OZ_SPS's Zeovit system

[OZ_SPS]

Hello all,
no better way than a tank journal to introduce myself. am very excited for finding this forum and hope it will thrive and grow more to provide alternative to us reefers.
I am from California's bay area. been in reefing for 12 years. While i went through it all, the last 5 years i ran SPS dominate systems. this journal is for my main display tank. hopefully will open a new journal for my frag tank soon.
Although this system is running for 2 years already, i will copy some of the majore events from my other journal so we have a complete picture in this one. hope you enjoy

My system details are:
Started Jan-2019
Display: custom 175G
Sump: trigger 39 emerald
Circulation: 6 mp40s QD
Return pump: RD3 100 watt.
Lights: 3 AI hydra 52 HD + 4 T5 retro fixture all in canopy.
Skimmer: BK double cone 200+rds3. (Used to run BK mini 200)
Zeovit reactor: PRS autozeo reactor.
CA reactor: dastaco A2 extream. Used to do 2 part dosing b-ionic
Carbon: I use passive method for the carbon.
GFO: zeovit do not use GFO but I have a rowphos reactor on stand by for any emergency po4 spike
Temp control: 3 heaters (700 watt) and chiller
Control: apex for temp control, power on off control.
Ps: I later switched to GHL and now run a P4 ultimate package.

Testing:
KH guardian(by far this is the best equipment I have in my system)
Ca, K I use salifert.
Po4, no3 I use redsea.
Other elements I do once or twice a month ICP(over kill I know but again I experiment alot and use the icp to see what are the results. 1 test every 2 months should have been enough otherwise)

Some pictures of my equipment. Will do better pictures when I clean the sump area bit, its messy now.

 

[OZ_SPS]

Tank placement is important.
- This time I had the system set in the living room away from windows and sun light.
- I always add reinforcement beams under the tank in the crawlspace

For plumbing nothing fancy. Animal bean overflow

For sand I use dry sand cause zeovit do not like live sand. 1" sand bed, I do not like DSB because of it's long term issues and maintenance demand.

70% dry rocks and 30% live rocks aquascaping. Picture of the aquascaping

 

[OZ_SPS]

I run a mixing station and use Tropic marine pro salt.
I use this cause I run my system at natural sea level parameters per zeovit system.
This salt one of the few ones that have low alk without having low K which is critical parameters when you run natural sea level.
That being said, this time my first tank fill I used sea water to fill not salt water mix. It went well and i liked it. I will start getting sea water once a month to do some water changes using natural sea water.

For water change I religiously do 20% weekly water change (zeovit recommendation) the first year of the system age, then when system become mature I do every other week(my own way, zeo recommend weekly water change always).

Here are the levels I like to keep my system at:
Salinity: 35ppt
Temp: 76
Ph:8~8.2
Kh: 6.8~7
Ca:410~430mg
K+: 400mg

 

[OZ_SPS]

After plumbing and leak testing. Am ready for first water fill.
As I said I used sea water delivered from this amazing guy named bob..super funny and nice guy who run sea water delivery buissness.
Filled in the water which came to 175G total.
In zeovit knowing what's the water volume is important cause all the dosing depend on the water volume.

Ok here we go.
Day 1:
Place the sand, 1" sand bed.
I already soaked the sand for 4 weeks with RODI rinsing its weekly until po4 of the soaked water is zero.

Fill in seawater.

Turned on the lights, skimmer, pumps, power heads...etc
When I did that i also tested for stray voltage
All was well, I did not have measurable voltage(well it was like 20mv so we good)

Setup up the zeo reactor. Based in my water volume I need 1.75 liter of zelites.
I like to soak zeolites for 1 day in rodi before use it. So I already have the zeolites soaked a day before.

Run the zeovit reactor. The flow rate of the reactor should not exceed 100gph per 1 liter. I run mine at 150gph. Reactor flow rate is important in zeovit. One day I will do a write up about zeovit details.

Now dosing. Since it's new system i follow the 14 days cycle dosing. One of the powers of zeovit is, it's the fastest system to add live stocks with short cycle.

Per the 14 days cycle here is my dosing details
Day 1
ZEObak: 5 ml per 25 gallons
ZEOstart: 10 ml per 25 gallons
Sponge Power: 3 ml per 25 gallons

Day 2 and 3
Dosing break.

Day 4:
Dosing of ZEObak, ZEOstart and Sponge Power as recommended on the products label.
Zeobak: 7 drops daily till day 14
Zeostart: 0.7ml 2 times a day
Sponge power: 7 drops daily

 

[OZ_SPS]

Day 4 to day10:
Tank quickly went through couple of algae phases. Brown algae then turned to green hair algae which is all normal. I wish I took pictures its amazin how quick these algae phases go by in zeovit compared to other cycling methods where each algae phase will take at least couple of weeks.
Ince green hair algae comes it's good sign that we can move to the fun part. My system hair algae came around day 7.

Day 10
This is the day I can add my first live stocks. I added 4 urchins for the hair algae. Some cleaner crew. Trick here is to go slow so I added 4 hermit crabs, 5 turbo snails, 5 astera snails. And a pair of algae blenny's

Also this is the day I add carbon. I use zeovit carbon. Really good quality.
This activated carbon is high capacity and to activate it, I soak the it in boiled rodi water and leave the carbon until water cooled down. Then rinse and add it to the system.

I run carbon passively, meaning I place it in mesh bad and leave it inside the sump where water flow through and around it.

Day 14 and beyond
Test all major parameters once a week (except kg I test daily with the khg).
Dosing switch to what's recommended on the labels. For my system

Zeobak: 7 drops twice a week
Zeostart: 0.7ml 2 times a day
Sponge power: 7 drops daily

I also added bit more fish, again slowly. Added 2 fish a week.

Pair of black storm clowns
Choati wrass
3 anthias lyretail(1 Male 2 females)
Sunburst anthias.
Pair of cleaner shrimps
5 peppermint shrimps so they situate before i start adding wrasses. Once I add wrasses it's hard to add peppermint shrimp as they got eaten on the way down to the rocks.
More cleaner crew.

At 1 month mark I added couple of test coral frags. Acros, hammer, acans, millie's, and a setosa frags.

 

[OZ_SPS]

Here is my mixing station. Nothing fancy.
8 stages 150gph RODI unit.
2x 65G container's one for fresh water the other for salt water.

This time I plumbed some pipes from the garage where the rodi unit is to the tank which is right behind the wall where the mixing station is.
On my previous systems i always had plumbing of 2 pipes from the tank to outside(one goes to home drain the other to salt water)

This time I wanted to have the chiller and the ATO reservoir outside in the garage.
So I plumbed 4 pipes through the wall to
- push water from tank to sewer
- push salt water from mixing station to tank
- 2 pipes for chiller in/out
And have ATO line through the wall to the sump.

With all this, my water change is fully automated (not daily water change) and take no more than 10min.
I have programing on my Alexa app where I say "Alexa do water change"
Water pushed from tank to sewer then water is pumped in from mixing station.

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-2019
Some aquascaping today. Test frags are doing good.
My clam is hanging for dear life but not giving up. Notice the broken shell and how bad it looks...but I hope it will pull through.

 

[OZ_SPS]

To pick up where we left off. At 1 month mark I do the first water change. Also change zeolite (90%) and leave 10% of the old zeolites in the reactor to help jump start the new zeolit with bacteria.
It's worth talking about water change here.
I am very careful with salt mix. Salinity is one of these things that is overlooked very often. Every reefer knownits important but I have seen so many reefers thinking they know the salinity if their tanks to discover later they are off. Seriously u have helped many reefers with issues that end up being salinity issues.
I use multiple salinity test methods to cross correlated. Cheap common Refractometers drift all the time so be careful.
When calibrating I make sure the device is in room temperature ad well as the calibration solution.
I like using the redsea Refractometer because they are made to be calibrated with regular rodi which I have access to all the time.
I also have pinpoint salinity monitor on my mixing station.
Used to use digital one from Milwaukee but stopped using it.

When I prepare salt mix I use the redsea. Then i depend on the pinpoint to make sure the mixture in the mixing container is consistent when it's time to use it.

Ok going back, day 30, i did water and zeolite change and cleaned the sump.

 

[OZ_SPS]

Bacterial bloom issue:
From day 20 my water was getting cloudy. I was dealing with bacterial bloom but was not sure how and why, I have done 14 days cycle multiple times before never had cloudiness past day 14.

After debugging here and there I realized i had a dosing mistake that resulted in using too much zeo start (carbon) which caused bacterial bloom. It was bad.

- I quickly added 2 air stones in the sump and tank. When you deal with bacterial bloom and you have live stock in the tank its important you provide oxidation to your tank cause the bacteria consume the oxygen and can cause issues for your live stock.
- cut the carbon dose amount by half and skipped every other day for a week. I cannot take drastic measurements otherwise mess the tank bio system. In these situations reefers can freak out and drastically cut the carbon. Yes cloudiness goes away but they wiped out their bacteria completely and go through a new cycle.
- waited till day 30 to do my water change.

All the above helped but did not fix the bloom completely. After eater change cloudiness went away but came back next day which means the bacterial bloom still there.

So I used option B to fix it:
Got myself a cheap submegreable UV sterilizer. Ran it for 2 days 2 hours on, 2 hours off. Also turn it off for 2 hours when I dose carbon or bacteria.
Mid day 2 coldness is gone and bloom is over. So it took the UV out.
I cannot use UV alone with zeovit just for the record. What I did here is tactical solution for 2 days only.

Since then, system is good and bio load is building up every day.

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-15-2019
Day 60. Just did my weekly water change.
Parameters:
Ph:8.1
Salinity:35ppt
No3:0.025
Po4: 0.08ppm
Kh: 8 it will drop as I add coral
Ca: 450 it will drop ad I add coral
K+: 380.

Dosing:
Zb: 6 drops 2 times a week
Zs: 0.7ml 2 times a day
Sp: 6 drops 3 times a week
Zf: 6 drops 2 times a week
Amino acids: 6 drops 2 times a week
Coral booster: 6ml 2 times a week.

The dosing will change as I add more stocks and as my system go through different phases until I reach UNLS phase which I am not at yet.

With this post we are current to where I am right now. Moving forward I will update whenever I have meaningful update or event.

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-20-2019
Couple of things today.
1- re arranged the plumbing on my zeo reactor and its flow meter to make some space for the red dragon return pump as its bit tight now.
2- got Bubble king double cone 200+rds 3. I currently have the bubble king 200 mini extra slim. I was too scared of the space in my sump that's why I got the mini which have internal pump. Later I realized I actually can fit the BK DC200. Today i will tinker with it and update the performance difference...

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-21-2019
I Added
A Green Nepthea
Japanese Leather
Aussie Cynarina.
And an aussie wild Soli SPS.
Love the green nepthea credits to my LFS Neptune aquatics
Also sent Triton test last week should have 5he results soon. Will publish it once I have it.
Parameters still stable
No3: 0.5 increased a bit but not concerning cause zeolite is due for change this week
Po4: 0.08
Kh 7.5
Ca: 500 still high but should come down eventually
K+ 380

Did not start the CArx yet as I do not have consumption yet...

 

[OZ_SPS]

I have always heard in the past how important it is to have a stable KH, especially in zeovit system given the system is run on a tight and UNLS parameters.

I used to measure alk once a week, and adjust my dosing accordingly. but every now and then I would have SPS stressed out for no reason especially during water change day.

then I started measuring alk daily, and what I noticed is that there are days KH consumption is low and days high. so what I concluded is that some days when the KH consumption is low (coral is not going through calcification), though my tank need less KH dosing, my doser will dose the fixed amount which bring the KH value to above 8, then on days when my KH consumption is high, my fixed dosing is not enough and my KH drop to 6.3.

such fluctuation stressed my coral and caused a lot of the issues. usually the WC days are the worst cause when I do 20% WC my KH actually spike, then my doer add more KH which bring the KH value to high values.(also embedded problem jere was my salinity measurment ws not accurate so kh of the slat mix will be bit higher than expected. Remember high salinity mean high kh and CA)

Enter KH guardian. I got myself a KH guardian 2 years ago and had it set to measure my KH 8 times a day.
what was revealed during my usage is amazing. during the day my coral KH consumption actually vary quite a lot, and if I have fixed dosing quantity, my LKH value in the tank can vary from 8.3 to 7. and after WC my KH would spike up to 8.3.
further more, it was amazing seeing the KH consumption trend where i have more consumption during peak photo period (coral growing) and low KH consumption during night.

using KHG I regulated my Alk value (KHG measure and control the doser to add KH as needed only).
this made my tank KH super stable with range of 7~7.3. over 9 months, my growth improved significantly, I never lost a coral or got RTN/STN and coral coloration improved.

all data indicate that this improvement was mainly from the stable KH i was able to maintain thanks to KHG.
that's why now i am a big supporter of at least daily KH measurements, regardless of how stable your system is, it is hard to predict the calcification process trend over couple of days.

before i got KHG i did a lot of research on the market to invest in the right equipment, and KHG was a clear winner.
other kits (released and yet to be released) missing features KHG offer for free
1- KHG do not need extra dosers or updated controllers to control ALK. most of what was in the market at the time, do measurement only, to control you need extra doser. which if you aggregate total cost it comes way higher than the KHG. if we look at some of whats coming soon, we see measurement only devices, then marketing campaign asking us to buy expensive dosers (the claim usually is, if you want reliability buy our doser), some even ask for full controller update.

2- KHG was small footprint which was very important. such equipment need to be inside the cabinet, for reef systems real-estate is important. i did not have enough space under my tank.

3- KH offered control and monitor only solution, i ended up going with the control, but i know couple of reefers who have monitor only KHG and all what they do is control a cheap doser based on the KH values by the KHG using any controller (GHL, Apex..etc)

4- KHG was compatible with all common controller. i hooked it up to my old Apex and its working like a charm
5- customer support by KHG team was world class

6- reagent is cheap, one reagent packet last 2 to 4 months (depend on how often you test) this was important, as you do not want to change reagent often

7- KHG use a reagent that can be dumped back in the tank, i was very sceptic of this at first, but i sent a test water sample to ICP test and all parameters came back within the recommended values, i did not see harmful sustains. that being said i am not doing that and instead dumping my KHG test water in my skimmer waste container
8- finally, KHG performance was very stable. for 6 months, i cross correlated KH measurement values to common kits like salifert, and every single time the values are matched. some times when values do not match, i use brand new salifert kit, and realize that KH is giving the correct value while the older kit values where shifted which BTW is common complaint from reefers where they see the accuracy of the kit shift by time.

i will conclude by saying: test your ALK daily if you can at least for couple of months to understand your system trend, get yourself a KHG if possible and enjoy your reefing

 

[OZ_SPS]

Correlation between KH and PH in my tank
With KH monitoring I was able to see how with higher PH, more Alk/CA is being consumed which shows me the correlation between PH and calcification process. this is a picture of a typical day reading of the PH and ALK.
you can see alk value increase during night when PH is low, then start decreasing (more consumption) during high PH values. which to me make sense. during day, high PH, coral growing more ALK/CA consumed.

furthermore, once I stabilized my ALk I noticed another phenomena, in the past my CA and ALK used to not match in term of amount I need to dose (percentage wise). once I stabilized alk, my CA/ALK consumption became the same. meaning, when I needed to reduce ALK, I needed to reduce CA with the same percentage. this was great because, I realized in reality if we can control ALK I did not need to measure CA as much to control it, I just follow the same percentage reduction of increase in the CA as to the ALK.

SO: I realized that if I use the KHG to measure ALK, all what I need to do is to turn off my 4 channel doser when I want to suspend ALK which will suspend CA dosing as well, and turn it on when I want more dosing of ALK which will dose CA with the same percentage. so at least for my system, all I needed is KHG and I can control both CA and ALK with high accuracy. this kind of match what other systems I was on, like redsea, where they clearly correlate ALK/CA consumption by measuring one of them only and dose the rest of the elements based on this one element. I think this is important, the less we burden reefing community with costs and measurements the better, so I liked that with KHG alone I did what was needed for my system instead of spending so much money on upgrading controllers, adding extra dosers and add expensive measurement devices.
the best 2 investments I have done to my system over the last 2 years where the KHG and the PRS auto zeo reactor.

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-22-2019
Got my first Triton test today. All in all it look good.
Need to reduce po4: which is expected since the system is barely 3 months old
Need increase iodine a bit.
Need to reduce Al and barium. Usually rowphos doe the trick on reducing both al and ba nicely. But I need to be careful with rowphos not to drop po4 to zero as it's very effective and can shock the system with sudden reduction of po4.
Usually I use it tactically for couple of days then remove it. This does the trick

I shared the report for anyone who would like to take a look.

https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/aquarium/auswertung-b/icp-oes/54208/

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-22-2019
Some of the sps are coloring up nicely compared to couple of weeks back.

 

[OZ_SPS]

more

 

[OZ_SPS]

March-24-2019

Did my 3rd zeolite change. 20% water change and sump clean up.
Parameters:
Salinity 35
Temp 76
Kh 7
Ca 480
Mag 1350
K+400
No3 0.25
Po4 0.08
Increased the flow of the zeolite reactor to 140gph to reduce no3/po4 a week ago. It worked well and nutrients dropped to the mentioned values above.

Dosing:
Zb 2x 7 drops weekly
Zs 0.6ml twice daily
Sp 7 drops 3 times a week
Zz twice a week
BM 8 drops twice a week
Iron 8 drops weekly
BB 18ml weekly
CS twice weekly with BM
CV 8 drops 3 times a week
CB 6ml 3 times weekly
AA 6 drops twice weekly
Flatworm stop 6 ml daily

 

[OZ_SPS]

before i call it a day for now, here is what the system looks now
i will continue to document my record so we have a full journal and you all learn from my mistakes

 

[OZ_SPS]

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