WarDog's Tank Thread : Episodic Trial And Error

[Ginu]

I am very sorry for the fish losses... losing fish/coral is the worst thing ever and its extremely discouraging...

Alright I did about 20 min of skimming through the thread and I could not find the following information:

Net water in the system
Flow through the zeovit reactor
Dosing schedule

Now the bad part which is most likely causing your corals to stn/rtn...

1. I didn't notice a change of salt, however the salt you started with is not recomended in a zeo system... high alk works very well outside of ULNS... Might want to change salts to KZ reef crystals (on sale for another month, but pricy regardless) or going with the Red Sea blue bucket.. tough to get in Vancouver (aquariums west carries it)

2. it is recommended against using a uv reactor with zeovit as it will interfere with the zeovit bacteria... i think you have a constant battle and most likely that's also affecting the sps... think of it this way, you add zeobak which you supposed to do every 3 days, however the uv reactor kills the bacteria and cant properly colonize the rocks; then zeostart floats around the system.. then you add zeobak and there is too much food due to the suspended start in the system and so on...

Basically I think the balance of bak vs start is never achieved and the swings are really high due to the UV doing its job.

This is not documented, just my conclusion from all the readings I've done.

Now you can use a UV, however you need to shut off the UV when dosing bak and turn back on once the cycle is complete, recommended 3 hours if I recall (I don't think anyone can say for sure whats the exact timing of the zeostart vs zeobak is and that's most likely why it is recommended against using a UV reactor with zeovit). Also every tank is different and the timing will be different from tank to tank and that's most likely why they recommend against using UV with zeo.

I know this is tough due to fish losses, however I can tell you will be very pleased once the zeovit balance is met...