Who would has thought?

[nhlives]

Six years ago I had to take down the 120 tank below for a move to Florida.



Lots of rock as was the vogue back then. I ran a good skimmer and cheato in the fuge. I never had a problem with No3 but it was never zero.

My new (last November) 60 has a fraction of the rock but uses NOPOX and a 4x8 block of MarinePure. No cheato. Zero No3 using Red Sea and zero PO4 using the Hanna Ultralow.

And I can't get a zoa to grow. They all die off. Monti's are doing well though. In one post someone with a similar problem it was suggested the zoa were staving due to ultralow nutrients.

So I'm trying to raise nutrients a bit. So far I have cut back the flow to the GFO to a trickle, increased feeding a bit (I have two Neptune feeders so things are pretty constant as to amount) and cut the NOPOX back to 50% of the recommended amount. Here may the be controversial bit as I also dose a drop of Dr Tim's Ammonium Chloride Solution each day.

After two weeks what's left of my Zoa frags is showing some nice improvement. At least it appears to be slowing recovering

NO3 is still undetectable but PO3 is up a bit to 0.03 ppm.

Any thoughts?

 

[CodyRVA]

Mine seem to do just fine in ULN; but each system is different. Can you confirm nothing is picking on them? I'm curious as to what the point is in dosing the Ammonium every day? With that being said, if you do drastically drive your nutrients down, softies will have a difficult time getting going.

 

[nhlives]

Ammonia begets NO3 without the need to double down on nutrients. Anecdotal so far but the zoa frag is looking better everyday. A drop or two maybe increasing some of the transient NO3 before it gets skimmed away or consumed. At least that is my working assumption. So far I'm not showing any on a test.

Pretty sure nothing is messing with the frag. I have some hermit crabs that hang around them occasionally but no fish that would nip at them.

 

[nhlives]

After a couple weeks of dosing ammonia, NO3 is at 1 PPM. By slowing down the GFO reactor, PO4 is .06 PPM which is up from the zero using the Hanna Ultralow. The Dragon's Eye zoa is looking good and the Bob Marley zoa which was nothing more than a gray smug is now showing signs of life. I was ready to throw it out.

The trick now is figuring out the correct procedures for maintaining these levels of NO3 and PO4. I don't want them to go any higher.

 

[A Toadstool Leather]

After a couple weeks of dosing ammonia, NO3 is at 1 PPM. By slowing down the GFO reactor, PO4 is .06 PPM which is up from the zero using the Hanna Ultralow. The Dragon's Eye zoa is looking good and the Bob Marley zoa which was nothing more than a gray smug is now showing signs of life. I was ready to throw it out.

The trick now is figuring out the correct procedures for maintaining these levels of NO3 and PO4. I don't want them to go any higher.

Perhaps you finally achieved the correct po4 nitrate balance. They need to be in balance with eachother