Recent content by nilocmal

All i can tell you is since my tank initially cycled in summer 06, i've tested the water every couple of weeks, and the readings have been consistently as follows: amonia - 0 nitrite - 0 nitrate - 5 <> 7.5 phosphate - 0 ph - 8.2 sg - 1.025 calcium - 400 <> 425 temp - 25 And since then i've...

Thanks for your thoughts guys. When i put my tank where it is, i knew it was in direct sunlight, but like you barney i figured what the hell. We're trying to recreate natural conditions so why not add a little sunlight ? With hindsight, that was my biggest mistake on this whole salty journey...

Thanks Ad, sunlight = good ? Since i had it pointed out to me this was in fact bad as it promotes algae growth (the bain of my existence) i've found nothing on the internet to contradict that, until you came along yesterday ! Are you telling me direct sunlight is not the root cause of my...

Hello, I converted my tank from tropical to marine in summer 2006. Since then i've upgraded this, that, and the other, as you do. There's been good times, bad times, tedious times, and now, i'm ready to throw in the towel and start again. The tank is currently riddled with green hair algae ...

many thanks rob and ski. your help and advice is very much appreciated. makes a lot of sense now, which is always half the battle i find in this game. sounds like proper water changes are the way forward then. i'll give it a go and let you know the outcome. thanks again guys :good:

thing is though, doesn't pure RO have an even lower ph than RO with minerals added, in which case the ph in my tank is going to continue to drop through the floor unless i do something to artificially bring it back up again ? here's the thing. i converted to marine last summer using...

when you add ro water to top up a tank's evaporated water, do you add pure ro, or ro with minerals ? i've been doing the latter for 5 months, and just noticed my tank's ph has dropped to 7.8 from a steady 8.3 in pre ro days. calcium has also shot up to 480 from a steady 400 in pre ro days. my...

oh i see, take the sponges out, put them in a bucket of tank water and chuck a heater in, right ?

problem is, i introduced a couple of seahorses 10 days ago, which are doing fine, but i have to overfeed the tank for a while to ensure they tuck in. bugger. complicated this reef lark :crazy:

ummm, heated bucket ?

20kg

the skimmer's doing great. i empty it maybe once per week - full of green thick gloopy gunk. thanks for your idea re sponges. will give it a go.

been looking around here for a week or so and am a little concerned... got a juwel rio 240 (50g'ish) 3 years ago and was happilly tropical until last summer when i finally took the plunge and went marine. went to lfs, who promptly sold me a prizm hang on skimmer, an eheim external filter...

found somewhere that will ship berghia to the uk, but not till next year - www.berghia.net here's what they had to say: >> Hello Colin, We have shipped to the UK on prior occasion. At this time we are holding all overseas shipments in order to obtain sanitary certifications as they are...

great news.... so where can i buy some in the uk ??? or where can i ship them in from so they're still alive when they arrive ???