Tearing down current tank due to algae. Tips on implementing zeovit for restarted Nano ?

[Jorda320]

Hello. I have a terrible green hair algae issue in my 40 gallon tank. This tank is just over one year old and I have tried many different nutrient reduction methods including gfo, 50% weekly water changes, spacing out my feelings and smaller doses throughout the day, as well as using things like hydrogen peroxide and a toothbrush to try to manually remove as much as I can. I have a lawnmower blenny and about a dozen trochus snails as well as maybe 20 cerith snails and the algae continues to be out of control. My water tests to be somewhat normal, nitrate is in the low double-digits and phosphates usually around 1, and all other parameters are within a normal range for a LPS and softie tank. My only thought is that the algae is up taking everything it needs before the gfo can pull it out. At this point I am going to pull the rocks out, the movie algae manually, and basically restart the tank.

To get to my question, I've learned a lot over the past year and realized I made a ton of mistakes when I first started this tank. I would like to try zeovit as a prevention measure however I don't have room for an actual zeovit reactor. I know that this can be used in a filter bag however I do have the Nano BRS reactor which I use for the carbon and gfo. Can I use that for the zeovit? Would it be better to implement a different system? I do have a CPR aquafuge hanging on the back of this and would like to keep any equipment including my skimmer and any reactors inside there as I will have less chords in the main tank. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[bubbaque]

I would not restart the tank. I’d cut or pull the algae short and get a half dozen large turbo snails and your tank will look much better in a couple weeks.

 

[bluprntguy]

Hello. I have a terrible green hair algae issue in my 40 gallon tank. This tank is just over one year old and I have tried many different nutrient reduction methods including gfo, 50% weekly water changes, spacing out my feelings and smaller doses throughout the day, as well as using things like hydrogen peroxide and a toothbrush to try to manually remove as much as I can. I have a lawnmower blenny and about a dozen trochus snails as well as maybe 20 cerith snails and the algae continues to be out of control. My water tests to be somewhat normal, nitrate is in the low double-digits and phosphates usually around 1, and all other parameters are within a normal range for a LPS and softie tank. My only thought is that the algae is up taking everything it needs before the gfo can pull it out. At this point I am going to pull the rocks out, the movie algae manually, and basically restart the tank.

To get to my question, I've learned a lot over the past year and realized I made a ton of mistakes when I first started this tank. I would like to try zeovit as a prevention measure however I don't have room for an actual zeovit reactor. I know that this can be used in a filter bag however I do have the Nano BRS reactor which I use for the carbon and gfo. Can I use that for the zeovit? Would it be better to implement a different system? I do have a CPR aquafuge hanging on the back of this and would like to keep any equipment including my skimmer and any reactors inside there as I will have less chords in the main tank. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I’ve run zeovit in nanos (currently in the one on my thread build). You don’t need a reactor. The zeolites remove ammonia from the water before it can turn into nitrates. The reactor helps to improve the efficiency of the zeolites. In a small system, I’d just keep them in a high flow area and change them out a little more frequently. You can run the zeolites in a media bag and shake the bag to clean the zeolites and remove the mulm.

IMO, the backbone of the zeovit system is really the carbon dosing. There may be situations where you may not want to run the zeolites or run less. If you have high phosphates, for example, the zeolites could reduce nitrates too much making it harder for the carbon dosing to reduce the phosphates. Removing ammonia does help to reduce algae as they readily use that for growth.

I’m not sure a complete restart is required. It would be relatively easy in that size system to remove all the water and replace with 100% new.

It might help if we knew your current water parameters.

 

[Mykawl]

Are you using ro/di water

 

[chris k.]

If you havent figured out the cause of your high nutrients, you will probably have the same problem again. I had bad gha, my phosphate canister on my rodi ran out and i was putting too much phosphates in my tank. Took almost a year of scrubbing and water changes to get rid of it.