Canreef Aquatics Bulletin Board - Zeovit in a Nano (detailed update dec 5th)

ok so here's a LONG read of an update on the system.

history for the past month and a bit:
Late december I added some dead rock as filler to the tank. Then, (just before x-mas) i had finals, followed by an intense job that took a lot of my time, followed by an out of town residency in the first week of january. My tank had 3 weeks with little to no maintenance. I wasn't dosing the zeovit on schedule, and it went an entire 3 weeks without a water change.

I had a nasty filament algae bloom (probably from the dead rocks I added, my mistake). Then on the 19th of january (looking at my notes) I got back on schedule. Since then, I've gone back to the weekly water changes (5-10%) and the recommended dosing for a "system already running zeovit". The algae started to dissapear and now it's almost all gone. Nitrates are undetectable on a salifert kit.

moving... yet again and hopefully for the final time
I'm in the process of moving (again) and I'll be moving the tank out to my fiance's acreage. It'll temporarily be set up on the floor on cinder blocks (just high enough to siphon) while I wait for a new 24x24x18 cube tank and sump. I'll finally be living in a house for a LONG time so I'm putting together a proper tank.

My thoughts on the zeovit system so far:
It seemed the early recommendations from some on the boards was not to use the system as a "crutch", and that's definately the case. You have to keep to the daily schedule but if you do man are things EASY!

My room mate, who knows very little about what's going on in the tank, even mentioned on about the 21st that "the nasty algae's starting to dissapear". Then a few days ago he said "almost all that algae's gone now". I have to say this is WAY better than using phosphate media and doing massive water changes :). I'm no "elite" reefkeeper but I've gotta say my results have been personally satisfying.

I only have a single fish in there (lawnmower blenny). It'll probably have to be fed nori soon because it's food supply is starting to waste away lol. I just have this URGE to get more livestock that I've been having to suppress because of the move coming up. NOT very easy to do :redface:

I wish small reactors were commercially available instead of just the massive grotech reactors. I've been also contemplating building a reactor with a recirculating "blower" pump to stir up the mulm for a minute on a timer, eliminating the need for pumping. I don't pump it every day (more like 3 times a week) and it still does well.

I had a good look at the single acropora colony today and compared it to an old photo from december 10th in the journal thread and all the growth's occured at the back end of the coral, out of sight, but it's not much growth. The acan frag is growing pretty good though considering it's an acan (which usually grow slow). I keep meaning to get mysis to start feeding it. It's polyp extension is just crazy during the night, it almost looks like a colony of zoos it puffs up so much.

lighting is probably too weak:
The 150W 14k lighting is too weak I think. I'll be changing the bulb from an aquatinic 14k to an XM 10k. I'll have double the PAR from the HQI ballast that way and we'll see how growth goes.

The various disasters have never been permanent though and I owe it to the zeovit. (tank leak resulting in a tank transfer, powerheads walking and blowing straight into the acropora, and just having a busy schedule during december).

What I'm doing again, but different:
When I do things all over again soon I'm using ALL new rock and builing a reactor with dual tubes so that the rocks don't scrape as I pump it (hard to explain). When I set up the new 45g (plus sump) system I'll be keeping only 3-4 pieces of current rock and getting all new rock. I'm going to cycle the 45g system without any coral in it following the zeovit guide and then just throw everything in after a month.

early experiences with reefer's best salt:
Also I've bought a box of reefer's best salt. I mixed up one 5g pail that was perfect. 420 calcium, 1300 mag, 8dkh, 400 potassium. Then today I mixed up another bucket and got 320ppm calcium, 9dkh, 1350 mag and 300 potassium. I was thinking "what the?"

So I searched the zeovit forums and found you have to either mix up large batches of the stuff or mix the dry salt VERY well before using. My little <5g water changes make it difficult to get the salt to mix to it's proper parameters. Took 2 more tries and I still had to add a bit of calcium. The salt finally mixed at 320ppm calcium; I added 12mL of my DIY calcium mix. It had 360ppm potassium though which was the reason I bought the salt in the first place. 360 is much better than the oceanpure pro I had which was less than 200ppm.

Overall it mixes quickly and has higher than normal levels of potassium, good dkH and good magnesium. I'll be seeing how it mixes this weekend during the move when I mix about 20 gallons worth of the stuff instead of a measly 5g. I think I'll be able to make a fairer judgement of it then.

I'll be replacing a portion of my water with reefer's best saltwater because I don't have the means to transport ALL my aquarium water during the move and heat it quickly. Plus when I set up the 45g it'll be 100% reefer's best.

I'll also be eventually switching to a dedicated salt basin at the new place (one of the 33g tanks will be used for this). I shouldn't be having a consistency problem any more afterwards, but since this is a "zeovit nano" thread I thought I'd mention what another zeovit nano'er might come across if they use the corallen-zucht salt.

I'll then FINALLY be able to start buying livestock again. Doing things patiently just takes bloody forever! lol

no pics right now because the lights are out. don't want to freak out the lawnmower blenny (which is still quite skiddish) just to snap some pictures.