Recent content by badgergoth

I've been watching this thread for a while, and I propose an experiment. At home I currently have 1) a spare tank 2) tap water 3) salt (from a brackish tank I used to have) I'm also an ex-chemist, so I know something of scientific method. I'm also new to reefkeeping. In order to not kill...

I've just come back from a reef seminar here in Blighty, where Steve Tyree was giving a talk extoling the virtues of setting up a cryptic zone in a tank (low light, low flow) to encourage active filter feeders such as sponges and bivalves to grow, in order to remove the smaller particulate...

I read in last month's issue of practical fishkeeper (a uk magazine) that peppermint shrimp only work on aiptasia if they are added in sufficient quantities that they are in competition for non-aiptasia food. At this point, the shrimp will start to feed on the pest aiptasia. Obviously, this...

If you want to run skimmerless, is there any way of fitting the skimmer you've got externally? That way you can use it in an emergency if your caulerpa growth crashes. You might also want to consider using chaetomorpha and red graciliria instead of caulerpa too. There's a discussion on it here...

When your carbon dioxide levels rise (i.e. at night when photosynthesis is no longer occuring) more carbonic acid is produced, so in effect there are more hydrogen ions in solution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid pH is inversely proportional to the number of free hydrogen ions are...

Ahh, so you glue pipes together? I thought they all just slotted into each other. THAT could have been an interesting error.... (will any kind of PVC glue be ok?) being new to DIY and creating something which holds and transports gallons of water... let's just say I'll try and get a picture of...

I've recently built a setup in my garage which has RO water being fed into a food-safe container near the ceiling, and will have a food-safe salt-water container on the floor. The idea was that I could build piping between the RO tank and the salt water tank, so that I can connect the two with...

Thanks for the Ids. Any idea what the coral on page 1, column 2 row 2 is? Also page 2 row 1 column 1? The fish in picture 4 on page 1 is either an Amphiprion frenatus or an A. melanopus. ( I think it's just a dark A. frenatus). The stripe is actually white, it just looks blue in the picture...

whilst good for the corals, would this not mess with the sensory receptors of sharks and rays? I thought people grounded tanks for this reason. Or does the sheer vastness of the ocean negate this?

All the advice I've ever heard says that if you can't test for it, don't add it.

It's still reasonably young, and we had a little fight with the water chemistry at one point, but it's starting to take shape. www.lostjoy.org/zoo_tank/bristol_zoo.html Now if someone would be so kind as to identify the corals, so I can impress my boss the next time I'm volunteering, that...

Thanks for all the help guys. Just one small question though - what is DE lighting?

Are there any tank sizes which are unworkable, i.e too thin, too tall etc? I'm thinking about maximising my space and getting a 30" long x 15" deep x 20" tall tank built, instead of using a 24"x12"x12" tank I've got lying around ('cos then I can use the smaller one as a refugium if I can find...

Ahh yeah, it was the GPD that I was relating to - getting a small unit which does RO/DI seems near impossible. RO/DI seems to be the domain of high output units. But if I can add DI to a small scale RO unit at a later date, that would solve the problem. Thanks

I'm starting to get together the kit for my new 20 gallon newbie tank, and looking at RO units, they seem to come in two types - smaller RO units which probably produce around the kinds of volumes I'll need, or much larger RO/DI units which will mean I'll be drowning in RO. What I was wondering...