Im Back And Keen As Ever!

[BeerShark]

for starters ill just say i love this forum, i joined in 04 with the intention of having a marine aquarium and had decided tropical due to cost and so forth of having temperate eg cooling and also in south australia its oh so hard to find anywhere that actually has anything to do with temperate, equipment or stock. had my tank picked out, had the cash and the inspiration. then the defence force called me and made me an offer i couldnt really refuse and still feel manly hehe.

so the tank was on hold till now. but im living on kangaroo island off the coast of south australia, ( for those that dont know its tiny, has a population of around 10,000 or something, mostly farms) now there is NO LFS here, i think the water mains has alot of copper pipe so mixing my own water is out i guess, theres seawater close by but its temperate and im unsure of mixing it with tropical water, would it caus ethe local plankton and whatnot to die off and spike? i put alot of thought into this over a few weeks and came up with so many problems that having a tropical tank was impossible. oh yea how does fish/ inverts cope with altitudes? i have the choice of getting them here via about 2 hours in a car, a 50 minute ferry trip and about another hour via car after that, OR a 30 minute plane trip not too high of an altitude, its kind of a small charter type plane. also there is the all too common occurance of power outages here, theyre alot better than they used to be as in they dont last too long now (1-2 hours max as opposed to 6-10 hours a few years ago)

so theres my problems, that and im not sure if im going to be here for mor than a year or maybe a little longer which led me to consider a temperate tank. i got a small tank here about 12gallons i think it works out to. i think i can get a much bigger one too if i try for very little cost. im currently scuba diving for the governent doing reef surveys and have lots of opportunity to gather my own stock for " study" so it wont cost me anything for that, nor plants/liverock as i can get it from area's that are about to be destroyed from a new ferry service ripping the area to bits as well as runnoff from local farmland and a storm water outlet.

so my only real cost is equipment such as a chiller and filters etc. now im sure ive left lots out, just wondering what your thoughts were on this guys, i dont really see much choice if i want a tank at all id hae to go temperate or can i solve some problems and still go tropical. one other advantage i had with temperate was that if my tank crashed i could just let the stuff go 2.5 minutes from where i live.

 

[steelhealr]

BeerShark... ...I read thru your whole post..by temperate, do you mean 'cold water', that is, water in the 60's/70's? Thanks. Welcome aboard. SH

 

[SkiFletch]

Mantis nano ant mail order will be your best friends IMO, but look around for options and ideas. welcome

 

[BeerShark]

Yea temperate is cold water, looked at a few water chillers whilst in adelaide for the week, ouch! ill definately be ordering one online, a few hundred dollars cheaper for the same product name and brand!

 

[Mr Miagi]

Welcome BeerShark! Another Aussie! WOOT! Our plan for world domination continues!

Sounds like your running into a few troubles. As youve found, the LFS's around here bump up the price alot, so you'd best shop online. Even with postage, if you order a few things at once, you save big time!

Gathering your own stock would be sweat as! I look forward to your future pics....

Im from Adelaide BTW, so if you need any help, dont hesitate to ask or PM me here!

 

[BeerShark]

I was wondering if there were any many other aussies on here, converting things to gallons and inches and the like so sucks hehe! metric ftw! yea id love to collect my own stock, i had to choose between 700 dollars on my water chiller or a new wetsuit seeing as the ocean here is sitting at about 14C when we go down, and colder on the bottom where we sit for around an hour, the thin one i have just doesnt cut it! but its still worth it seeing all the blue devils/harlequin fish and mauri octopus's cruising around, saw big cuttlefish the other day too, thought it was going to sucker onto me as i was covered in shiny bits and it kept coming over hehe.

but oh yea some very nice fishies down there in the cold, inverts too, ghost shrimp take my fancy, having trouble finding resources as to temperate creature habbits and whats gonna eat what in the tank when i get it going, ( if i get more cash, seeing as i ended up getting the wetsuit) choice of chillers and lack of information is quite frustrating too

Love to see your tank sometime miagi, u have any pictures of it? anyways im in adelaide kinda frequently, can always go have a beer and i can pick your brain for information on all things fishy.

 

[Aquascaper]

NSW will be fine for a marine tank, many people round this way use it and just bring it up to temperature with no problems at all.

 

[Mr Miagi]

Love to see your tank sometime miagi, u have any pictures of it? anyways im in adelaide kinda frequently, can always go have a beer and i can pick your brain for information on all things fishy.

haha, That sounds good mate! There are a few societies around Australia for Marine Aquarium Hobbyists. Im a member of MASAOG, Marine Aquariums Society of Australia; Orphans Group. The Orphans Group is for isolated reefers like me, so we can help each other out, and trade frags when they come available. Not many hobbyists in Adelaide/SA im afraid....

A beer sounds good! I dont know if you would be able to pick my brain much though! New York would be good, cause then we'd have access to Steelhealr/beer!

PM sent!