I would think that taking out the sponges would be fine, I personally would add a piece of Enkamat pre cut to fit in place of the sponges top and bottom. The Enkamat would work perfectly to stop the pellets from flowing out with the flow but at the same time not plugging up!

http://www.oceaniccorals.com/store/i...ds/enkamat.jpg

:peace:

I doubt the pellets would have any negative effect on the Zoas whatsoever, the beautiful part of the pellets is that they produce the Mulm which feeds the whole tank including Zoas. Dosing Vodka alone does not produce any such bacterial Mulm byproduct.

Hope that helps.

Yes it does Thanks :biggrin:

Do you stock Enkmat? I've been meaning to try find some for Skimmer Pump mods

I do have some left, enough for one skimmer mod. I have more on order too.

Ian

Well, I think I'm gona be buying a Bubble Magnus anyways. The DIY skimmer is just to much of a time consumer/headache. I need to get my tank params under controll here, and finish off the projects, not tinker with equipment LOL

Good call!:lol:

I put them in a normal carbon bag, all seems ok. FYI

Week 4 start
 

Day 21, start of week 4. Something a bit surprising and unexpected today.

Today's nitrate reading is 20.

I recalibrated my meter 4 times and got the same result. Still in disbelief I tested nitrate with my Elos nitrate test kit and unfortunately the only thing I got out of it was why I hate colour comparison based test kits because depending on how close I was standing to my tank, you would think 2.5, 5, or 10ppm nitrate ... so I'm not sure what to think of that .. chuck it out maybe? I'm not sure.

Surprising because I even did a 20% water change yesterday.

So, there might be a couple reasons that contributed to this unexpected jump:

1) There was a bit of a tank upset on Sunday where I found the trigger in the overflow. Removing him from the overflow was a several hour exercise in where the sump had to be shut off, as I had to remove plumbing and the skimmer and the hood just so I could stand close enough to the overflow to maneuver a net inside the overflow.

2) Tonight I found that my skimmer air intake was blocked by lint. Was a little surprised because I shoot water in it once per week to clean it out, but when I blew into it, the restriction was obvious. I had to use a nail to scrape out the little John Guest valve to get the lint/dust out that had solidified in there.

3) It could just be it's a signal to replace the zeolites. I'm also using half the recommended dosage for both the zeolites and pellets, so perhaps this is the signal that it's time to start ramping up the volumes up to the recommended levels.

4) Been having a little trouble dialing in the autodosing of Alk and Ca lately. It was stable for several months but lately I've been having to increase the flowrates and it's been a little bit tricky, one week the Alk will jump too high, the next it will drift down.

Other than the electronic reading of the number, there is no visual cue that there's anything to worry about at this point. The water remains clear, the sand remains clean, the fish seem to be fine. So, hopefully just a little bump and things will reset in the next few days.

Hope it's nothing Tony. 5 days till I can start MY pellet's :D I can't wait!