zeostart dosing & using zeobak to seed nitrate reactor

[gatekeeperdi]

I've decided to set up the Deltec NP509 reactor again for now to control my tank nitrates. I will need to set it up with fresh tank water as I had to throw out the stuff that was in it previously. I am dosing zeobak, biomate, coral snow, zeostart 3 & zeozym to the sump as per previous instructions from Alexander at zeovit forum but not using biopellets. I have read some threads where bacteria such as zeobak has been addded to the reactor when it was set up to speed up the bacterial development. Would you think this is worth doing?

Could I also safely increase the amount of zeostart dosed to the sump gradually as a carbon source to try to reduce the phosphate and nitrate too?

My system has a total gross water volume of 980 litres. I have been dosing 10ml coral snow once a week with 20 drops of biomate & 9 drops of zeobak & a further weekly dose once a week with 20ml biomate only. I dose 1 spoon of zeozym with 9 drops of zeobak twice a week. I dose 0.6ml zeostart 3 twice a day. I am running a deltec FP509 phosphate reactor with Rowaphos, a slow flow reactor with carbon and a deltec skimmer. I have been using Seachem denitrate in another slow flow reactor but the nitrates aren't been reduced using this. The nitrate is 25 and the phosphate is 0.092. I am about to replace the Rowaphos when I do this weeks water change later today.

Any advice would be very welcome. Thanks, Di

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Both of those sound like reasonable plans.

i cannot be sure that the zeobak actually has the right bacteria that will thrive long term in a denitrator, but it may.

 

[gatekeeperdi]

Thanks for your reply. I'll give that a go then and see how the tank reacts.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're welcome.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Thanks for your reply. I'll give that a go then and see how the tank reacts.

How’d it go? Do you have an update for us?