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Hiya! :hyper: This thread of mine might be of use... http://www.fishforums.net/Aquarium-Cycle-G...es-t193128.html My tank's water chemistry went a bit weird during cycling; in particular, the pH dropped - this was probably due to the amount of biological activity giving off large amounts of...

It'll be two weeks this weekend since he was last seen. I'll give him another week before giving him up for dead. :unsure: He cost me £15, so I'm feeling a bit miffed....! :angry: Got two clowns and a yellow tailed damsel yesterday, our first fish! :good: They're doing great; they started...

AK77, good luck with your copperband! They are lovely fish, and I can see why your sister got it for you! By coincidence, I was reading up on aiptasia anemones tonight - I think i've got some in my new tank - and apparently, the copperband butterfly will eat them, along with small tubeworms....

Nope, still no sign of him. I did find bits of an empty shell, so presumably, he's moulted. The other shrimps and snails are doing great though....

Last thursday, I got a cleaner shrimp, along with two candy stripe shrimps and a selection of snails. (these are the first inhabitants to my newly matured aquarium) Sometime on saturday, he disappeared. He seemed OK, was acclimated over a 45 min period, and was behaving normally, and accepted...

If you want to know the volume of your tank, measure the dimensions in cm, then multiply them together, then divide by 1000. This will give you the volume in liters. nice 'n simple. :good: 3.8 liters in 1 US gallon 4.54 liters in one imperial gallon. It's best to stick to liters, to avoid...

I've one more graph to add: I guess there's no more need to post anymore graphs, now that the aquarium has matured. I've added some rowaphos yesterday, and that's coming down. I'll do a 15 % water change later tonight. Three days ago, I added some critters: 2 candy shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp...

Nice idea... hehe...I have one of those water butts as well...but I use mine to filter used veggie oil to run my car on! :good:

What, ALL the LR? reputable LR is just rubble from long dead reefs, not actually taken from the reef itself. it can be done in a sustainable way. Not trying to be flippant here, but perhaps if that's the way you feel, maybe you shouldn't be keeping any fish in a captive environment? Go scuba...

:drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: Good Luck! :good: :hyper:

Um, ski, haven't you got that the wrong way round? At night time, plants take in O2 and give off CO2, therefore in the morning just before the lights come on, CO2 should be highest and therefore the pH is the lowest. Then during the day, plants take in CO2 to photosynthesise and give off O2, so...

Here's today's latest: Looks like things have settled down... The spreadsheet is here: http://maps.impactcraters.info/~carl/marines/AquariumLog.xls

Many, many, many many moons ago, when I ran my first marine tank, (back then LR was unheard of, it was all undergravel filtration hehehehe...!) I got an infestation of red cyano. I got some sort of supplement from the LFS - it was a greenish liquid, with a dosage container - your squeezed the...

Simply add up the wattage of all your electrical equipment, and find out what your electricity supplier charges per kilowatt hour. Lets say they charge you 15p per kilowatt hour. That means if your using 1kw (i.e. 1000watts) of leccy for a one hour period, it will cost 15p. Aquariums have...

What are your nitrate and phosphate readings? Test your tank and the RO water for both these.

OK. But i already have about a dozen tiny tube worms that came in with the LR, and they are growing! :good: They're about 0.5cm in length...

Today's latest: I got me a phosphate test kit on Sunday, so I've started testing for Phosphates now. I'll have to invest in some rowaphos to keep it to zero! I was thinking about getting a couple of nemos, but if they don't have any, maybe some cleaner shrimp and a couple of tubeworms?

um, there were some brown diatoms that appeared and covered one chunk of live rock, and covered the sand, about 2 weeks ago,but it's completely gone from the rock now, and is only on the sand - and it's nothing major, it seems to be dying off from there as well.... On the good side, I have...

And today's installement... Looks like I might be ready to add my first lot of critters this time nex week! :drool: :hyper:

Thanks everyone for the comments and interest so far :hyper: The test kit I'm using is the API master test kit - pH, ammonnia, nitrite and nitrate. Yes, it is one of those 'cheap 'n cheerful' test kits, but i think it has served me well overall. I've been testing the water at the about the...

Cheers Underwurlde, I would if I could rescale it; I'll have a look. I'm using OpenOffice, I don't think it has that kind of sophistication. You probably could with something like the Geochemists' Workbench program or GNUPlot...Can MS excel do such a thing? (Sorry, I don't use Windows!) And...

Looks like we're on the home straight folks.... :good: Nitrates up to 10ppm *again* :no:

Ta! I also think it's interesting seeing that larger ammonia spike after adding the larger bit of LR. It's too damned expensive getting it all in one go, plus I had some delays in being able to accept the 10kg shipment. (it could have arrived the day after I got the 5kg LR, but nobody could be...

Hmmm...I did the water tests yesterday, usual time, and Nitrates had jumped to 10ppm, from zero ppm the previous day! :blink: So I tested the RO water - zero ppm and also tested our tap water - 5ppm nitrate.... As far as the tank goes, I have a growth of brown diatom algae on some bits of...

Not over here, matey :good: Cost me about $900 (£450) and that included a full days mechanics fees to fit... That cost is recouped within a year. Sell the expensive petrol car and buy an older cheaper (1990s) diesel car and the conversion kit and have money left over. :D 8) When you get...

Sorry for being OT, but... Ditch the petrol car and get a diesel. Then get real friendly with your local chippy/restaurant/foodpub. Then ask if you can start collecting their used oil. With luck they'll be only too happy to give it to you for free, as they usually have to pay to have it taken...

Nice! My wife loves the fridmani...esp. as purple is her favourite colour. She wants one of those for our tank!

OK, here is the latest: How bizarre. nitrates have dropped to zero. I wonder what was going on there?? :blink: -_- Quite a spectacular drop in ammonia, and nitrites are falling too, plus the pH appears to be recovering! :good:

That graph is just read off from a simple OpenOffice spreadsheet I created. I can make that availble to download when this is all finished if you like... :good: EDIT: I'll post another graph this evening after my latest batch of tests...watch this space! :hyper: :good:

Personally, I wouldn't run any marine aquarium without one! :good:

Hmmm. I've had another think. I put about 3.5 litres of mineral water in the tank, the level of nitrates for this mineral water was 20ppm per litre, so i put in 20ppm * 3.5 = 70ppm nitrate into 100 litres of tank water, so that dilutes to 70/103.5 = 0.67ppm... Yet my nitrate readings have shot...

Yeah. I know. I've beaten myself with a big stick over such a stupidly dumb mistake. :blush: I hope the nitrate levels fall to zero, and stay there! :good: I'm still concerned about the pH. my dKH levels are at 10. the guy at the lfs reckons it's probably due to the sudden and massive...

I'm pretty sure that's my fault - I didn't have any RO water, so I used a few litres of mineral water to keep the tank topped up - unfortunately it had 20ppm nitrate in it...! Doh! :blush: :rolleyes: I have a nice stock of RO water now, so that'll never happen again. Interesting (and nice!)...

I've added another 3.5kg of LR - and this will be the last bit of LR. It smells of fresh ocean, so it's mostly cured (I hope!) I needed a little more to finish off the top of my wall of rock. :good: This is what the tank looks like now: And todays readings:

18 hours after I added 10kg of LR, here are the results: Ammonia and Nitrite have spiked again, as expected. Nitrates have jumped too. I'm mostly worried about the pH....it.s dropped to 7.8 :crazy: It always was on the low side, at 8.1

Todays update...Ammonia falling, nitrite rising....woohoo...! The ammonia seems to have fallen quite rapidly.... :good:

The rock is Pacific; it was sitting in the lfs tanks for 4 days before I got it, so not fully cured, not by a long chalk. It was cleaned tho. . My ammonia kit goes from 2ppm to 4ppm, so it's all a bit subjective and woolly, especially since I'm trying to compare colours. :crazy: much rather...

There's cyberaquatics: http://www.cyberaquatics.com/cyber/index.shtml They're based in Team Valley, Gateshead. They deal exclusively in marines. Very knowledgeable too! :good:

Hi everyone! :hyper: I'm in the process of setting up my 120 liter aquarium. I'm not new to marines, having kept them for a 2 year period about 15 years ago (no live rock back then...it was all undergravel filtration! :crazy: ) Now I'm back, and really getting into this live rock thing...

There is also the Red Sea Prism protein skimmer. They hang on the back of the tank, so are hidden and therefore much, much more aesthetically pleasing, IMHO. You can pick one up on ebay second hand for about 40 quid. New one will cost about twice that... :good: