[Aqua-Digital]

Hi

Sorry for late coming into this, trying to take weekends of now.

As everyone has said for now it is important to get your basic maintenance regime in place.

10% water changes a week
PO4 and nitrate tests.

If your PO4 is high then using FM Ultra power phos to bring this down. This is powerful suff and does not leach the PO4 back into the system it remains bound, you also dont have to use much of it and the absorbant rate on tests is fast. (but thats another subject we will be doing this review in the new year)

correct PO4 test proceedure

heat sample of water to 80oC
Allow to cool for 5 minutes
Take test in normal way

By doing this you are unbinding the PO4 trapped in the water molecules and obtaining a correct reading.

After this as Myka says you can use some nutrient lowering products, a good start would be

Ultra Bio
Ultra Bak

These as Mike proved in his tests rids he system of any nutrients in a stable and structured manner. But again as Myka points out you must keep up with this.

IF you want to go down the Ultra lith route, in some parts it is not too different from Zeo but you will not get the crash situations if you come right off of it, as the forumla is a lot milder in nature. However we do still recommend a weaning process off of it as no tank should experience sudden changes.

With Fauna Marin Lith systems the independant reports are you get a more gentle change to the tank and more natural colours, it is reported to eb more user freindly.

So what would you need

the very least is the following

Ultra Lith rock
Ultra Bio -(the bacteria)
Ultra Bak (the bacterial food)
Ultra Min-S (the amino acids)

This is the basic 4 for start up.

Again - If you chose this route, it would mean for the first 6 weeks some daliy tasks of adding drops of the above mentioned products. After this period things settle down, and after the first 3 months you will have a stable system.

Remember also, we offer direct and outstanding support every step of the way to anyone that starts and continue to use Ultra Lith you are not left wondering what you should be doing.