I removed ALL sponges from my pumps and reactors after going pro-biotic. Detritus, mulm, etc. were clogging them up really fast, reducing flow and creating a real maintenance nuisance.
Right now I use only intake strainers on pumps and bulkheads to catch the big stuff, and my two fluidized reactors (containing GFO and GAC) are operated with only the diffusor plates. Active use of GFO and GAC obviously goes against the Zeovit recommendations. I previously used Rowaphos but have been much, much happer since switching to Phosar-HC, which is vastly easier to clean. It hardly leaches any fines after the initial rinse and stays in the fluidized reactor where it is supposed to, even without a sponge before the outlet. With Rowaphos, I'd wash time and time again, progressively losing a lot of (expensive) product down the drain via what seemed to be endless fines. And every bubble that would rise up the reactor would bring up new fines that would get through the sponge and then into the system, much to the dismay of my clams. I have also found Phosar-HC much more effective, as smaller quantities have reduced PO4 to undetectable which Rowaphos never did.
As for carbon, I disregarded the advice on using the K-Z product passively. With a lot of leather corals, nephthids, and gorgonians plus a sea apple (just a pentacta anceps for now, it's been doing well for almost a year which is tempting me to try one of the beautiful, deadly ones) I run active carbon 24/7. The E.S.V. product works well, it is cheap and doesn't leach any PO4 after an overnight soak in boiling RO/DI water. I only use two cups which is changed every other week.
I also have continued to run all top off water through a kalkwasser stirrer, against Zeovit recommendations This is mainly to combat low pH (mostly from a well sealed house that has high CO2 levels), by converting excess CO2 in the tank water into carbonates. This helps maintain alkalinity while directly adding calcium to the water, and I have been able to reduce calcium reactor CO2 injection to four hours per day.
Anyway use of GFO and kalkwasser reduce PO4 in my system may have prolonged the maturation of the Zeovit system. My nitrates run quite high as I feed heavily, partly because I'm a sucker and the fish take advantage of me (including a fuzzy dwarf lionfish and dwarf moray eel that need to be well fed for obvious reasons, and a dozen wrasses that are all gluttons), but also because I have a lot of sun corals and aposymbiotic soft corals and gorgonians that need a large amounts of zooplankton at least daily to maintain health. The mulm is great for SPS but isn't enough for the aposymbionts. But my nitrates are slowly coming down from 50ppm despite persistent heavy feeding, now in the 10-25ppm range. And my clams, fox coral, elegance corals, bubble corals, and others that like "dirty water" are doing fine, while SPS remains very colorful with light-medium tissue -- no browns -- and no signs of TN. Film algae accumulates slowly, which the chevron tang and blennies love to eat. I clean biofilm off the sides every two weeks or so, and use the magnet on the front class every couple days to keep it perfectly clear.
Anyway, if high PO4 is causing trouble I would not hesitate running GFO. Disregarding some of the Zeovit instructions can definitely bring about disaster, but at the same time I wouldn't consider everything in the Zeo guide gospel, either. There are lots of ways to reach the end result
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13042048#post13042048 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Ed Reef
Hi guys....I think I found out the problem why my PO4 refuse to come down and instead went up.
Last night after work, I was thinking about increase flow and that makes me check my Ehiem 1250 fed pump to my Zeovit reactor and to my shock, there was a lot of gunk suck at the blue sponge inside the inlet of the pump so this has cause the pump to reduce the flow drastically :mad2:
After removing the blue sponge for a good wash, the flow is back to normal again.... :dance:
So, I think that's what happen, not enough flow to the Zeovit reactor, thus all the Zeolite not as effective as it should be for bac growth... anyway, let' see this weekend if it helps my PO4 result :spin2:
