/amino acid supplements) Preparation Soak the seaweeds in fresh (declorinated) water until soft. Thaw all of the frozen ingredients in a bowl. Remove shells from all seafood. Crush all dry ingedients into a powder. A mortar and pestle is best, but various other kitchen implements (2 spoons, 1 spoon and a small plate) can be used. Add liquid vitamins to the powdered ingredients. Liquify all of the ingredients in a blender. Freeze in Ziplock bags in thin flats or in small compartment ice cube trays (cut pieces in half, or quarters for feeding convenience and store in Ziplock bags after frozen). Feeding Recommendations Start by feeding small amounts (1/2 tsp per 50 gallons of system water per day) to begin with. You can gradually increase the amount, until you start to see water quality problems, then back off on the quantity a bit. The food can be administered at night (when most corals actively feed) or with the use of a turkey baster (dissolve the ration in a container of tank water and inject directly onto the corals). This coral food is pure, high potency nutrition for your corals. Using a high powered protein skimmer in your tank will greatly assist you in keeping the accumulation of uneaten food to a safe level. Debbie & Stan Hauter About Guides to Saltwater Aquariums personal note- i have not tried the above recipe(yet! I just got this today!!) cause i feed live phyto & zoo at the moment but i belive that if u don't have an adequate skimmer to get the uneaten prepared foods out then water quality will drop & hair algae/diatoms/cyano will come(not may come). Bottled liquid foods did that for me before(& its ingredients was only pea flower & yeast).

When do corals feed? Each polyp feeds until its appetite has been satisfied. The amount of food required depends upon the individual species, metabolic requirements and the amount of food available. In the wild, corals seem to feed more actively at night rather than during the day. As the sun sets and the reef becomes darker, plankton rises from the reef, providing a food rich environment for the polyps. This is the major food source for most corals. As the sun sets on the reef and the zooxanthellae reduce their photosynthetic activity (which is used for fueling a high rate of calcification for growth), there isn't much left for the corals to do but eat. It seems that corals are very adaptable animals. When introduced into an aquarium, where the entire food availability routine is reversed due to the fact that most aquarists feed their tanks during the day (when the tank is lit), most corals change or at least modify their feeding habits. Corals which normally grow in the lower light (deeper) areas of the reef depend much more heavily on active feeding than do shallower water corals. Shallower depth (high light) corals need to actively feed on zooplankton for most of their nitrogen uptake, since the zooanthellae are already photosynthesizing sufficient carbon and transporting it to the coral animals. Corals which normally retract their polyps during the day may leave them open longer in low light conditions in the aquarium in order to meet their carbon requirements. Although some corals actively feed on available plankton during the daylight hours, a majority of corals open their polyps, extend their tentacles with their stinging nematocycts and actively feed during the night. Ideally, the environment in which aquarium corals are kept should be as close to those on the reef as possible. A number of coral aquarists have found that feeding their corals at night with the assistance of an automatic feeder and running their mechanical filters and skimmers through timers which turn them off during coral feeding hours has provided good results.

What Do Corals Eat? Corals, for the most part, are carnivorous, feeding mostly on small animals (zooplankton, suspended in the water column of the ocean. Copepods, polychrates, chaetognaths and larvae are the more commonly consumed zooplankton items in a coral's diet. A vast majority (up to 85%) of this food emerges from within the reef (where it is produced) in the evening and at night. Most soft corals, zooanthids and gorgonians depend almost exclusively on phytoplankton, (small water-borne plants or algae) for their nutritional needs as well as floating plankton, detritus and slow moving invertebrate larvae, rather than zooplankton (which can actively propel itself). The third important source of food for corals is bacterioplankton, which consists of free-living bacteria as well as the bacteria associated with various materials in the water (mucas, dead plant material, and other particulate matter) which are commonly called detritus or reef snow. Almost all corals feed heavily on bacterioplankton. Material which includes detritus, floating eggs and other material is also known as pseudoplankton. The fourth category of food utilized by corals is Dissolved Organic Material (DOM) which is absorbed across cell membranes directly into the coral. Many of the corals with larger polyps (i.e. Cynarina and Catalaphyllia) are capable of capturing and eating larger food items, including the occasional small fish. Many corals (particularly gorgonians and soft corals) may select their food based more on the size of the plankton, than its composition. In the past, it was believed that the large polyped corals, with their more efficient tentacle formations, obtained a large portion of their nutrition from active feeding on the food that floated by, rather than from their zooxanthellae algae. It has since been discovered that many of the small polyp corals are actually more aggressive feeders than their larger cousins. If you have live corals in your aquarium, you are probably wondering what foods your corals eat to supplement the nutrition provided by their resident zooxanthellae algae. You could just make a slurry of a variety of different foods which cover the entire spectrum (the "shotgun method" approach) and load it into your tank, allowing the corals to select what they want from the mix. The uneaten food in the mix is guaranteed to increase your nitrate levels in a short period of time. Or you can fine tune the supplement to the requirements of your specific corals. It is difficult to generalize the food requirements for groups (LPS, SPS or soft) of corals as there are always a few renegades in each group which have a more selective diet. We highly recommend obtaining a good book (reference source) on corals to determine what your specific corals feed on. One book which we highly recommend is "Aquarium Corals - Selection, Husbandry and Natural History" by Eric H. Borneman. The sections devoted to each coral provide detailed information on what the corals feed on in the wild. There is also an excellent chapter devoted to feeding corals in your aquarium. Corals derive their nutrition in several ways, all of which require that the polyps be open, either for the zooanthellae algae to gather light, or for active feeding from the environment. Corals are stimulated to expand their polyps to feed by a number of influences. Temperature, the time of the day, oxygen content of the water, water movement, the presence of food or sediment are the influencing factors. Coral polyps will expand and contract throughout the day and night, depending upon how much food is readily available. The Zooplankton contained in the coral polyps releases the amino acids glycine, glutathione and proline, which appear to induce a feeding response in most corals.

I just got saltwater aquariums newsletter & i find this article quite good. if i linked it, only half of u would read it so i'll put it here in a few posts.(saltwateraquariums allows it as long as its for informative purpose) Article: Feeding Saltwater Aquarium Corals Contrary to popular belief, a vast majority of corals are not autotrophic, requiring only light to survive. Autotrophs produce their own food from inorganic material they extract from their surrounding environment, usually using sunlight to synthesize it with the aid of zooxanthellae algae. In reality, most corals are heterotropic organisms, depending at least partly on actively feeding on (with their thousands of stinging tentacles) or absorbing nutrients from the surrounding water as well as autotrophic nutrition. Most corals are mixotrophic in that they utilize both both autorophic and heterotrophic methods of feeding to survive. Corals are said to be unlike any other critter in that such a large portion of their body is devoted to capturing food. With their huge number of tentacles containing endless stinging cells, no wonder C.M. Younge in 1931 stated, "When an animal possesses an organ or set of organs which perform certain functions with perfect efficiency, it can be taken as axiomatic that such organs are used." If you think of the world's oceans as "The Big Soup", you would be right. The oceans are the personification of the term "food chain". Everything from microscopic bacteria to the fishes in the sea is there. The zooanthellae contained in coral polyps provide a wide range of materials needed by the coral, but coral feeding must supply the balance of the nutrients and vitamins required for metabolism and growth. It is now believed that symbiotic (autotrophic) corals, as a group, obtain from 20 - 50% of their food from heterotrophic feeding on plankton and dissolved organic materials. Some hard corals can obtain 200 - 300% of their basic energy needs from heterotrophic feeding while most meet more than 100% of their needs in this manner. Octocorals and Zoanthids can meet 10 - 100% of their needs in this manner. Not only is intake in excess of basic energy needs required for reproduction and growth, it also increases the respiration rate of the entire colony, leading to an even greater increase in growth rates. Exactly What Do Corals Eat?", the next article in this series will delve into which natural foods corals dine on.

ian, pm me if u find it- i'm looking for some as well to fit 13 mm pvc pipes. i looking for abt 3-4 outlets, but i wish to pay for plastic & not gold. hee hee. thnks

i've seen them at pac marine too, but does anybody know how much they cost? everytime i see them they are reserved. most probably out to the US of A. spooky is the right word & worth just setting up a 4ft species tank solely for them.Providing optimum conditions for them, a chiller to keep it at 20c & maybe a 2ft light set double FL, 1 x tropical tube 1x acitinic,on for mainly evening viewing(maybe 3-4hrs) otherwise off. Feed feeder shrimps in the morning & after lights off at night,include a sand DSB & some circulation & keep low stocking-maybe 3-4 animals per 4ft. roughly equipment setup cost total abt $1500. dosage of calcium i guess a must too. Otherwise they won't last more than a few months in reef setups. i wish for more space! well!, maybe if one day i could ever give up my peru L46 pleco setup.

spade, this may or may not work. Get a pack of live bloodworms & feed one teaspoon near the copperband, the wriggling should get its attention. If it eats then u can add more, after this it should take to frozen bloodworms. U can also try it with live adult brine shrimp but i find almost all fishes will dash for live Bloodworms. They not very clean but most of the time it works as a starter for feeding. i had one which starved for 2 days then ate frozen bloodworms,then frozen brineshrimp, then frozen mysis.i was getting attached to it when it got shredded by my yellow tang a few weeks later.

i get what u mean, u r gonna run it on a closed loop. i read the smallest it ran on was on a 29gal so it'll most probably will work. Here's the thread that i saw in jan & got me started. RC-scwd its 10pages long & will take abt 30mins to go thru, but they got all kind of plumbing senarios there. hmmmm maybe it looks like 1 is not enough for me. Here is a version of a closed loop>something like what u wanna do. scwd-close loop Nobody can give a longterm account for it yet cause the oldest working one on a reef is only abt 6weeks old.(although its been tested to 53,000hrs) Mine is not even 2 weeks old & i have to keep shutting it off cause i doing adjustments to my tank so got to remove it for a while. just remember to prefilter the water & it will run longer.

soz for the late reply FF, been away for a week. i got mine connected on a project canister -(the canister is bare, i just use it as an external powerhead)rated 1800/ltr.counting the return from sump that means i have 3 circulation points so i'm trying to do without any powerheads in the tank. Its still cycling so i can't really tell if its enough for me yet. the only difference u will notice between high & low flowrates is the time between the alternate flow switching & that's the only adjustment(pump rate) u can do to achieve your preferred effect. r u running a sump(i should guess so cause 2ft volume only 50ltr)?or where r u gonna put the ehiem 1260?. i would think its a bit strong for a 2ft,even with the head loss,for u i guess won't be more than 3ft height?(which is not much cause these pumps are designed for this exact use of pumping up) since u have it spare u can try, but u need a flowrate rated according to your volume or tank size. i would think its a bit too strong for the 2ft even if u included an extra Y joint. p.s remember to get all the fittings to fit & then check for weak points or any potential burst points. The instructions cover all these.

Congrats nleong, izzit your first saltwater & electricity experience. Hopefully no more. i hate that 'POP' then the lights go out feeling. Watch out if u trip the switch box in the flat to often, if its too often it will trip the main box located outside your house(should be a dark blue/grey box around the front door-there's a small lock on it u gotta break). Keep that in mind if u can't seem to switch everything back on in the hse switch box.Oh! but firstmake sure u don't hear water dripping or make a mental note to go round the tank with a torchlight first otherwise power won't come back on. The floating hydrometer is not the most accurate- u get a rough gauge from it(somethin like ok u got to keep salinity within 1.022 to 1.024)while its bobbing around in the tank. i have one & also 2 needle types and comparing readings the floating one is slightly off, sometimes up to 0.01-0.02 difference. i gather that since the contents are metal beads held in place by wax of some sort+ the fact that the whole thing made of glass & it floats in the tank the whole day under light- may contribute to the difference in temp to salinity thing & somethin to consider. another thing bugs me is the damn thing keep bobbing up & down-spinning round & round. All are calibrated at water temp 25c,it says on the box when u buy it.

HH, simply overstocked. Cycle not finished yet & at 4 weeks u were on the right track if u started with 1-2 fish. Too fast,Too many,Too soon. i know it was the CNY At 10 fishes in a 2ft at 4 weeks with high nirites u will not get 0 nitrates for a long time to come. (i don't even hit 10 fishes in a 4ft even when it was fish only- the waste was just too much. Now i cap mine off at 6) Last nite i was at an LFS & again i heard them explain to ppl the right way of starting a tank of death. Buy tank & filter,mix salt- can add fish next day. Good luck, God bless (i won't mention names cause its off topic here) HH- Don't rub the fish.It will not get rid of the ich or whitespots- it will either release toxins & kill your tank or stress the fish more(collectors in hawaii do this before shipping the blue boxfish to rid the toxins while shipping) Fishfreak- actually it is, Old sw is full of of bacteria(good & bad),diatoms,microbes & all the things the eye can't see. The water change will benefit in 2 ways,the main purpose is to dilute the wastes while an additional benefit comes with a little bacteria boost. This a jump start method of cycling but no matter what u must still keep track of levels to know when to start stocking & maintain healthy stocking levels. The beneficial bacteria is everywhere,all around us . When u cycle a bare tank without any source of LR, they come from the air around us but it takes a little longer.