Ultralith Users Please Read

[Tom R]

Hi Christy

That will teach you. While you were away your corals got together and decided to give you a scare (minor rebellion). You just can not take holidays and be a conscientious reefer.

I know that ZEOvit and ultralith are different products, however for what it is worth. I change my ZEOlites at 12 weeks. I keep about a half liter of the used ZEOlites to seed the bacteria. I add 2 liters of new ZEOlites after lightly washing them in warm tap water. I have certainly never experiences anything like your situation.

I hope it all works out for you.

Tom R

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by Tom R

Hi Christy

That will teach you. While you were away your corals got together and decided to give you a scare (minor rebellion). You just can not take holidays and be a conscientious reefer.

Tom R

You know Tom, its getting to the point where I can't even leave for longer than 2 days as something ALWAYS happens while I'm gone. Seriously, its ridiculous. Last year I was away for a week and the chiller blew fuses like they were going out of style, resulting in a tank disaster. Granted this isn't exactly a "disaster" but sheesh! Enough already!

Anyway, I talked to the tank sitter. She said nothing out of the ordinary went on. She was to feed a precut piece of nori and pre-measured frozen food, as per the usual what I feed, each day. She checked that the AC and chiller were on and checked the temp via the aquatronica to make sure everything was ok. To her eyes everything was (I can be pretty picky when looking at the tank most times when everyone else is "ooh ahh pretty").

I've done a couple of water changes which are inline with "the program" to try to get things back in order (or whatever, I'm a believer that water changes can correct most things). I suppose I'll just forge on hoping that things correct themselves along the way. All is not lost, I'm seeing polyps on the caps that I thought were goners and while the tissue is looking rather bleached out I'm sure it will come back. My trusty blue tipped brown stag even has a hint of blue on it today (thats how I know its serious, throughout the years this thing has remained fantastically blue on the tips no matter whats going on in the tank).



Albert, I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one and its not just my luck. Crappy that this happens though

[Delphinus]

Really, this doesn't happen with Zeovit? Because my tank took a huge nosedive after I swapped out the zeolites, I kept about 10% of the old and replaced the rest. I have a 1l reactor. Maybe it has nothing to do with the zeolites but the timing coincidence is really hard to ignore.

[albert_dao]

I've never experienced it, but regardless, I'd recommend reducing your flow through the reactor for a couple weeks after you change.

If I were to stake a guess, it would be that pre-stage 3/late stage 2, most tanks can't handle the abrupt drops in the levels of organics that generally follow zeolith switchouts. That said, I'm finding it more and more suspect that the FM product is, as claimed, safer to use and less aggressive...

[kwirky]

For my zeo-vit system when I swap the zeolytes I throttle back the water flow another 75% from it's current rate then slowly increase it again over the course of 2 weeks. I find that you can't really have too little flow through the reactor but it's VERY easy to have too much. Dunno if that works the same with ultralith though.

[Delphinus]

In my case I never opened up the flow because I never really understood what the criteria was for how to determine when it's safe to increase the flow. So I swapped out zeolites and before and after were both about 75% reduced flow.

Like I said in another thread though I'm not entirely certain that I'm either doing Zeo correctly, or whether something is physically wrong with the additives I'm using. I'm down to basic 4 now (discontinued SP, discontinued CS, discontinued amino acids altogether, etc.) and if anything, anything I do just seems to cause more stress and distress in my tank. I'm at the point where I'm considering discontinuing zeovit altogether but I'm truly afraid to rock the boat now.

I honestly thought FM and KZ were more or less equivalent product lines. It's not like they tell us what's in their magic bottles so it's hard for the end consumer to truly have an informed opinion.. It's hard to remain dispassionate while talking about it because behind the scenes I have a lot of heartache and grief going on with my tank.

[BMW Rider]

I'm really not that confidant in any of these type of additive systems anymore. They seem to all have big hype behind them with all kinds of glowing testimonials; then you start to hear about the dirty dark side to them. Tank crashes, bad reactions, etc.

I had a good start with the Reefresh system, then things satarted going bad. I've dropped the regimn, gone back to good old tried and true reefkeeping methods, and my tank and corals are much better for it.

These systems seem to be like cocain for your tank. Its all amazing when you've got just the right high going, but miss a hit or have a bit of an OD and things get ugly quick. And the cost is on par with a drug habit too

[Jason McK]

Sorry to hear about your problems Christy. Just wondering how soon did you leave on your trip after changing you rock? Also did you dose any Bac before you left?

In the Zeo system too much flow has caused RTN and brown outs when first starting out. or after a rock change. Zeo recomments 300GPH once your Zeo system is established. I have found much better results at lower GPH around 200 to 250.
this might help

J