JDM

Thank you wasp, I can also see Brendan’s side, and I do think he is in a hard position. however, I work in an environment where contact with customers is a daily thing, the product we supply is not too different to zeovit in a way, some people totally swear by it and will never use anything else, some people curse the day they brought it and then we/I hear about it and have to sort there problems, normally I can achieve this by listing to there problems and helping them understand the reasons why there having trouble and advise them on methods to solve there problem. I would not talk to a customer in a negative manor, no matter how frustrated I became. Part of my problem is my fault, I did not ask on the zeovit web site when I first noticed things, silly really. i just followed the instructions that i had receved and made changes where i was told to. Being in the customer service field, dealing with high end equipment, I am very particular with how I am treated as a customer, I have only 2 marine shops that I will deal with, one in Auckland and one in Hamilton, the reason I will only deal with these shops is because they offer the customer service that I believe we all deserve due to the money we put through there business, I do give people a second chance as I realise they may be having a bad day and I catch the blunt end of the stick, while not acceptable it is understandable. The end result is, I have not been using zeovit correctly for my tank even though I have been doing as advised, I have faith in the product, I don’t in the instructions, it is a product that requires a lot of adjusting to get right, and as you have said wasp, it needs to be customised to each tank to work correctly.

:lol:

calm down..... take a breath...... im not sure what you having used zeovit before the usa had it has to do with my current situation, no one in there right mind would dubt your knowlidge of zeovit. i am worried about my nitrate level as it is well above the reccomended "safe level" and i would rather do somthing about that now rather than sit and wait for my corals to show signs of problems and then not be able to deal with them, a wise person once told me "prevention is better than cure"! anyhow i started with zeovit to reduce the neutrents in my tank, po4 and no3 were my targets, why did you start with zeovit? i have not seen any of the tanks from zeovit.com in person, have you? i am taking advice from people who have more experance than myself, last time i checked that was called learning. do you own a nitrate test kit? do you use it? do you take notice of what the reading is? would you take measures to reduce nitrate levels if your test kit read 50? i think the answers to the questions above speak for them selfs....... i asked your advice, you said rreduce the start2, i did this...... coral color is not the only thing i am concerned with, growth is also important to me, take cookie's tank, po4 = 0, no3 =0, color = excellent, growth =outsatnding, see a trend? as far as i am concerned, i have a nitrate problem, if left im sure it will spell doom for my corals, i am not going to sit a wait for my eyes to see the problem, i cannot see nitrate, thats why i own a test kit, if i could see problems starting there is a very good chance that i have let it too late to help the corals. i would think that as a customer of yours, i would expect a polite well mannered response, to use terms like i feel that you have missed the point, i have enquired about the dosing, you advised me to reduce start2 without checking which one i had, untill you said yesterday that there were 2 differant formulations, i was not aware of this. if it is too much trouble to help me, then dont bother with posts like your last, i have a fair amount of time and money invested into my tank, i am not prepared to ignore the nitrate level, i will do somthing about it, i will reduce it to a safe level, you could have a portion of my income and help me solve this problem, but with an attude like that i will not be giving you anymore of my money...

Just reread your post, are you saying that the dosing is up to the user to readjust as the feel necessary?

Agreed, but you also gave me instructions for after the first 4 weeks, still different, when i mentioned the 2ml start per day, you advised i had read it wrong and i should use .2ml per day, aged salt has since said 2ml per day........ Nothing against you Brendan, you have been nothing but helpful, and great to deal with, im just pointing out what has happened, and probably the reason why im having the problems im having. A product with an owners Manuel that provides the correct information would be helpful, zeovit guide says different again to all recommendations i have received. I believe that zeovit is a good product that will work well when used correctly, just seems hard to find out how to use it correctly.

With zeovit, I can’t run po4 remover and can’t have my kh up high, my kh is around 8. i have a fludized filter ready for po4 remover when i remove zeovit. and i have a sulphur denitrator on order. I have an aqua medic ca reactor, I am using the media that came with it. your clams started to open last night kp, I like the light tan one, the other had only just started to open when the lights went off, so we will se how it goes tonight. Is the theory behind maintaining a high kh while nitrate is high, to do with calcification for sps?

yep, NSW reads 0 guess i just have a nitrate problem that i cant find the cause of. i used a power head to blow out all the rocks and behind the reef, bugger all came out, stirred up all the sand, a bit came out but very little really. i have put some filter wool in between my baffles in the sump tonight, its been there for 5hrs so far and its reasonably clean, so its got me stumped. must be my blue tang, he is bigger than my hand, and would eat a whole lot more than I'm feeding. i want a system that will allow me to dump a heap of food in the tank and not have a nutrient problem, that's my goal at the moment.

thanks chimera! when you posting some pics? i have tried another test kit, aquarium pharmaceuticals, still reads about 50 but that test kit is older than the salifert one, exp on salifert is 07/2007 so should be fine, might see if i can get someone local to test it with there test kit and see if there is a difference.

here is an update of my tank as of tonight. my nitrate reading is 50, so i am interested to see what people think of my tank givin it current problem. i have cleaned the glass and done yet another water change, that will make a total of 200ltrs in one week, havnt checked nitrate level tonight, but i will do tomorrow.

i am just up loading some pics i took of my tank tonight, i will post them in my tank thread, be interesting to hear thoughts on how it looks considering the nitrate level at the moment.....

zeo guide say 10% weekly water changes, seems that most people say you must stick to this, I'm not sure what happens if you don't as i have always done the 10% weekly, even prior to zeo. on a different note, it is strange that i am getting different instructions on the zeo forum to how i was originally told to use it, i even have the piece of paper that zeovitnz gave me when i started with the dosing ratios on it, these are not similar to the new dosing instructions i have received from the zeo thread..... :-?

no filter wool, in fact i havnt had any filter wool in my tank since may ish, maybe ill throw some in just to see how dirty it gets. the only non pvc plastic (other than pumps etc) is some plexy glass that is the baffels in my current sump and i used the same product for the baffels in my last sump, i beleve it is lexan but cant be sure, can that lbe the cause????

i have used 2 test kits on my water, salifert and aquarium pharm, both give similar reading +/-50, tested the NSW i use, both kits read 0. must be somthing causing it, but cant think what. :-?

i feed mainly dry food (pellets i got from reef) and frozen misis about every 10 days or so, (i rinse the frozen in ro/di water prior to feeding) i have a deltec ts1250 skimmer and po4 is 0.03 (salifert) it will be interesting to see what happens with the new dosing secdule, seems strange that even with a 25% water change i still dont see a marked differance in nitrate readings, i will be doing a 25% change tonight, i will test before and after to give an accurate differance.

:lol: what are the visual signs of nitrate? only reason i ask is i am still getting sps growth, be it not as much as is possiable im sure, but they are still growing on a weekly basis. i have no algie to speak of, only need to clean the glass twice a week. :-?

chimera, i can save 40ltrs from my next water change if you like, i have a reading of 50, so if you dilute that into you 1000ltrs you should get a reading of about 1.7? :lol: or if you like i can save you 100ltrs from my 25% change and that will give you a reading of about 5? cheaper than all that food im sure.... i have been advised over on the zeo site that my dosing is all wrong, this will be the cause they think. dosing will now be: 4 drops zeofood & zeobak 2-3 times weekly .5ml zeostart 2x daily this is going to cost a lot more that how i was dosing, but if it works..... they also think i will see a decline in nitrate levels in 3-4 weeks, heres hoping.

Thanks wasp and layton, i have posted a new thread on zeovit.com, we will see how that goes. i must say i really like the idea of a sulphur denitrator, in comparsion zeovit seems like a bit of "black magic" so that is the parth i will go down if i cant sort the zeovit out. layton, i have a deltec ts1250 skimmer, do you think this will handle the extra output caused by using uv? what size uv unit would i need for a 400ltr system? chime in on the thread on zeovit .com if you like wasp, would be good to get some kiwi influnce in the thread....

**update** I took in the advice I received, I have the zeo reactor on 3hrs off 3hrs, and I shake the media daily and im using .2ml zeostart, all other dosing unchanged. NITRATES still 50!!!!! I am now at the point where I will be thinking of other options to keep the nitrate down, in fact it was around 15 when I started with zeovit, so on that basis it will be over 60 by Xmas :lol: I will be buying a big drum of salt next time im up in Auckland, to do a large water change to reduce nitrates (following info in the sticky) then I will be looking at adding a nitrate filter, be it a sulphur or bacteria one. Im sure it must be something im not doing or doing wrong but I really can’t think what.... I have reduced feeding for over a month, to the point where my fish had become visibly skinny (I have since gone back to my original feeding program as of Sunday) I have done 3x25% water changes + my normal 10% weekly. I started using zeovit in an attempt to have a low nutrient tank, so why has it not worked? Im thinking of increasing the amount of zeolite to provide more surface area for bacteria to colonise, I currently run 1 bag at a time, looking for thoughts on that? Is zeostart the carbon source for the bacteria? What would adding vodka as well do? Positive or negative? I don’t want to give up on zeovit but if I cant get it to control my nitrates, I will get something that dose.....

Its running!!!! This has been a very long 24hours, but like all things in reefing, good things take time, the truth is i finished at 6pm tonight, and then when and burnt $400 worth of fireworks, quite impressed, took 2 of us over 2 hrs to let them all off, nothing quite like a good firework! (pyro :lol: ) Anyway back on track.... I used a t piece in the return and fitted a ball valve as a type of bleed off system, i am OK with how it is running at the moment but i still cant seem to get the flow i had in the old sump, i think this is because the sump is now 500mm higher so gravity has less pressure????? It is all setup and running, skimmer in, ca reactor hooked up and going, heaters and controller hooked up, auto top off setup but i need to get a plug adaptor to power it. I installed a power point for the sump wiring, and have two 6 way independently switched multiboards to run all the gear, i am glad i went through the wall, it will take a while to fine tune everything but at least i have plenty of spare space and the ease of access to my equipment will make it much better in all respects. As far as adding another hole to the over flow, this did cross my mind, but i will play around with the current set up for a few weeks and decide from there if I'm happy with the flow I'm getting or if another bulk head is required. Thankyou all for your help and input into this project , i will post some photos soon for all to see.

this will be your cheapest way into marine,

thanks feelers, according to that calc i am way way under size, bugger!

there shouldn't be any air in the pipe, as it fulls all the air is coming out and then it becomes bubble free, so i assume all the air is pushed out as the overflow box is full? i figure i will have to try getting a ball valve tomorrow and fitting that to a t section and reducing the flow that way, this will tell me if it is the bulk head that is restricting the flow. it must be the bulk head, as i cant see any other reason, all the plumbing for the overflow is below the level of the bulkhead, therefore its only restriction is the smallest hole, 25mm is larger than the return plumbing though, the return is 20mm pressure pipe, this has got me beat! off to the wholesalers in the morning and i will get a ball valve and see it that will fix it. :-?

HELP!!!!! i have just plumbed my new sump, but i have an issue, my overflow is not draining fast enough. details: i have put a large sump in my spare room directly behind the tank, i have put the sump on a custom diy stand, i have redone all the plumbing to the sump, in doing so i have reduced the head height and number of bends from the return pump (laguna 7). now when i have the return pump running my overflow box fills and it will (given enough time) over full the tank. my bulk head is 25mm with 40mm waste pipe in overflow box and feeding the sump, i have removed the dorso from the top so i am now full syphon unrestricted (ie no cover or grill) my head height is now under a meter, and only 3 right angle bends, so this will have increased the flow from the laguna to almost unrestricted ie nearly 7000 litres an hour, on the old sump set up i had 6 right angles and a head height of approx 1.6m. so is it that my bulk head is too small to cope with the extra flow from the laguna? or have i done something wrong? :-?

i had some cyno a while ago, i just stired up the sand and blew it off the rocks before a water change. cleared up pritty fast. i did syphon some out in the end but the worst of it took care of its self.