New to the Zeovit system, with questions

[MarkL]

Hi all,
first let me introduce myself a bit.
I am Mark
I started my reefing hobby in 2009, tank was running decent for a couple of years.
But due to circumstances i had to quit the hobby after a few years.

I started my recent tank about 2 years ago, and it crashed after a year due to a power outage.
I started the tank fresh after that and it never did take of.
A couple of months ago I had a infestation with dinos (multiple strains). I managed to got rid of them eventually but in the process 90% of my corals died and a couple of fish.
So now I am left with a tank with 6 small fish and only 3 corals who are not doing well.
So basically my tank crashed again.

I want to convert my tank to Zeovit because the system got my interest back in 2010 but never tried it before.
I do want to do this the right way and have read an awfull lot about the Zeovit method before i jumped into it.
I started with the basic 4
zeolites
zeobac
zeostart
zeocarbon

First let me fill in the list of questions below.



1. Gross water volume of your complete system (incl. sump etc.) - US gallons / UK gallons / liter
290 liters

2. Net water volume (incl. sump etc.) - US gallons / UK gallons / liter
250

3. Are you using a CaCO2 reactor or other technique
No

4. Are you using a PO4 reactor (how long, how long ago, etc.)
Used biopellets, but took them offline to raise nutrients for battling dinos about 5 months ago

5. Are you using Ozone
No

6. Are you using UV
No

7. What skimmer are you using (type, rated water volume)
Royal Exclusiv BBK Mini 160, rated for 200 to 500 liters

8. What are your actual PO4 and NO3 levels
At the moment my NO3 = 25 and PO4 = 0.31
This is due to many corals and some fish that are died in the process
Before my NO3 and PO4 were both at 0

9. What are your actual Ca, Alk and Mg levels
Ca 420
Alk 7.7
Mg 1340

10. What filtration method do you use (refugium, DSB, Miracle Mud, etc.)
Biopellets before, but took them offline 5 moths ago.
Zeovit now for about 3 weeks

11. Type of light (Watt, color temp, how old, etc.)
2x Coralcare gen 2 running at about 70% at the natural reef setting

12. What corals do you keep
Sps heavy, but the only ones that are alive now are 1 montipora (barely alive), elegance coral and a Alveopora (mostly retracted)

13. Tissue color (light or dark)
Dark(ish) at the moment

14. How long has the tank been running
14 months now

15. Why do you want to use the ZEOvit system
Always liked the idea of natural seawater levels.
And somehow the tanks that got my atention are 90% of the time zeovit tanks

16. Any supplemental dosing (type, amount, why, etc.)
No

17. Live rock (how much, how old, etc.)
About 20 kg of rock
started dead because of issues to get good quality live rock.
rock is 14 months old.

18. Any present problems
Crashed tank after dino infestation, trying to recover

19. Problem description (tissue loss tips, tissue loss base, diatom bloom, algae, etc.)
problem now is mostly cyano growing everywhere

20. What test kit do you use (how old, recently switched, etc.)
PO4 Hanna ulr phosphorus
Salinity with tropic marin Hydrometer
rest of the tests is Salifert (less than 2 moths old mostly)

21. Present dosing, amounts and intervals (ZEOvit, ZEObak, ZEOfood, ZEOstart, ZEOspur2, etc.)
Zeovit 625 grams every 6 weeks ( flow is 253 liters per hour)
zeobak 3 drops 2x a week (first 10 days 3 drops daily)
Zeostart 0,5 ml daily
zeocarbon 0.25 liter/112 grams every 4 weeks
Cyanoclean 5 drops daily

22. Other water parameters and water stability (salinity, temp, etc.)
salinity 1.0264 (mostly within 0.0003) checked 2 times weekly minimum
temp 25.3 within 0.2 range controlled by profilux

23. Which salt brand do you use
Aquaforest probiotic reef salt



My problem at the moment is that I have a very bad infestation of cyano.
I try to remove as much as possible every waterchange (2x week) about 8% each time.
My PO4 and NO3 aren't dropping also, but I guess the system is running to short to actually make a difference already?

Am I doing everything as I should, or should I change something?
Thanks in advance.

[NZ-Nick]

Seasons Greetings Mark.

Hey- first off the probiotic salt is a no no.
-this could be part of the issues. As it’s a bacteria additive salt. There standard reef salt ok or others.

- water source, how old are your filters.
As this is one place I feel the issue/ cyano can come from. I’m changing 3-4 months carbon, post and Di.


Personally I would use the chemiclean product,
power’s version.
- as it treats two type of red algae/ bacterial at once. And without testing microscope most do not know why type they have.

I use to do a couple of large water changes after and my bbk skimmer always went nuts and help to remover a lot of organic matter.

bacterial, the product my harm bacterial but at the moment you have excess of one type and use of chemiclean helps to bring it back in balance.

I would continue ur Zeo dosing through out then treatment, if you chose to use it.

i was also start using zeozym 2-3 time a week. Mix in with biomate and or cynaoclean as well as zeobac. Change it around. Observe.

dont worrie too much about ur no3 and pho4 as the bacterial/ algae absorbing a lot and you will getting false readings.
And can be sorted/ fixed after.

Regards
NickB

[MarkL]

Season greetings to you too!

Ok, I wasn't aware probiotic salt is a no no, but it sounds logical, so I will be switching salts to regular.

My RO/DI is maximum 6 months old, and TDS is reading 0. But i guess it is never a bad idea to change the filters out to be sure.

I am a bit hesitant to use chemiclean at the moment, but i will keep it in mind.
the use of chemicals brought me to this point, so thats why I am a bit hesitant at the moment.

Thank you for the recomendations for zeozym an bio-mate. I am going to use these products aswell.
Cyanoclean I was already using so I will continue this and change it around with the bio-mate.

PO4 and NO3 I am not to worried about at the moment, I know the system can reduce it effectively after everything is settled down.

Thank you very much!

[jacky]

If you can, I would like you to get CoralSnow, Cyano treatment @CoralSnow 5ml+Zeo Bac 3 drops mixed for 7-10 days, and clean the skimmer collection cup to make more outlets, temporarily turn off the skimmer for 2 hours after administration.

Can you tell us what brand of activated carbon to use? Quantity/Usage

Merry Christmas 🎅

[MarkL]

Can you tell us what brand of activated carbon to use? Quantity/Usage

I am using the Korallenzucht carbon
112 gr / 0.25 liters changed out every 4 weeks
Passive in a bag in the sump

No problem in getting all the Korallenzucht products, so I will get some CoralSnow and use that for the upcoming 10 days

Merry christmas to you too 🌲

[jacky]

Zeo Start 0.25ml x2 per day (twice a day)
SpongePower 3 drops every other day

Have you got your actual potassium levels too, get a new test kit, post actual measurements.

[MarkL]

I will post my potassium measurement as soon as I have a new testkit!

[G.Alexander]

Hello Mark, can you please share a picture of your sump ? Which kind of sand have you used ?

G.Alexander

[MarkL]

Hello Mark, can you please share a picture of your sump ? Which kind of sand have you used ?

G.Alexander

I will post a picture of my sump later today.

Currently I don't have a sandbottom, due to removing it a couple of months ago to battle the dino's i had. I had the kind of dinos that retracted in the sand after lights out (and some other varieties)

[jacky]

If you remove all the bottom sand at one time, or a large amount, it will affect the biology, and if it is serious, it will affect the health of the coral, which may also be one of the reasons for the unhealthy coral. I personally don't support your use of chemiclean, and I wouldn't use it myself, after all, I can't know for sure if it affects biology or what negative effects it has.

It is believed that there should be another reason for the growth of Cyano, during which we can temporarily clean the affected part on the rock with a toothbrush

[MarkL]

as promised a picture of my sump

[MarkL]

If you remove all the bottom sand at one time, or a large amount, it will affect the biology, and if it is serious, it will affect the health of the coral, which may also be one of the reasons for the unhealthy coral. I personally don't support your use of chemiclean, and I wouldn't use it myself, after all, I can't know for sure if it affects biology or what negative effects it has.

It is believed that there should be another reason for the growth of Cyano, during which we can temporarily clean the affected part on the rock with a toothbrush

I removed my sand in parts in a month time frame.
Also I didn't use chemiclean, and am not intended to use it in the future. The whole reason my tank crashed is because a chemical treatment against dinos. So I won't take de chemical route again if there is a other option.

Cleaning my rock with a toothbrush is exactly what I have done the last couple of days/weeks.
Hoping it won't grow back as quickly as it does now.

[jacky]

There is a hose connected to the air inlet of the skimmer's muffler, what material is it? The hose looks like it has deteriorated (turned black) and if I understand correctly, it seems to be doing this to raise the PH. If it were me, I would suggest you delete the hose, don't worry too much about the PH part. Can you post an additional picture of the inside of the main display system

In addition, the titration hose should be made of silicone. Usually, the appearance of the silicone hose should not have color (normally it should be white/milky white)

[jacky]

I will post my potassium measurement as soon as I have a new testkit!

Also be sure to get a potassium test kit to measure the results.

[G.Alexander]

Thank you for the picture, I can not see it really clear but please check if there is anything else beside pumps, silicon hoses,PVC or acrylic in the sump.

Are the cyanos growing partial in some places or is the while rockwork affected by them ?

Have you had cyano issues before or has this all started after the tank crash ?

As Nick has already mention the probiotic salt is something which I wold stop using immediatelly.

Do you additional dose Iodine ?

G.Alexander