Our Journey To The Salty Side - Part One

[seffieuk]

Thank you for your comments TigerIssey, they are much appreciated - glad you also found it useful

BigC, you are such a tease but you just wait we will come away with something, bargain or not

Seffie x

 

[seffieuk]

Knew you would eventually succumb , where you gonna put your puffers, will we be walking out of pets@home on wednesday evening with a small tank under our arm

oh don't - Still in the planning stage yet, we will have to talk it through on Wednesday

The F8s and Knight gobies could I suppose go in the 550, but a bit of a waste of the tank.

So far the plans are:

Replace the juwel lighting bar with the new arcadia or juwel high lite T5 with marine bulbs - approx. £100
Get another 20 lbs or so of LR - will be looking for a bargain (yes BigC, a bargain ) £
Get a skimmer TMC v2 400 - £72 at aquatics warehouse
couple of power heads - £60

Oh gawd, doesn't it mount up quick!

Wonder if I could find a break down for the same amount

Think this is going to be a slow re:build

Seffie x



ps forgot to mention my brackish tank is a 46 gallon juwel Rio

 

[BigC]

I like to build my own tanks, simply because I have access to the raw materials gals. but I have often wondered why am I doing this.
Going for a breakdown tank Sef may be a better option. Keep yer money in yer purse for now and wait, keep working at your Nano and gleen all the valuabale information it throws at you and learn from your mistakes and triumphs.
Wait it out, dont just jump. There are dozens of tank breakdowns comming up every week if your prepared to travel. There lies the real BARGAIN!
Just a thought
Regards
C

 

[seffieuk]

I like to build my own tanks, simply because I have access to the raw materials gals. but I have often wondered why am I doing this.
Going for a breakdown tank Sef may be a better option. Keep yer money in yer purse for now and wait, keep working at your Nano and gleen all the valuabale information it throws at you and learn from your mistakes and triumphs.
Wait it out, dont just jump. There are dozens of tank breakdowns comming up every week if your prepared to travel. There lies the real BARGAIN!
Just a thought
Regards
C

as usual you are right I'm getting carried away by everyone else planning

Seffie x

 

[BigC]

as usual you are right good.gif I'm getting carried away by everyone else planning laugh.gif

I know, I know, its easy to get carried away in all the wonderment of what a new tank would bring, but you gotta put things into perspective and that main item would be expense, A bigger tank would be a big undertaking and purchasing it and all its ecutrements is only the start. A full blown tank with all bells and whistles will knock the electricity bill up by atleast £80 per month so be aware of that when planning. Far be it for me to put anyone off, but folks need to be aware of what outlay can amount to when going for an upgrade.
My own upgrade, I'm expecting will take almost a year from now to get anywhere near going properly.
If I was still living on the mainland, I would definately be looking for a nice decent breakdown, not too old, something that some unfortunate soul has befallen hard times and needs to let go.
The last thing we want to see is one of us being that exact same unfortunate soul due to not grasping the realtime expense involved in setting up and maintaining a large venture.
Just a few thoughts to consider
Not specifically aimed at you Sef but to all of us in these harder times.
ATB
BigC

 

[seffieuk]

Phew, never even thought about the electricity bill - boy that is a lot of dosh

Seffie x

 

[BigC]

Ah, The Electricity Bill. Yes its a real Demon and a very big player in all of this so be aware.
Plug n Play tanks like you have Sef really cater to all things and are cheap to run. A full blown tank with all the MH lighting etc will set you back a pretty sum each quarter and will send the meter disk spinning I can assure you of that, BTW £80 is a conservative figure.
Two 250 Metal Halides wouldn't be long in racking up that bill especially being on 12 hrs a day, you would also be burning actinics as well and thats just the lighting.
So you see Electricity consumption is a major player.
BigC

 

[Truck]

hi Trod and seffie

would you be kind enough to tell me which refractometer your using as i heard on another thread you got them of ebay? as i dont want to spend £40 on a TMC when i ccan buy a cheaper one which will do the same thing.

thanks truck

(loving the journal, followed it ever since it started and you two are were my inspiration to do my first SW tank and now my second)

 

[seffieuk]

hi Trod and seffie

would you be kind enough to tell me which refractometer your using as i heard on another thread you got them of ebay? as i dont want to spend £40 on a TMC when i ccan buy a cheaper one which will do the same thing.

thanks truck

(loving the journal, followed it ever since it started and you two are were my inspiration to do my first SW tank and now my second)

Hi Truck

thank you for your kind words, we appreciate them

I can't find the exact one we have but to be honest they are all fairly similar

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/HEAVY-DUTY-SALINITY-...t_Supplies_Fish?
hash=item370153306850&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1686%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/TMC-V2-Aquarium-Refr...A1%7C240%3A1318

We did indeed buy from Ebay

Seffie x

 

[Truck]

thanks for the link, im watching that TMC one and ill make the seller an offer

 

[Trod]

GRRRRRRRRR I'm not a happy bunny, been to ALL my local newsagents and some not so local and none of them have the Marine World Magazine.
Anyone know of stockists, I know I can subscribe online but wanted this months edition.



Just subscribed online so I'm hoping they'll deliver March edition first I'll keep fingers crossed, looking at website there are only 135 stockists so thought this would be best way to get it

 

[Trod]

Last week I got a text from seffie, telling me that the TMC was going to be giving a talk at our local pets@home, did I want to go, Definately I replied, so last night seffie picks me up and off we set, all excited like 2 school kids giggling in the car, thinking of the bargains that we might be getting, after being told there would be plenty on offer.
Seffie parked the car, eventually and narrowly missing the children running around behind the car, she got it between the white lines
18.30 bang on time, there were quite a few people there, we found ourselves a good viewing corner and prepared to listen to a talk on how to care for our fish and aquarium properly, chappie began, now I'd like to point out at this stage, we had stupidly positioned ourselves right next to the marine tanks with lots of fishes in, swimming around all looking a bit shocked by the amount of people they found themselves faced with, many of them peeking nervously out of their caves. and 2 dragonets (like what bronzecat has got) eyeing each other up through the glass, they didn't like each other!!!
The first 10 minutes we listened to how everyone else catching fish and inverts are doing it wrong, then the next 15 minutes or so, we kind of drifted off to be honest, as it became clear that all this was about was promoting the TMC and not about how to care for our own little eco systems in our houses, then suddenly seffie became very animated, pulling at my sleeve whispering in my ear, at first I thought she had taken a big swig from her hip flask (it goes everywhere with her ) and she was choking but no she had spotted a fish but not just any fish, it was Ben1987's wrasse, well not Ben's actual fish but you know what I mean , What a lovely looking fish As you can tell we got kinda distracted by the fish as they were ultimately more intersting than the speech and now we'd been standing up for about 35 minutes and I'm not saying we're old but seffie does have a back problem and I am still recovering from my op, so we were beginning to wilt, there was a lady in front of us in a wheelchair and being honest it was looking dodgy as to which one of us was going to turf her out first and sit down
Anyway it did get slightly more interesting for the last 10 minutes or so, when he was showing us pictures of their tanks and my god they have BIG skimmers.
He ended his somewhat long speech promoting the TMC, just over an hour, leaving seffie and I dissappointed as it was not what we had expected
But again seffie sprang into life, bargains and off we went to look around for them, we walked around the store twice because we thought we might have missed them the first time, but no, no bargains
Now we're thinking of the mac D over the road, yes we thought much better idea
But hang on, whats this, a raffle with lots of prizes and a Red Sea Max to win, well I got the tickets and we started planning what we were going to do with the tank when we won it, 10 mins we were told and the raffle would be drawn, so I sat down on some boxes while seffie was watching the VERY RARE Odontanthias borbonius Anthias ( ) swimming around in the tank behind me, now at this stage seffie's purse began to twitch, and I thought oh no, I see a purchase coming, 'I wonder how much they want for it' she asks with that glint in her eye, 'Lots' came the reply, trying to head her off at the pass, but nope off she goes to find Mark (manager), a couple of minutes later she returns with Mark in tow, 'How much' she asks fluttering the eyelashes, 'just sold it' replies Mark, as I exhale rather alarming (phew) But someone got a bargain for £75
Right onto the raffle and they draw the Red Sea Max first, ticket in hand, ready to collect our prize and nope some chap with a face like a wet kipper won, he didn't even smile, after we muttered a few unsavoury words under our breath, we accepted the fact we would just enjoy the smaller prizes on offer
Well we would have done if Craig hadn't of been there, 10 prizes later and he had won 8 of them (me thinks they didn't mix them up to well!)
So looking at seffie and knowing that if we didn't leave soon, there could be bloodshed and we'd end up in handcuffs and before the night was through, we'd be in a little room with a hard bed
We departed, empty handed and with no bargains, to have our burger and eventually managed to find the humour in our evening.
I'm really not sure what the moral of this story is, but if you get invited to a talk by the TMC

RUN LIKE HELL​

 

[ben1987]

 

[TigerIssey]

What a disappointing night, however the account of it one of the funniest things I have read since reading a marian keyes book on holiday last year!! I saw one of ben1987's wrasses at our local LFS and I have to admit they are stunning.

Such a shame there were no bargains, everyone loves a bargain

 

[Trod]

I have got fed up with my chaeto in a bag in my tank so I've bought one of these http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/MARINA-MICRO-L-E-D-L...A1%7C240%3A1318 from my LFS today, I have put in one of the back weirs and added the chaeto, its in the same one as the LR rubble and rowphos is that ok?