Leathers, zoas and sps, oh my... (who does it?)

mseepman · #1 01-23-2009, 03:44 PM

X2....I have same problem.

GreenSpottedPuffer · #2 01-23-2009, 03:47 PM

My reef is sps dominated but I also have a few large leathers, zoos, gorgonians, mushrooms, LPS ect. I always run carbon because of the leathers (and ZEO).

I have not seen any problems and have great polyp extension.

Whatigot · #3 01-23-2009, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

My reef is sps dominated but I also have a few large leathers, zoos, gorgonians, mushrooms, LPS ect. I always run carbon because of the leathers (and ZEO).

I have not seen any problems and have great polyp extension.

Not too sure on this, as I'm not zeo informed, but I think the fact that you run zeo would put you in a different class from me and the issues I might experience in my mixed reef...

I may be wrong though.

fishytime · #4 01-23-2009, 04:58 PM

The Zeo system essentially starves the system of nutrients causing the coral to extend their polyps fully in an attempt to feed. It may be that your system is nutrient rich and thus your sps doesnt need to extend to its full potential to receive nutrients. Just my opinion.

Whatigot · #5 01-23-2009, 05:10 PM

In all honesty, my PE was fantastic before I had my clown gobies (x2) and they obviously nip at the polyps, I see it all the time.

before them, I was running a euro reef rs80 and I've bumped up to a Schuran jetskim 120 since then so my skimming has only gotten better and the only fish I have added since are a yellow assessor and 3 zebra dartfish.

I feed my tank 3 times a week, so nutrients are not the issue for me I don't believe, though cannot be 100% until I get rid of the clowns...

GreenSpottedPuffer · #6 01-23-2009, 07:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fishytime

The Zeo system essentially starves the system of nutrients causing the coral to extend their polyps fully in an attempt to feed. It may be that your system is nutrient rich and thus your sps doesnt need to extend to its full potential to receive nutrients. Just my opinion.

Well not quite true because you are putting all kinds of food back into the water for corals. Essentially you are stripping the water of good and bad and then putting the right amount of good back. The ZEO system is designed to give tanks as close to natural reef conditions as possible.

The higher the nutrients you have in your tank, the more unicellular algae such as zooxanthellae the corals are taking in and some species (most all sps) will then brown out and yes not extend polyps much anymore. If you were to actually strip the water of all nutrients, you would kill your corals (this happens when you go too fast with ZEO). Many ZEOvit users have some of the nicest colors and growth, so they certainly are not starving corals--the fact that so many ZEO users see a big increase in growth would indicate that its actually the opposite. This is why many ZEO users have to "up" their bioload and feed heavily.

Whatigot · #7 01-23-2009, 07:47 PM

my coloration is excellent.
I am very satisfied with all aspects of my tank other than pe.

I'm not going to start zeo, not my style....

So you think that between my non zeo tank and your zeo tank that we can realistically compare results of our methods?

I'm not educated enough in zeo to know.
just want to make sure any advice I consider is of course applicable to me.

GreenSpottedPuffer · #8 01-23-2009, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whatigot

my coloration is excellent.
I am very satisfied with all aspects of my tank other than pe.

I'm not going to start zeo, not my style....

So you think that between my non zeo tank and your zeo tank that we can realistically compare results of our methods?

I'm not educated enough in zeo to know.
just want to make sure any advice I consider is of course applicable to me.

Fair enough...I am not pushing anyone at all to try ZEO

Its for me because I like to have many large fish. I could not possibly keep my corals happy with the amount I feed if it were not for something like ZEO. I have just started using it but already see a difference.

What is your style? Do you mean you want to keep things more "traditional"...if that makes sense?

BlueAbyss · #9 01-29-2009, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whatigot

So you think that between my non zeo tank and your zeo tank that we can realistically compare results of our methods?

I'm not educated enough in zeo to know.
just want to make sure any advice I consider is of course applicable to me.

Zeo is, in many ways, similar to other denitrifiers. They all do the same thing ie: remove nitrogen-based nutrients from the water, though Zeo is a system of removing nutrients and then adding different ones back in. So, you could potentially use a different method of removing nitrates (deep sand bed, algae filter, etc.) with the additives from the Zeo line and get some of the benefit of Zeo...

Sorry this isn't the discussion here

I don't think there would be any difference between the two if you tried to compare keeping leathers, SPS, and zoas in tanks with or without Zeo. Either way, you have a low nutrient environment which is good for all saltwater creatures... and I would just run some carbon to be safe, and go ahead and put them together! I'm sure they live together in the wild.

And I'll probably be trying this at some point also, if I can find some nice leathers that are colorful and don't get too big for a 20 gallon. I saw something called a green finger leather somewhere that didn't look too big in the pic