Preparing Inovative Marine 150 Lagoon for Zeovit System

[ReefHog]

So, I've been keeping marine tanks for over 30 years. I've maintained LPS and soft corals for 20 years and recently become interested in keeping SPS. I currently have two display marine aquariums and one 40 gallon coral QT tank. I have a 220 gallon mixed reef that has been going for about 6 years. It's mostly LPS and Soft Corals with a handful of easy SPS. I use Tropic Marin products for mineral supplementation and nutrient control. It has worked very well for me and my aquarium inhabitants. I recently set up a new 150 gallon aquarium in my office in September of this year. I would like to go all SPS on the rock structures with a few LPS coral islands on the sand. I've been interested in the Zeovit System for many years and am ready to give it a go with this tank. I very much enjoy working on my aquariums every day so daily dosing, shaking the stones etc will not be bothersome. I currently maintain my minerals using Tropic Marin All For Reef on a Red Sea Dosing pump. I also dose Tropic Marin NP Bacto Balance daily for carbon dosing. In my sump I have fleece filter followed by a Tunze Skimmer & Algae Turf Scrubber. I also run UV 24/7. I plan on removing the Algae Turf Scrubber and only running the UV at night and possibly removing the UV all together once I'm comfortable with how the tank is going. I will replace the Tropic Marin All For Reef with Carbo Calcium and Magnesium so there are no additional additives going into the system. Obviously the Bacto Balance will be replaced by the KZ products. I also run Seachem Matrix Carbon passively and plan to continue to do so. I have a Zeovit Reactor I am customizing for the stones. I would prefer to run it at a reduced flow for the first 4-6 weeks rather than the on/off 3 hours method. My plan is to get everything up and running by the New Year. I will be starting a quarantine of several larger SPS frags for 45 days after the new year as well, adding them to the aquarium toward the end of February. Then I'll probably do nothing and just enjoy the progression of the reef for a long while. For my fish, I have a Moorish Idol, Convict Tang, Copper Band Butterfly, Pair of Mis-Bar Clown fish, Pair of Engineer Gobies, three Pajama Cardinals, one Bangai Cardinal, one fire fish goby, Balloon Molly and a Fiji Damsel. I also have a pair of cleaner shrimp, one Blood shrimp, Tiger tail Cucumber and a fighting conch. I feed pretty heavily 4-6 cubes a day and a sheet of Nori.




Tell us about your tank.
Please give us answers to the following questions in order to get more accurate dosing recommendations.

1. Gross water volume of your complete system (incl. sump etc.) - US gallons / UK gallons / liter
170 gallons
2. Net water volume (incl. sump etc.) - US gallons / UK gallons / liter
150 gallons
3. Are you using a CaCO2 reactor or other technique
No
4. Are you using a PO4 reactor (how long, how long ago, etc.)
No
5. Are you using Ozone
No
6. Are you using UV
Yes
7. What skimmer are you using (type, rated water volume)
Tunze 9410DC
8. What are your actual PO4 and NO3 levels
P04 0.1 N03 3.6
9. What are your actual Ca, Alk and Mg levels
Ca 436 Alk 7.4 Mg 1410
10. What filtration method do you use (refugium, DSB, Miracle Mud, etc.)
Fleece Filter
11. Type of light (Watt, color temp, how old, etc.)
4-T5 lamps and Kessil AP700
12. What corals do you keep
LPS and SPS
13. Tissue color (light or dark)
Light
14. How long has the tank been running
3 Months
15. Why do you want to use the ZEOvit system
I like working on tank
16. Any supplemental dosing (type, amount, why, etc.)
TM Carbon Dosing
17. Live rock (how much, how old, etc.)
35 Lb. Live Gulf Rock and 80 Lb. Carib Sea Life Rock. Also 2" of Carib Sea Aragonite Sand
18. Any present problems
A small amount algae/diatom on sand. Newer tank so not concerned.
19. Problem description (tissue loss tips, tissue loss base, diatom bloom, algae, etc.)
Little receding tissue from base of Purple Stylo but looking good otherwise.
20. What test kit do you use (how old, recently switched, etc.)
Hanna ans Salfert
21. Present dosing, amounts and intervals (ZEOvit, ZEObak, ZEOfood, ZEOstart, ZEOspur2, etc.)
Sponge Power every other day
22. Other water parameters and water stability (salinity, temp, etc.)
Salinity 34 Temp 79 Ph 8-8.15
23. Which salt brand do you use
Tropic Marin Pro

[G.Alexander]

Thank you for all the details about your system. I would recommend you to start as follows:

First start with the basics products to decrease nutrients:

1. Place 1.4 liter zeovit in a Zeo Reactor. Water flow around 150 US gallons per hour. Instead of using the 3 hour on / 3 hour off / 3 hour on interval start with a reduced reactor flow of ~ 75 US gallons for the first couple of weeks. Clean the material daily. Leave the zeolite 4 weeks in the filter until you do the first change out. This is the first changing interval, others could be lengthen to 6 – 8 weeks.

2. Place 0.5 liters activated carbon in a filter sock and keep it in a passive water flow in your sump, changed every 30 days. Knead the carbon daily to keep the surface clean. Most users get perfect results with korallenzucht carbon.

3. Dose 6 drops ZeoBac daily for the first 2 weeks, flowed by a 2 – 3 x weekly dosage of 6 drops. Dose 0.55 ml ZeoStart 2 x daily (morning & evening). Dose those in front of the Zeo reactor pump while it is switched on.

Later on you could use the additional products for coral coloration. Adjust your skimmer to skim wet, keeping it clean to export as much as possible. Do a weekly water change of 5 – 10 % with a good salt.

Lets keep the algae in your sump at the moment until they start to stop growing / die off because of the reduced nutrients. This would be the right time to remove them.

When you start to dose ZeoVit reduce the carbon dosing you use at the moment to 30%, reduce the rest step by step to zero over the next 2 weeks.

Basic water parameters looking good, try to keep them as stabile as possible close the NSW in the following ranges:

KH 6.5 – 7.5
Ca 400 – 420 mg
Mg 1250 – 1300 mg
K+ ~ 380 mg

To supplement Ca and KH use a supplement which does not contain additional trace elements as you have already planned.

For a nutrient poor environment K+ (potassium) seems to be a important element. I would recommend you to get a test kit for this element also, posting your results.

I am not sure about the sand you have used but many had constant algae issues with the combination of live sand and zeovit, just something to keep in mind, some have not had those issues.

This is a start-up dosage which might have to be adjusted later.

G.Alexander

[ReefHog]

Thank you. I have a Potassium test kit ordered. I will post readings when it arrives.

The sand was dry sand, not live sand when added.

I assume Zeostart3 is the latest version of Zeostart and what I would use for carbon source.

Is it ok to keep dosing Sponge Power? I've used it for years in my other tanks and have a lot of good encrusting white and black sponge on the shaded areas of the rock work. It may be coincidence, maybe not but it's not expensive and probably adds to the carbon source.

Is Flatworm Stop something I could add to my regimen? I don't have any noticeable flatworms but if it increases the success of my sps frags and corals in the newer tank, it's something I'd like to try.

[gandalf]

Which potassium kit did you order ?

[ReefHog]

Salifert. I ordered it along with the rest of the Zeovit stuff I plan on using. I didn’t order any potassium additive yet. Figured I’d wait to see what my reading is.

[jacky]

Hello, yes, if you have Sponge Power-6 drops every other day. I would also recommend that you reduce the feeding of seaweed.

[ReefHog]

What is it about the algae? Reducing the nori is worrisome as the Moorish Idol requires algae and they’re known to stop eating and being very finicky when trying to get them back eating again. Mines almost two years with me and stopped eating once in that time. Algae sheets are the best solution as it can hang in the tank all day for him to pick at. I’ll cut down to a half sheet a day and hope that’s good enough.

[NZ-Nick]

Hi ya, Welcome.

Nice looking tank.

hey, no3 and po4 aren’t too bad For the amount of food. So I wouldn’t worry too much at this stage.
I would just follow G.Alexander instructions and slowly change the system over.

yes, there will be changes, and we can address them later on when tank has changed and stable

keep Mr idol— happy and fat

Regard
Nickb

[ReefHog]

Hi ya, Welcome.

Nice looking tank.

hey, no3 and po4 aren’t too bad For the amount of food. So I wouldn’t worry too much at this stage.
I would just follow G.Alexander instructions and slowly change the system over.

yes, there will be changes, and we can address them later on when tank has changed and stable

keep Mr idol— happy and fat

Regard
Nickb

My N03 ans P04 on my 220 mixed reef are always quite stable at < 3 and < 0.05 respectively. Occasionally they drop undetectable, but I just increase feeding a bit and they go back into range. And I have some larger fish and a even a Porcupine Puffer in that tank. The new 150 Lagoon tank is not as seasoned (only three months old) as the 220 so of coarse it's not quite as stable. The dry Carib Sea Life Rock was conditioned in a large tub with 35 Lb. of Live Gulf rock for three months before being added to the tank. So it should already have some good bacteria working from the start. Carbon dosing has always been my nutrient control method of choice. I used Prodibio for a few years and currently use Tropic Marin for my other tank. I figured I'd try the leader in carbon dosing with the new tank so here I am excited to get started. I should have everything delivered and the Zeovit system on line in the next week or so. The encouragement and advice is very much appreciated.

Art

[jacky]

The system is a conversion, so it is good to gradually reduce the "nutrition". Let Zeo take over (starting with the reduction of nutrition) this system. From the signs of growth and expansion of corals in the picture, I think they don't seem to be fully stretched, and the nutrient level is higher. PO4=0.1. Porphyra contains iodine and other trace elements, which is the reason why I would recommend reducing the investment because of the current appearance of corals.

[G.Alexander]

ZeoStart 3 is the actual version so it will be fine. SpongePower does have a positive side effect to the biology so you can dose 6 drops every other day additional.

If you do not have any issues with Flatworms I would recommend to use it later.

G.Alexander

[ReefHog]

I got my Salifert Potassium test kit today. I did two separate tests and both times I got a reading of 440 ppm. The Tropic Marine NP Bacto Balance I have been using contains K trace elements so so I'm not surprised at the reading. I am replacing the Bacto Balance with the ZeoStart 3 and will test weekly moving forward.

I received my Zeovit stones today. It looks like there is quite a bit of very small particles. I've read that the very small particles will fall through the perforations in the inner cylinder of the reactor and sometimes scratch and jam the reactor when shaking it. I'm thinking I'm going to put the finer zeovit particles in a mesh bag and lay it on top of the rest of the stones in the reactor to prevent this from happening? Do you see any issues with this?

I will run the reactor with the 1.4 liters of Zeovit in RODI water for a few minutes and set the flow to 75 gph before placing the reactor into the sump.

Thanks again everyone for sharing you're knowledge and experience. It is very much appreciated.

[G.Alexander]

You can place the small material in a mash bag and place it on the top of the material in the reactor. Make sure to measure the reactor flow instead of using a recommended flow setting on the pump as the material itself will reduce the flow additional.

To prevent the smaller stones from blocking and scratching a two tube reactor is the best choice. It does contain two tubes, one is filled with the material and is placed inside the reactor cover tube so the material does not have direct contact to reactor tube.

Good luck for the start and please update your thread from time to time or whenever you feel it is necessary.

G.Alexander

[ReefHog]

Perfect thanks. The reactor I have does have two tubes. I will be measuring the actual flow as stated.

One last question before I get started. Is it recommended to vacuum the sand bed regularly with Zeovit? I don’t vacuum the sand bed in my other tanks preferring to let the microbes and animals take care of it.

[G.Alexander]

You can vacuum the sand regular while doing the weekly water changes. From my experience it does have a positive impact and keeps the sand clear additional.

G.Alexander