Nic's CadLight 45 Gallon Shallow Reef - New Pictures!

[Nic]

Most of the guys using the full zeovit system are using either blue bucket red sea(not red sea coral pro) or ESV. I believe some also use tropic marine. I am not running the full system, only addatives, but I use blue bucket and like it.

 

BTW, if you are using reef crystals, your Alk/Calcium/Mag should have gotten that high just from the salt mix. Were you dosing?

 

 

I was. I was also having a serious problem with my PH and alkalinity when I was fighting the dinos. My PH was consistently in the 7.6-7.8 region and I was using quite a bit of buffer as well as dosing liquid calcium, though, I have not dosed in at least two weeks now, if not three.

 

I was reading up on the interaction between calcium, alkalinity and magnesium last night and the various problems that can occur between the three and the general consensus appeared to be that if you are going to have a problem with calcium and alkalinity, the most favorable and rarest would be what I'm currently experiencing; i.e. High calcium and high alkalinity. The articles stated that it's usually an inverse relationship of high calcium to low alkalinity and vice versa and that's a lot harder to correct.Several if the articles said the best way for me to correct my issue is to do no water changes unless absolutely necessary (as this replaced the calcium and alkalinity) and let the levels naturally deplete by being consumed by the corals and fish. I assume I should also look into a salt that corresponds better to the levels I am looking for such as Red Sea. Funny enough, I was using that prior to Reef Crystals and never had a problem.

[Nic]

The Vivid Aquariums, Unique Corals and Live Aquaria coral frags and fish arrived today. I'm still waiting on my supplements from Marine Depot, equipment from BRS, white starboard bottom from Boat Outfitters, refugium lamp from Coral Compulsion and doser from Pacific Sun USA to arrive. That will likely be next week. I also seem to have had a mishap with my 25 lb Real Reef Rock order with Live Aquaria. I received three separate shipment notifications; one for the yellow tang from Diver's Den, one for my 5" Acro from Diver's Den and one for the live rock all shipped next day air to arrive by 10:30 am today. The tracking number for the live rock did not work and I did not receive it today. I have an inquiry in regarding it with Live Aquaria, still waiting for the response.

Frag Boxes



Frags Galore!



Diver's Den Yellow Tang



Making Frag Racks



Frag Rack with magnets





Frags







Dip a float and drip acclimation on everything a within twenty minutes had at least some polyp extension on everything!

 

I also took the time to read the ZEOvit manual today, per Alex's instructions and though I I had the general concept and overall goal of ZEOvit down, the manual certainly did help to pinpoint some of the finer aspects of the method. It also had very detailed instructions and descriptions for many of the essential blue bottles.

[Alex B]

Cool stuff on the shipment!

 

For salt mix it's really preference. Most people prefer salts with NSW param. It makes it easier if you have a salt that mixes up close to your tank. You can do a big water change without I'll effects. I use blue bucket from redsea. I'm on my 2nd bucket now. No complaints.

 

I see you mention a fuge light. Are you trying to run zeovit and a fuge?? You cannot run zeovit and also run a refugium. They are both one in the same. Forms of nutrient reduction. Trust me when I say that zeovit works very well at lowering nutrients. Ask me how I know

 

Stick to one or the other. You will not have enough nutrients to sustain a fuge while running zeovit.

[Nic]

Yeah I read that in the manual today and meant to ask you about it. Could've sworn I saw people running fuges with ZEO but it makes complete sense that its either one or the other. Makes me wish I would've read the manual before ordering a refugium Par38 bulb and clamp. No biggie though, can be used with a future system. I intend to run it until my calc, alk, and mag drop into something closer to nsw and then I'll pull the rock rubble, sand and chaeto out. Its a small chamber, so it won't cause much trouble. Only thing that concerns me is a nitrate spike from screwing around with the sand and rock but I'll deal with that when I get to it. I intend to read this manual a few more times. Moral of the story, I've learned, is understanding the concept does not mean you understand how to do it. Makes me a bit thankful my params weren't quite ready for me to get started or this little episode would've been noted as one of my future "Can you share any regrets with this tank?" moments.

 

Alex, I've got the 30 page manual and I'm lurking on ZEOvit.com, anywhere else you would recommend I should go to continue educating myself? Thanks for the help, Alex.

[Nic]

Cool stuff on the shipment!

Trust me when I say that zeovit works very well at lowering nutrients. Ask me how I know

Stick to one or the other. You will not have enough nutrients to sustain a fuge while running zeovit.

I seem to recall you had a big STN/RTN event, right? Scares the bejesus out of me after what I just spent.

[Alex B]

Not big, but I lost 3 or 4 frags. I don't consider that a big event...lol..I could have lost all 30 frags! In my case, it was not zeo to blame. Unfortunately I had lost all my fish. My tank was already a ulns at that point. Corals still need some nitrates and phosphates. Unfortunately without the fish and constant feeding, I stripped the water a little too clean.

[D Z]

Yeah I read that in the manual today and meant to ask you about it. Could've sworn I saw people running fuges with ZEO but it makes complete sense that its either one or the other.

What you might be thinking of is some of us who are running just the additives but not the full system are also keeping a refugium. For example, I do not use the stones/reactor/zeostart, but do use a number of the additives and also have a ball of chaeto. I am running more of a semi-zeovit system, acheiving ULNS through careful feeding, heavy skimming, and refugium, but take advantage of the high quality KV additives.

[Nic]

Yeah, I went back and searched through the various ZEO threads and discovered exactly what you're saying. I'm gonna run the refugium until I'm ready to start the system completely. On a brighter note, switched over to regular Instant Ocean for the time being, did a 30% water change and have brought my calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium down considerably. Going to wait until Tuesday and do another 30% water change and I should have the parameters at the very high end of what is deemed NSW. Still don't plan to start ZEO until my parameters are well established over the span of a couple of weeks and are somewhere within the middle of NSW parameters. Everything that arrived on Friday is looking great, especially after the parameters came down. Only lost one SPS to RTN the first night, everything else seems to have settled in, colored up a bit and most are displaying reasonably good PE. Gonna try to get some good (for an iPhone) pictures this evening and post them up.

[D Z]

Sounds like a good plan, just be careful not to drop those levels too fast. Changing the levels too fast would almost be worse than having them that high in the first place.

[Nic]

Yeah I may give it a couple of days beyond Tuesday. The LPS corals (hammer, torch and Goniopora)) were responding the worst to the high parameters and they've looked great the last couple of days with excellent polyp extension, so I think there is no rush at this point.

[Nic]

I know I promised photos last night but my goodness, there always seems to be a problem with this tank. Got home last night and my protein skimmer was just gushing water out of the collection cup. I screwed around with that for a while and then stuck my hand into the third chamber to clean up some detritus collecting on the bottom of the chamber and on the return pump. ZAP! Got hit with a nice little shock. Nothing terrible, but enough to get my attention. So I started unplugging things and repeatedly sticking my hand into the chamber to see if I located the item that was leaking electricity into the chamber. Finally discovered it was one of my heaters. Took it out. Tested my new ZEOvit reactor and made sure everything was running correctly. I can't fit it into the third chamber with the return pump, which I understand to be the preferable location due to the release of mulm from the reactor which can double as food for fish and corals but it did fit into the first chamber with the protein skimmer just fine.

 

I organized what seemed to be a thousand blue bottles, set up my new magnetic frag rack and placed a few of the hardier looking acros with the best color and PE on it and raised it roughly halfway up the glass for more acclimation today. Everything looks good, the large colony I purchased from the Diver's Den is beginning to color up a bit. You can notice the reds and blues a little better. I'm trying to figure out how to mount that colony as it appears to have been sitting on its side in whatever holding tank it was in at LiveAquaria. I did some reading and discovered that a lot of evidence points to laying colonies and frags on their side for better and faster growth so I may just find a good, solid, flat spot on my live rock and mount it there. Hoping most of the acros will be acclimated by Wednesday or Thursday and I can begin picking out spots for them on the structure. I did notice an odd film that was coming off of the Jedi Mind Trick Monti yesterday. It almost looked like it was an opaque fungus that waved in the current. I blew a little bit of it off with a turkey baster. Perhaps I sat it a little too far up the rock structure and too close to the lights. Moved it into a shadowy area in the hopes that will solve the issue and let it regain some footing. Now for some pictures.

 

FTS and New Rock Structure

 

Corals

 

Large Acro Colony

 

More Corals

 

My parameters are continuing to drop, albeit slowly

 

Ph: 8.2

Ammonia: 0 ppm

Nitrite: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 0 ppm

Phosphate: <0.25

Calcium: 485

Alkalinity: 12.6 dKh

 

Getting some more stuff in today. I'll hopefully be able to update this evening as long as my protein skimmer isn't a geyser and my sump hasn't turned into an electrical outlet.

[NanoTopia]

My parameters are continuing to drop, albeit slowly

 

Ph: 8.2

Ammonia: 0 ppm

Nitrite: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 0 ppm

Phosphate: <0.25

Calcium: 485

Alkalinity: 12.6 dKh

 

Getting some more stuff in today. I'll hopefully be able to update this evening as long as my protein skimmer isn't a geyser and my sump hasn't turned into an electrical outlet.

How do you account for such high Ca and Alkalinity?

 

What salt are you using ?

 

I assume your Mg is high as well. What are you dosing for alkalinity exactly?

 

 

I highly recommend bringing them slowly down to NSW levels before trouble starts.

[Nic]

How do you account for such high Ca and Alkalinity?

 

What salt are you using ?

 

I assume your Mg is high as well. What are you dosing for alkalinity exactly?

 

 

I highly recommend bringing them slowly down to NSW levels before trouble starts.

 

We've actually been working on this for the past week. My calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium were MUCH higher than they are currently. I have been using Instant Ocean Reef Crystals and did several large water changes fairly close together as I was having issues with Green Hair Algae. I recently (as in 3 days ago) did a 30% water change with regular Instant Ocean. My calcium went from 560 to 485, alkalinity went from 14 to 12.6 and I've forgotten exactly what Magnesium was and went to but suffice it to say it was high, it remains high, but went down significantly. I am planning to do another 20-30% water change either today or tomorrow and hopefully that will bring it to within or close to normal NSW parameters. I have not yet begun using the ZEOvit reactor. I've only had it running (without stones) to insure I had everything set up and it was operating correctly.

 

I had one frag that RTN'd overnight on the first night they arrived and a place on my Monti that looks like I moved it up the rockwork to quickly when acclimating to LEDs but other than that I haven't had any problems with the acro frags. Ok to reasonably good PE on most with a noticeable coloring up over the last 3 or so days.

 

The only thing I'm worried about with the water changes is making too much of a change too fast. I'm gung ho and more than ready to do the 30% water change today but I'm afraid its too much too soon. I feel like I'm facing a choice of the lesser of two evils and unsure which that is!

 

And other than the occasional splash of Kent Calcium supplemental every few days previous to these water changes and my change from Red Sea Pro Salt to Reef Crystals, I supplement absolutely nothing.

 

Is there anything you would recommend other than the 30% water change using the regular Instant Ocean?

[NanoTopia]

There is not much you can do to bring down elements other than water changes. 10% twice a week should not cause trouble.

[Nic]

Ok, I'll stick to the plan and slowly bring them down via water changes. I do not intend to start the ZEO process until these parameters are within NSW. I had no idea that using a heavily fortified salt such as Reef Crystals could lead to such elevated parameters.

[Nic]

Nano, I will say that I noticed absolutely no ill effects from the previous thirty gallon water change that changed up the parameters so much by lowering them significantly. In fact, everything seemed to instantly perk up and color up. I noticed much better colors and much better PE following the change so I'm hoping this trend continues as long as I continue to maintain adequate spacing between changes. I'm definitely considering doing a change today when I get home. The longer I sit with elevated parameters, regardless of how well the corals seem to be doing, the more nervous I get. I'd be reasonably happy if I could get two of the three parameters down to near normal levels.

[Alex B]

Instead of one big change, I would do a small water change everyday. For example, you can prob do a 5 gallon change without having to even stop the system. Just remove 5 gallons from the sump and add it back in. In a week or so, you should be close to where you want to be.

[Arkayology]

Nice frags man. Let us know how you like that Kore doser once you get it. It will make your zeovit dosing very easy.

[Nic]

Instead of one big change, I would do a small water change everyday. For example, you can prob do a 5 gallon change without having to even stop the system. Just remove 5 gallons from the sump and add it back in. In a week or so, you should be close to where you want to be.

 

Sounds like a good idea. I feel comfortable enough with how everything has reacted thus far to take my time with lowering the parameters from here on out.

 

 

Instead of one big change, I would do a small water change everyday. For example, you can prob do a 5 gallon change without having to even stop the system. Just remove 5 gallons from the sump and add it back in. In a week or so, you should be close to where you want to be.

 

Thanks man. I really like the Red and Green Planets, probably my favorite thus far. I can't really complain with either Vivid or Unique Corals. Both shipments went well with a drip acclimation. The liveaquaria colony browned out completely but it's got great PE, so at least it's healthy. I've got double sized frags of Cultuvated Reef Blue Panther and CR Flame On coming in today so I'll post on those as well later.

 

I'm really looking forward to getting the Kore 5th doser. Hard choice with not going the Pro route at only $90 more but I decided to save on the viton tubing and optical sensor for ATO and go with the standard. With my current parameters it may be a hot minute before I put it to use.

[Nic]

So discovered I did not find the source of the electrical current in the tank as I thought. It was the Eheim pump on the new ZEOvit reactor. Sent a message to BRS about it. Did a water change, everything went down except for alkalinity which went up a bit.

 

Calcium: 475

Alkalinity: 13.2

Magnesium: 1400

 

I'm reasonably happy with this except for the alkalinity.

 

Got my CR Flame On and Blue Panther from Cultivated Reef. Best bagging and packing of all three and the corals were in for several hours after they arrived as I was at work. Got home and opened the package, both of them had full polyp extension in the bags. It was awesome. Totally satisfied.

[Nic]

Woke up this morning to a little bit of an issue. I placed a tabling green acro approximately 10" r so from my MP40 which I run just a little over half power. Apparently the skin of the acro is a bit more delicate than I thought it to be. A couple of the tips were completely stripped of skin. I moved the MP40 up a bit so it was blowing on it indirectly and turned it down a bit. Also dabbed a bit of superglue on the tips just in case it is STN. The coral had good PE and the vast majority of it looked fine so hopefully it was just a small bump in the road.

[Nic]

Is there anything that would cause RTN just in green skinned Acropora? My wife just called and said the RTN from this morning has progressed and started on a second green skinned Acro, everything else looks fine. Going to dip in 1L of tank water with 1 drop of tea tree oil. Supposedly the main ingredient of Coral Rx and I saw on ZEOvit forums where it's worked for others at stopping RTN.

[SpankythePyro]

what is the superglue on the tip intended to do, ive never heard of that before

[Alex B]

I think you need to give the tank some more time to balance out. It's had some ups and downs. The parameters are still very high. Also, the big 30 gallon wate change could have something to do with it. Sps does not respond well to big changes in alk. I would only do small changes and let it balance out. Give the tank some time before adding anymore sps.

 

I also recommend you don't start zeovit anytime soon. Wait a month or 2 to let corals adjust and the tank stabalize before you start it. Good luck!

 

EDIT

Wait did I just read correctly that you already started the zeovit reactor?? You say the pump was causing stray voltage, so I would assume your running the reactor and starting to implement the system. The main thing when running zeovit is the NSW. Anytime you add a carbon source and have high alk, you are asking for trouble. That's your problem right there. Please stop all zeovit stuff.

 

Give the tank a month or 2 to balance out. It's for your own good, trust me. This system is not for beginners, and you should not be carbon dosing with a alk that high. It's VERY high. You need to be around 7. You are almost double that.

[Nic]

No no it was just running to make sure it operated correctly. There was no media in it. I assure you I'm listening to you regarding being at NSW first. I just wanted to make sure I had it put together correctly and everything operated correctly, which is how I discovered the electrical issue.