Im on board with Christy here, I think GFO will work some wonders for you.

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Its funny you brought this up. I also started my tank with all dry rock in hopes to avoid all of the problems you have mentioned. So far, I have aptaisia, bubble algae, and now a wicked outbreak of cyano. I just started the zeo method in hope to starve out the algae issues, But i refuse to take off the GFO, while cyano is going on

Fts look nice man I saw how bad the hair algae was so I know how much you e turned it around! The background looks cool how it's got the varying texture between blue and the darker bits. Red planet looks big too. Wish I saw more gorge in there but when you think you're ready you can have some off mine (yours).

Tony, where did your pipes end up after this pic? Care to post a new one?
Thanks
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Tony, as per our chat yesterday, this is the dosing schedule G. Alexander had suggested for my 200g water volume...

~1.9l of zeolites, water flow ~ 200 US gallons per hour changed at 6-8 weeks. If you have recently started zeovit I would recommend to run the reactor with a 3 hour on / off interval for the first couple of week

0.75 liter activated carbon flown passively

Dose Coral Vitalizer @ 4 drops/2 x weekly

Dose Amino Acid HC @ 4 drops/2 x weekly

Dose Zeostart2 @ 0.7 ml 2 x daily

dose Xtra @ 4ml/ 2 x weekly

Dose Zeobac @ 8 drops twice weekly

Dose Zeofood7 @ 4 drops twice weekly

Agitate reactor once daily

I'm also a huge proponent of new clean rock from the real live ocean! Rock will adsorb nutrients over the years, and using any used rock, dry or otherwise, can and often will lead to algae issues. Yes, you save a few bucks, but I find saving a few bucks in this hobby often has a cost.

I don't think the zeo system works on the more is better principle, and I suspect that it will eventually work for you, but you have a ton of PO4 to suck out first. GFO may help accelerate that, or perhaps change your zeolites more often.
Not sure about running both, never tried it, but starting with new rock (20% maybe older from previous tank), running zeo from the start, my PO4 is 0.02 or lower. I also change 25% of the water biweekly.

Hi Greg, I will take a picture under the stand and post it tonight (will be late tonight though I won't be home for a while). But in the meantime I can try to describe it. It's nothing too complicated, basically both pipes drain down into the sump just underneath. They both have small horizontal jogs to get past the edge of the sump since the sump sits inside the stand which is framed of 2x4's so the edge sits right under the bulkheads. As a Herbie style overflow the shorter drainpipe is the main drain and has a gate valve on its horizontal jog so to allow the water line to be up at the overflow teeth. I keep the waterline basically about 1" lower then the main display (basically hovering at the emergency standpipe height with a small trickle going down the emergency overflow). Anything more than 1" and you hear a waterfall sound.

Cool thanks for that. Ironically though my current dosing recommendations are from the same dude over there. But I'm curtailing things back nonetheless just to see if the trend reverses. So far it's been "more zeo = more PO4" so we'll see.

I am very tempted to run GFO in conjunction but it has been recommended not to several times. I remember Dez in his thread complained about tip burn after adding GFO on top of zeo. In general however it is certainly true that a rapid reduction of PO4 is basically deadly, and the irony is that apart from a few pieces in the minority, most of my current SPS are handling 0.18 just fine. The colours could have more pop in some cases but on the list of things to complain about that's pretty minor.

For sure. I don't remember the exact makeup of rock, some of it is BRS shelf rock, others formerly dried rock, and a good portion (at least 1/3 - 1/2) was wet rock that had been cooking in a 50g rubbermaid for a while. So while some of it was pretty skanky to begin with, after a while it cleaned up at least visually. But also true that basically none of it was "new" rock. I can see the benefit of going all new and if I ever do this again I might go that road but the flip side is that even newly collected rock will eventually become a few years old and it would be nicer if we could find ways to keep the stuff we have already out of the ocean to be useful for longer rather than planning to replace it all every few years.

Thanks for the advice though! This week is my experimental week of dosing less - come the weekend I want to see if I notice a smaller number or not.

Thanks for the info. I should have been clearer with my question.
What I meant to ask was where did your standpipe heights end up.
You answered 1/2 of that. Now I have a starting point :wink:

Hey Tony, what day/time do you wanna go? Lets plan something.

Its funny how none of us are ever happy with our setups!

Couldn't be truer right now! I just spent another two hours with a pair of scissors attacking my algae :neutral:

Why don't you guys swing by tomorrow night?