my house reef (211 g.)
- Thread starter JohnL
- Start date
messy1messmer
New member
how high are your bulbs off the water. you are using tunze on your tank. Also 8x54 should be enough for my 120(48x24x24)
coraladdict
New member
Hi TryTheChi
My current tank is 320 lt net 18" deep with DSB and LR that takes up ± 5/8 of the space .I have a Tek T-5 8 lamp fixture 4-5 " above the water,do you think it's too much?
Also, I have been dosing biodigest and bioptim since the beginning about 2.5 months ago do you think it's too early to see any benifits? The reason I ask is that I have some diatoms.
Lastly when do you recommend I start useing reefbooster and amino acid? My tank contains a few sps,lps and crocea clams.
Thanks in advance.
My current tank is 320 lt net 18" deep with DSB and LR that takes up ± 5/8 of the space .I have a Tek T-5 8 lamp fixture 4-5 " above the water,do you think it's too much?
Also, I have been dosing biodigest and bioptim since the beginning about 2.5 months ago do you think it's too early to see any benifits? The reason I ask is that I have some diatoms.
Lastly when do you recommend I start useing reefbooster and amino acid? My tank contains a few sps,lps and crocea clams.
Thanks in advance.
TryTheChi
Member
Hi
Do Teks have individual reflectors? I dont think we can provide too much light for sps..... when the sun shines on my tank in the afternoon - 12 T5s can hardly be noticed
If that amount of light has contributed to a alage outbreak - I'd suggest the thing to focus on is the nutrient reduction dimention, rather than lighting reduction
RE the biodigest and tpim - the speed of effect seem to vary from tank to tank - depending on the nutrient accumulation/nutrient input and export. I saw some of my sps begining to color up nicely at arround 6 weeks - but other have reported waiting for 4-6 months before seeing a marked improvement. I take it you arent?
If not - it maybe worth speeding things along by being attentive to skimmer cleaning and getting a wet skimmate, adding rowaphos or similar to take our sequestered po4 and water changes. A friend of mine with a big algae problem did some large water changes to see the back of the algae and break the back of stored nutrients in the dsb and LR.
Are the ca/dkh/mg params in line and steady?
In my case, I took rowa off line at arround 3 monrths and po4 has remained undetectable by a merck test ever since, but my tank was BB and young when I started dosing. (Its DSB now - as I like the look better)
Personally - i would consider starting with reefbooster when the sps start to indicate that your tank is becomming nutrient limited - ie when some show signs for lightening up/ heading towards bleaching.
Refbooster contains AAs but one has to dose once a week , so the value of adding a daily AAs specific supplement would be if once weekly RB dosing isnt enough.
Theres an interesting thread in the sps forum on feeding vs AA dosing, and I think the thing is to get the feel for whats needed in your reef. Claude from FM calls it 'cooking' - the art of blending ingreadients..... I like that analogy.
Personally I like the zeo AAHC because I can adjust the dose depending on how the coral look - so its quite a flexable option. Others take the 'feed hard skim harder' approach - so I guess its just finding an appraoch that feels comfortable and flexable.
Anyways -hang in there - the time will come when you will be happy with the approach to date - then the fun starts with tweaking with major and monor elements....:mixed:
Cheers
Simon
TryTheChi
Member
Hi
I have small pockets that come and go on the sand bed. I think its localised nurtrient pools that relate to where excess food accumulates due to water flow patters.
If this is wide spread it may suggest that there is a waytogo on the nutrient limitation front.
If it is isolated to a spot here and there - it could be due to where the excess food (the tiny little particles.) accumulates. Even with 48x turnover, some will make it into the sand bed, so syphoniong out that area could help. Are there vacancies in the cleanupcrew team?
I'v noticed that it does come back in the same place which makes me susspect thats its the water flow in that little 'micro climate'. As long as the water colum/LR and the majority of the sand bed are nutrient poor - then the time is neigh for the benefits of the Iwan method to emerge.
HTH?
Cheers
Simon
I have small pockets that come and go on the sand bed. I think its localised nurtrient pools that relate to where excess food accumulates due to water flow patters.
If this is wide spread it may suggest that there is a waytogo on the nutrient limitation front.
If it is isolated to a spot here and there - it could be due to where the excess food (the tiny little particles.) accumulates. Even with 48x turnover, some will make it into the sand bed, so syphoniong out that area could help. Are there vacancies in the cleanupcrew team?
I'v noticed that it does come back in the same place which makes me susspect thats its the water flow in that little 'micro climate'. As long as the water colum/LR and the majority of the sand bed are nutrient poor - then the time is neigh for the benefits of the Iwan method to emerge.
HTH?
Cheers
Simon
messy1messmer
New member
i noticed that i dosed reef booster to early and i got red slime. i have it back and it is doing alot better
coraladdict
New member
TryTheChi,
Are you saying that you can replace Reefbooster by zeo AAHC ?
Also you mentionned that you will syphon the the part of the SB that contains pockets of algae,won't you be taking out benthic critters and such ?Wouldn't that be harmful?
Are you saying that you can replace Reefbooster by zeo AAHC ?
Also you mentionned that you will syphon the the part of the SB that contains pockets of algae,won't you be taking out benthic critters and such ?Wouldn't that be harmful?
TryTheChi
Member
When I went pure zeo for a while I just used AAHC rather than RB. Recently I'v started using RB again and fround growth rates have increased. I didnt check for the effect of the increased growth rates on DKH and CA early enough , and the values dropped a bit too low causing RTN in on of my corals. Real shame bacause it was just about comming arround to the treatmnent and showing some lovely purple tips
That was the most stubborn unresponsive piece that has been in since the start of Iwan and zeo methods.RE the syphoning effect on critters - I'm sure I lost some - but it is litterally only a few inches square in the front left corner- so plenty of lebensraum for the rest to recolonise
Cheers
Simon
coraladdict
New member
Do you have an explanation for that?
messy1messmer
New member
even though my nitrates said zero i think there were still some in the tank. back a few pages it says wait till there at zero to start RB. When i stoped for a couple of weeks it went away. Plus tring to get the right dose it so hard with that stuff. I contacted prodibio them and couldnt get a good answer on how many ml, oz, or cc to dose of the three products and never got a good answer
coraladdict
New member
TryTheChi
Isn't digest and biootim supposed to reduce nitrates and po4 to the point that once you have those under control you could start dosing reefbooster?
If so that would mean that if you still have algals growing while dosing digest and bioptim then shouldn't one dose more digest and bioptim until there are no more algals and then start dosing reefbooster?
Isn't digest and biootim supposed to reduce nitrates and po4 to the point that once you have those under control you could start dosing reefbooster?
If so that would mean that if you still have algals growing while dosing digest and bioptim then shouldn't one dose more digest and bioptim until there are no more algals and then start dosing reefbooster?
messy1messmer
New member
TryTheChi
are you still using the prodibio or have you switched to zeo products. if you have what do you like better?
are you still using the prodibio or have you switched to zeo products. if you have what do you like better?
TryTheChi
Member
I'v been using pure zeovit method for 5 months and a month with zeo plus RB. The difference is that ProdiBio and TPIM are substituted with the zeobasic 4.
I have noticed that zb4 takes the colors and growth further than when I used Prodi. The reason I moved across was that shaking the zeolites daily to produce bacterial mulm to feed sps made sense to me, and that and po4 laden bactoplancton left over would be exported via skimming.
I'm still unsure of the role of the zeolites themselves and the advantages of taking out NH3 over letting the bacs do all the work.
I think it maybe worth experimenting with LR rubble in a zeo type reactor and shaking this daily to see what effect this would have.
I can see no reason why dosing prodibio and TPIM into the pump intake for the zeo reactor wouldn't have a similar effect to the zeo bac/food7 products. Infact, although my water is very clear, I miss the extra clarity after dosing digest, so that may even be a superior approach.
Of course the zeolites could provide an aditional benefit over LR rubble, but I think the packaging of prodibio digest is superior to bac survival than the dropper bottle.
When you get to zeo stage 3 ie no more sequesterd nutrients to leach out of the LR /DSB and the water column is nutrient limited too, dosing of zeobac/food7 is once or twise per week, so moving over to fortnighly dosing of digest may also work well.
I havent tired this yet, but the FAuna Marin range use to use prodibiodigest with thier zeolites in this way, so clearly others have thought of this too
Cheers
Simon
AquariumSpecialty
.Registered Member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8655398#post8655398 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TryTheChi
I'v been using pure zeovit method for 5 months and a month with zeo plus RB. The difference is that ProdiBio and TPIM are substituted with the zeobasic 4.
I have noticed that zb4 takes the colors and growth further than when I used Prodi. The reason I moved across was that shaking the zeolites daily to produce bacterial mulm to feed sps made sense to me, and that and po4 laden bactoplancton left over would be exported via skimming.
I'm still unsure of the role of the zeolites themselves and the advantages of taking out NH3 over letting the bacs do all the work.
I think it maybe worth experimenting with LR rubble in a zeo type reactor and shaking this daily to see what effect this would have.
I can see no reason why dosing prodibio and TPIM into the pump intake for the zeo reactor wouldn't have a similar effect to the zeo bac/food7 products. Infact, although my water is very clear, I miss the extra clarity after dosing digest, so that may even be a superior approach.
Of course the zeolites could provide an aditional benefit over LR rubble, but I think the packaging of prodibio digest is superior to bac survival than the dropper bottle.
When you get to zeo stage 3 ie no more sequesterd nutrients to leach out of the LR /DSB and the water column is nutrient limited too, dosing of zeobac/food7 is once or twise per week, so moving over to fortnighly dosing of digest may also work well.
I havent tired this yet, but the FAuna Marin range use to use prodibiodigest with thier zeolites in this way, so clearly others have thought of this too
Cheers
Simon
Simon,
You are correct about using Prodibio with zeolith rocks. It is possible to use the zeolith with Prodibio but it is not necessary otherwise Prodibio would offer it in their product line. I have a 180 BB display that is ZEO only at this time and we are going to discontinue using zeobac and zeofood and phol's CV and begin using Bioptim, Biodigest and Reef Booster and keep using zeolith rocks to see if there are detectible and visual changes. I have also considered using Sera siporax in a reactor instead of zeolith. I'm not aware of anyone trying this but I think it would be a great host for the colonization of prodibio bacteria. We will take pictures along the way. Also to note, we have a Prodibio only system and ozone only system. If you have any suggestions by all means please let me know.
Last edited:
REEF-DADDY
New member
Scott,
How does the Prodi tank stack up against the Zeo tank? Sorry if you've already answered elsewhere, I could not find it.
Thanks
How does the Prodi tank stack up against the Zeo tank? Sorry if you've already answered elsewhere, I could not find it.
Thanks
AquariumSpecialty
.Registered Member
Both tanks look very good! It's taken a while but I really feel I understand how to dose both products and what to expect in terms of coloration changes.
I don't want to go into too much detail about the plans I have...just in case someone reads it, tries it and ends up blowing up their tank with combining different products. I don't want anyone pointing fingers at me. .
I don't want to go into too much detail about the plans I have...just in case someone reads it, tries it and ends up blowing up their tank with combining different products. I don't want anyone pointing fingers at me. .
