Field Trial of Ultralith System as of May 24/10

[christyf5]

Just wondering why you discontinued the ultrabio? I thought the film was from the ultrabak/ultraminS. The film results from an excess of food that the bacteria aren't using. In order to get rid of the film you need to continue to add bacteria (so they can eat it) and reduce their food.

Just a thought. My feeling on the various issues I had after replacing the stones was that I wasn't adding enough ultrabio to seed them and the tank had a bit of a "crash" that way and I lost a few things.

[fencer]

The manual required I discontiuned bio for one week...not sure why...keep you posted

[fencer]

Nov 3

I have altered the water path so as to more efficently disperse the "bacterial snow" from the reactor into the tank. Certainly the tank is much more cloudy after I flushed the Ultralith reactor. This also allow direct dosing of the Ultralith in the reactor. Today i have lost one of the more interesting SPS's in the tank...it was the dark Navy blue one to STN(I think)....I do not believe this was due to the Ultralith program. Both pink pocillopora's(sp) are turning more brown.

[fencer]

Nov 6
I have added another 25% of Ultralith to the reactor. I have noticed that the SPS are growing. But I am not convinced that they are growing any faster than before Ultralith program. A whitish film is appearing on the tank glass. The frequency of cleaning the glass is a little more than I usually do. I will continue to monitor this, but I will still be dosing Ultra products at the 1ml /day rate for another week. I will then decide if I need to cut back on dosage of Ultra product. My yellow polyps are being decimated, I have no explanation why this is happening. I noticed in the forum that some zeo users are not shutting off their skimmers. I am not shutting the skimmer down either while applying the Ultra porducts. I feel that (the way I have setup the return system) there is enough residence time for dispersion of the Ultra additives.

[fencer]

Nov 19
I have added the final amount of Ultralith to the reactor (1 l) I will now make a zeolite change of 50% every month. When I blow the reactor every night I do notice increased feeding activity of the corals. My main indicator is a small acan colony. I made a carbon change this month as well. One of the control corals is starting to show blue/green colouring. Both contol pocillopora's starting to "brown" out on me. The polyp extension on the green birdsnest is very good. I added 2 more control corals last Sat, mainly because they were going to expire at some point in the stores tanks. I also started adding trace minerals to the system again. I read in the Ultra manual the zeolite's tend to take out some of these elements. Growth in the tank is good. I still am thinking about adding some fish to the system. I wil get some tank prams when I get some free time.

[Aqua-Digital]

Hi

The browing will be due to the requirement of AMIN and Organic.

Also if you are getting a white film the Bak level is too high and needs reducing. You can halve it at this point

The Bio is added initially for the first 4-6weeks then stopped at this point 25% media is changed and then re dose the Bio. Once you have the colony established the Bio can be stopped and only added when you replace media

Your issues are down to too much Bacteria activity and not enough food source as the corals are now competing with the Bacteria for food.

So next step as above lower the Bak dosing, raise the MinS and add Amin and Organic

One other important point, without fish the corals are not getting important elements and you will not get good results, it is vey important to have fish in a system that uses ultra lith

WHY?

You are stripping out ALL the nutrients from the system and at present only replacing it with building block amino acid, so as said above the corals will starve.

The thing with ultra Lith is that it is a potent system using only natural enhancement and as such can easily throw the results by over dosing and stripping out all the tank requires. So it is impotant to get the chemistry right

You are on the right track and the positive results you are seeing will increase with correct dosing and the negative will deminish.

Basically to sumerise - the system is suffering from Bio overload which is taking essential food from the corals - its a balancing act, but once found your system will explode with colour and growth

[Fauna Marin]

Hi Fencer

I see the Post now for the first time
let me read it complete and then i can tell you how to dose
meanwhile it will be helpful if you can post your actual water parameters
greets claude

[fencer]

I will be adding fish to the system shortly. My MinS dose is currently 1.0 ml. Should I increase another 50%?.

[Aqua-Digital]

Claude will give you direct advise from here on.

You are so close to getting it right now

[fencer]

Okay...looking for to the advice. Parameters will follow shortly.