Can anyone explain this?

[Ga Liverpool]

Okay my tank is 150 gallons water approx using 1.5 litres of zeo rocks 2 weeks into the second change of rocks, dosing 6 drops of bak and food every other day, 1ml of start daily and 6 drops of amino acids daily and WAS running the reactor with an aquamedic powerhead which i believe was pumping around 1000 litres water an hour, my skimmer pulled out almost the same amount of skimmate and colour.

Two days ago i changed the powerhead for an eheim 1060 pump which is around 550 gallons an hour and since then my skimmer is pulling out about 3 times as much as previous but this stuff is BLACK and i mean black, none of the sps etc seemed to have changed (for better or worse) in this time but im impressed with the skimmate results, whats happened there then....anyone??

Cheers

Gary

[GTR]

Maybe the increased circulation is keeping things in suspension and the skimmer is able to pull it out?
SteveU

[Ga Liverpool]

Is a possibility Steve, but my sumps partitioned and the skimmer and zeoreactor are in different partitions...this is very strange

[G.Alexander]

Gary, keep a eye to your corals. Pulling out more means also reducing nutrients quick. If you notice tissue lost I would recommend you to reduce the flow to the reactor first.

G.Alexander

[Ga Liverpool]

Thanks Alexander, I will keep an eye on that, just dont understand why the skimmers gone into overdrive all of a sudden, apart from increased flow into the zeoreactor everything else is identical.

Ga

[Pomme]

Gary, cant answer your question.

But just wondering why you have changes the pump on it, as with 1.5 litres of zeo you should run 150 g/h or 675 l/h. So in the first place your aqua medic was a bit much for the zeo, but now it is way over rated.

Andrew

[Ga Liverpool]

Hi Andrew,

To be honest i originally planned to keep the aquamedic and have the 1060 running on a timer to flush the stones (i believe you were/are doing the same?) but just out of curiosity i thought id see what happened with the 1060 on constantly and so far, so good, im keeping a close eye on the sps but if its speeding up the process slightly and making po2 alot more easier for my skimmer to remove then hopefully that cant be a bad thing, if i notice anything detremental happening ill plumb the aquamedic pump back in and switch the 1060 off again.

Will keep you posted

Ga

[Pomme]

Ga, yeah i was doing something similar, your thread:
http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/i...opic=36999&hl=

My reply:
''Hiya i have done a bit of testing with the 1060 i have but need to do a bit more.

So far i have found that with the pump doing the tank return and the zeoreactor in the form of a t and two taps. Whe i opend the tap fully to the zeo reactor the first time alot of mulm came off but the second time not so much and less each time then on.

But i have been away for a few days now, and will check whther the 1060 is powerfull enough to move the 1 litre of rocks that i have, a i think the rocksdo need to b lifted and spun to romve the debris as otherwise it justaccumulates in the dead spots.

Andrew ''


Andrew

[Aged Salt]

Hi Gary, the excess flow thru the zeo-filter will result in negative consequences for your corals Andrew is right regarding the flow--it should be ~650l/h. Too much flow will also exhaust your zeolites more quickly.Your exchange interval will be shortened. What you've seen is the ZEOvit system went into overdrive--increasing zeolite flow, increased the bacterial activity on nutrients & mulm production. As Alexander has mentioned, observe your visual cues. Bob

[Ga Liverpool]

Right so general thoughts are reduce the flow, even though im getting improvement in skimmer activity?

Ga

[Aged Salt]

Hi Gary, with increased nutrient extraction, even more reason to operate the flow rate as per ZEOvit guideline. Bob