~1g Pico Cube

[Siamese Fighter05]

I'm pretty sure DFS ships to the UK but you'll have to convert it from US power connection to a UK one

 

[OohFeeshy]

Yeah, and I bet shipping will be horrendous too

 

[Donya]

Have you ruled out using a regular office/desk lamp with a different blub swapped in? I don't know what the UK selection is like, but when I was lamp hunting there were quite a number of desk lights that were for T5, T4, and PC bulbs. Many were in the small size range too.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Well, yeah, I was thinking about that last night. I'll have a look at the shop I'm going to in a bit. I've also got a clip-on thing that takes a regular lightbulb, you can normally get loads of different ones of those. Plus I could easily add a decorative lampshadey thing.

EDIT- From the shop I went to, all the bulbs were 2700K... Bleh. On the plus side though, if I do go for the normal lightbulb route, there's some groovy cubular lampshades. I've also written into PFK about lighting and stocking (hey, why not?), so we'll see how that goes.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Righto. Bought 10l of RO water and a spiffy container to go with it. I thought there's no use buying the 25l jug when the tank is only 3 or 4 litres. So now I have...

~Tank
~Sand
~PH
~RO
~Salt
~Nitrate test kit

Hmm... Still a lot to go, methinks.

But anyway. I still have no hydrometer (looking for the most accurate model for my money, might not go for a refractometer as there's nothing massively sensitive going in here), but I've seen some spiffy bits of LR lurking around. If I made up some SW by weight of salt, would that be OK just for the LR? By the time the tank is cycled I will have got a hydrometer no problem. Or if you can reccomend one that would be nice too.
I still need coral suggestions, assume it will be high lighting with high current.

 

[SkiFletch]

It would probably be OK with LR only to mix per weight.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Right, thats handy...

I'm looking on Ebay at refractometers, but for the price, they're still only accurate to 0.001. While they have temperature compensation, I'm not sure it's worth the extra money...


Now, this is interesting
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-HYDROMETER-for-A...1QQcmdZViewItem


But I like this one
http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sea-Test-Hydrometer-...1QQcmdZViewItem

Accurate and has good reviews.

I would like a 'Tropic Marin High Precision Hydrometer', but I can't find any for sale in the UK... So, which do you think?

And please, make some coral suggestions so I can do some research! I have no idea what gets too big for the tank, that's the main issue.

 

[SkiFletch]

Humm, smaller high light/flow corals that dont grow that fast and can tolerate fluctuating conditions? Tall order there my friend. Zooanthids/palythoas would of course work like a charm. Perhaps a candycane coral, blastomusa, acanthistrea, or maybe even a standard brain/favites brain. Any LPS with tentacles prolly isnt a good idea (euphylla genus). Nor would softies or xenia cause those grow too fast. Open brains fluctuate too much too. You could TRY encrusting SPS like montiporas but I dont know how well they'd tolerate the water conditions. Star polyps would work great too but need lots of trimming as they grow reasonably fast.

 

[demonmagus]

what was that acrylic cube meant to be used for (i want one!)

 

[OohFeeshy]

No idea, it was just called a 'storage' box so could well be anything... I do like those cubes though, it'd be cool to do a pico Amano style tank in one.

Updates... um...

Good news, my theory was right and I found my mini 25w heater, which fits perfectly Still on the lightbulb hunt though. Just a quetion, can you remove corals from rock if need be, and how easy is it? I'm only asking because one of the LFS's has some superb tiny bits of LR covered in all sorts of different corals, one I like has some sort of star polyp on, and one coral I've seena nd I like, which would be nice if someone could ID, is very tall, pink, a bit 'tree' like... any ideas?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Right... um...

~Lighting- according to andywg, the kelvin rating is mainly for aesthetics, and I would be fine using the 9w Arcadia clip on. So, righto, at least that gives me no reason not to buy a replacement impellor for my Eheim...

~Corals- Probably a small mushroom, a small star polyp frag and some zoos. Any heads up on what that pink tree-like one could be?

~Livestock- Pass. Possibly containing an anenome crab. Or similar.

 

[SkiFletch]

Kenya Tree or spaghetti leather?

 

[andywg]

according to andywg, the kelvin rating is mainly for aesthetics,

I actually stated that the HIGHER Kelvin ratings are for asthetics. SW peeps don't like yellow tanks, so tend to go higher K rating, though the best growth is achieved with light as close to the sun as possible. Shame it tends to make the tank resemble cat's wee.

Some of the best tanks utilise sun light for added lighting (including some that have featured as Reef Central Tank of the Month).

It is important not to go too low. I had a 4,000ish K running on the reef for a while and it didn't do that great.

 

[OohFeeshy]

I actually stated that the HIGHER Kelvin ratings are for asthetics.

I was close enough... So would a standard 6,700k be fine?

 

[andywg]

Should be fine for coral growth, just won't look as blue as many marine tanks.