wasp

Hi Bart there are a lot of different theories / methods and the hardest part for a newbie is sorting it all out. Here's what I think for a basic set up. Others will suggest other ideas and they may also be "right" because there is always more than one way. When converting from fresh water some equipment you can use and some not so good to use. A basic marine set up is like this. don't mess with anything less than a 3 foot tank. Smaller can be done but it's hard. 4 foot up is best. The filtration is done by bacteria that live in "liverock". Liverock is rock made from old coral skeleton and is porous. You should have somewhere around a kilogram of liverock to each 8 litres of water in the tank. The liverock is in fact dry and dead when you buy it at the LFS, but becomes "live" when after a few weeks in the tank it gets a bunch of bacteria living in it that eat the waste products from the fish. So one way to set up a tank is to put a thin layer of sand in the bottom. Put in the correct amount of rock, then fill with seawater. The seawater will need to have 10% freshwater added as our water is saltier then the ideal level. Then you need all this water to be moving, both to assist liverock filtration, and because most marine organisms need it to be moving. So you add a few pumps, enough to pump the entire volume of the tank ten times per hour (10 x times flow) This is the minimum, 20x or more is better. Then you need a marine grade light, most of the corals we keep are photosynthetic and need correct light. 1 watt of light per litre of water is a rough guide to the amount of light you need, but this may vary (upwards mostly) depending on what you are keeping. Don't use your old cannisters for biological filtration, leave that to the liverock. Cannisters and such do aerobic filtration only and do not supply the anearobic filtration important in a marine tank. Cannisters can be useful for using carbon, or phosphate removing resin though. The other thing you need is a protein skimmer. A good one is expensive, but the success of your tank will to quite a degree hinge on how good your protein skimming is. A good one will last you for life, get a needlewheel one they are the best. As I said you will hear other contradictory ideas and they will likely also work. I've just suggested one way to get a basic system going. Glad to hear you've done a lot of reading, that's the big thing, there's a lot of learning to do. Good Luck!

I didn't actually say you However a person who will tell others they are wrong and feel no need to offer any proof will surely consider themself an expert.

A person who believes everything he says or thinks is a FACT, opinions and all, clearly sees himself as an expert.

Bomber is clear enough when he know what he's on about. It's when he's talking about secret unidentified "nutrients" and such he becomes obscure. A trick picked up by at least one expert on this board, to ensure he can spend 20 pages talking about his theory without actually saying what it is. A perfect ruse to be able to attack others but never be attacked cos nothing beyond hints was ever said.

I do question if what's said by some of the experts on this board make sense. Goes down like a ton of bricks!

I think peopple who drop hints do it because they are unsure of their facts. Then when they are shown to be wrong they can always say " I didn't actually say that"

Agreed. For awesome nitrate control, a DSB is the way to go.

Reef has kindly supplied some more carbon as there was a possibility the first tests on the aqualight and rowa carbons had been contaminated. Turns out I did get it wrong, the fault was likely in rinsing the test containers but not actually soaking and testing them. So this time the procedure has been as follows. All water used has been tested and confirmed 0 phosphate. Then I soaked the testing containers for a week with water and then tested the water. First week there was a trace of phosphate in the water so this was discarded and the containers soaked another week. This time phosphate was zero after a week. The two carbon samples were rinsed twice with RODI to remove dust, and then placed in the containers with new water. Left standing for 2 days then tested. The aqualight performed extremely well, better than the Jansens carbon, with a reading of 0.01. The Rowa not so good with a reading of 0.15. As with the jansens carbon I'll do another test at day nine which will be more accurate as it's over a longer time.

Guys there is going to be so much arguing crap on this thread that the useful information re running zeovit will be lost among it. I have therefore started a new thread to continue the sand argument and pasted the last post from this thread to it. The thread is here http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewto ... 720#104720

:lol: :lol: :lol: Sometimes I read this thing just for the laughs!! ROTFL

Well I used to religiously avoid anything remotely resembling a "nitrate factory", however since using the sock, and the odd sponge here and there I've found it doesn't make sqwat of a difference. Each tank may be different probably have to see what you can and cannot do, however a little nitrate is a good thing.

Hi Duke thanks for the phone call. I did a "drip test" with my start 2 dripper, and with mine it took 25 drops for one ml. Not sure if every dripper is the same, but if so, your current 6 drops daily will not be enough. Here's what I think you should do. (after you send me the water sample) Put 3/4 litre zeovit rock in the reactor and put a timer on it so it's 3 hours on, 3 hours off. Endevour to get flow rate at around 280 litres an hour (give or take 50 or so litres is OK) Then dosing should be as follows - first 3 days 3 drops bac, 20 drops start, and 2 drops food daily. Then the rest of the fortnight do this every 2nd day, but the 20 drops start every day. Then for a further 4 weeks dose twice weekly, but the start daily. This will make 6 weeks and it's time to change the zeo rock, depending how it's going may be able to go back to 1/2 litre of rock. This may seem like a high dose of start but with your current situation I believe you will be safe. If you start getting a lot more of that brown slimey stuff on the glass may need to reduce. Make sure to pump the rocks one or more times daily. The 2nd part of the equation is food, I have mailed the low phosphate food, it may look like a small bottle but if it does not last quite a few weeks at least, you are feeding too much. It is a complete food your fish can eat that and nothing else for many months. I think your trigger is to a degree the villain, he has you over a barrel if you don't feed him heaps he will kill your coral banded! I'd be inclined to, if possible, remove either the trigger, or the shrimp, to the sump for a while. If the trigger is gone from the tank you will likely be surprised how little the rest of the fish eat! In any case, just feed them enough once a day so it's all gone in about 30 seconds and don't feed any other kind of food. The fish will act starving and beg you at the glass, but only increase food if they get visibly thin. In this way can probably reduce phosphate input to the tank to about 1/4 of current levels. The fish food container I sent, if you can send me a similar size bottle of water once a fortnight so we can track how phosphate is going & adjust dosing accordingly.

Wouldn't say I dissagree. If Pies says that's what happened, then that's what happened. Simply indicates that the rock used for his experiment was already very "clean", or free of built up nutrients. In my case when I went BB my rock was thoroughly clogged from several years in a high nutrient tank and shed quite a bit of crud. Not for 6 months though it slowed right down in around 3 months.

When the bag is clean a surprising amount of water goes through, mines got nearly 4000 litres per hour. The bag is hanging over the sump with the bottom 1/2 in the water. At first the water fills the bag up to the same level as the sump water. Then as it begins to clog the water level in the sock slowly starts to rise, once it gets to the top (takes about a fortnight) I turn the bag inside out & wash in the washing machine which is the only way to clean them. This part of the operation is done while my wife is taking coffee with the neighbour, she is unaware the machine is used in this manner

When I first went BB it was quite surprising how much and how quickly crap accumulated on the bottom. I remove it weekly now with each water change. This is one point where I will give Layton his due. However I'm not getting in an argument over it or knocking sandbeds there are tanks like Pies with sandbeds that far surpass anything I could ever dream of achieving.

Even if your rocks are "clean", algae can grow on these trapped areas of detritus, good idea to blast them periodically and syphon out once settled.

This https://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem ... uct=EA1351 However if the idea is to control bubbles there are other options, some of that loose foamy stuff from the LFS can work.

I do on my frag tank Yes it will stop bubbles. I clean mine fortnightly but they can clog a lot faster depending on your system

Your with Joe, I'm with Layton, funny old world aint it! :lol: :lol:

Hmmm... I can see where this is headed, Chimera was right. Think I'll just focus on what the thread starter wanted.

Well said. Just goes to show, the people get what the people want

Personally I largely agree. However for practical purposes free orthophosphate is the only one we can measure and doing so accurately can be useful. Once what in zeovit speak "stage 3" is reached, measuring orthophosphate becomes very useful. Stage 3, is when for several months, usually 6 months or more, orthophosphate in the water column has been kept at very low levels, allowing leaching of phosphate from rocks and substrate to occur, to the point that there is no more built up phosphate reserves left. A somewhat similar principle to Laytons rock cooking although not quite the same. Once stage 3 is reached a direct reading of free orthophosphate in the water column will give a fair indication of real phosphate levels.

Well I'm not, to me the purpose of this thread will be to sort Dukes tank. However to be honest some of what Layton said was constructive, nothing wrong with that.

And yes I'll also agree about the overlegislation. For example, it scares the crap out of me thinking about someone like Helen Clark making social legislation and telling me how to run my family! Luckily society in general has resisted some of her control freak tendencies and not allowed this to happen as yet. That's the value of democracy.