Brandon's 180 Starphire ZEOvit Build

C

camaroracer214

My tank has been up and running since early August. It is a 180 gallon 3-sided Starphire, Eurobraced tank with 5/8" glass and an external overflow box.

For equipment I have:
-70 gallon sump (only 50 gallons functional)
-Mag 9.5 return pump
-EuroReef RS250 protein skimmer
-Vertex 3L ZEOvit reactor
-Precision Marine RFCa4 Calcium reactor
-Pinpoint pH Controller
-Two Little Fishies Phosban reactor filled with carbon
-Two Vortech MP40w's
-One Tunze 6105 (hoping to add another soon)
-Six 80w T5HO light bulbs, on individual reflectors, and powered by two IceCap 660's
-AquaFX Mako 100 GPD 6-stage RODI unit with Chloramine blasters upgrade

Here's some teaser pics:

Tank presetup:

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Color of the stand

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Tank being set up:

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Light Rack
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More equipment
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Looks great if you are running zeovit with zeorocks you do not need macro algae.

You going to run sps or mixed reef
 
@kuyatwo wrote:
Looks great if you are running zeovit with zeorocks you do not need macro algae. You going to run sps or mixed reef said:
The tank has been up and running since august of this last year. I had a 90 gallon tank setup with a majority of SPS. I was living in Galveston going to school, graduated in May '08, moved to Baytown just before Hurricane Ike, and upgraded the tank to the 180.

The 180 is predominantly SPS, with some LPS and zoas/palys. I'm not at all into softies. I don't mind them, and some can be pretty, but I'm an SPS guy.

I've been very successful with the ZEOvit method for only running it about 3 months. The chaeto in the sump did stop growing (or is now growing so slow that I can't recognize that it is growing), but it never died out despite my phosphates being at 0.02 mg/L (according to my Hanna Instruments Low Range Phosphate meter).

Here were my two tanks that I had while in Galveston:

90 gallon
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24 gallon Nano-cube
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Most of the items in those two tanks went into the 180. Unfortunately though, I had a few losses during the transfer. I lost one of the Picasso clowns, the Helfrichi firefish, a Tridacna crocea clam, and a few loose zoa frags.
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I noticed that I forgot to mention something...

those first four pictures are not mine. They were taken by the original owner of the setup. He had a lot of things go wrong with this setup and pretty much gave up reef keeping altogether. Short story:

He purchased the tank and had it set up in Louisiana where he lived. It was SPS dominate, bare bottom, and was full of high end corals. He had 4 Tunze 6200 I think and was running three 400 watt metal halides with 20K radiums. Anyways, he moved to the Houston area because of his job or something and here's where it began to fall apart. He originally was going to break down his tank, move the livestock over in a Rubbermaid 150 gallon trough style tub, and go back to Louisiana the following week to get the tank. Well, he wasn't able to get back to Louisiana as quickly as he wanted. A week turned into several and the livestock that he brought with him slowly began to die. He watched everything begin to RTN/STN and asked people on our local forum to help him house some corals. This is how I met him. I answered his cries for help and took a handful of corals. A few other people came to help him as well. But, none of us could keep anything from dying off. They were far too stressed to save.

Then finally he was able to go get his tank. He got it all the way back to Houston, and as he was walking it into his house, only a few feet away from it's final resting spot, he bumped the door frame and chipped the back left hand corner of the tank. It wasn't a huge deal, but it did hurt him to see it. The chip is on an outside corner, and being the glass is 5/8' thick, it doesn't affect it in any way other than visual (but again, this is on the back, bottom corner of the tank). He was saddened, but pressed on. He wanted to go with sand this time around and got everything the way he wanted. After several weeks and letting some bacteria build up in the sand, he put his livestock in. Slowly things began to die again. On top of things dying, he hated the sand. So, he began to remove it.

At this point, he was officially done with SPS. He then ventured into the high dollar LPS...acans, chalices, blastos, etc. His tank had become stable again and he started putting the LPS in. He had a nice collection going...then disaster struck again. He got an acan colony from a LFS and it developed a brown mucus (basically the plague for LPS). It quickly wiped out that colony. And due to the flow, it quickly spread to neighboring colonies. After all was said and done, he had lost a handful of acan colonies (all $200+ each) and a massive duncan colony. With this last blow, he was done. He sold off all of his corals and broke down the tank for good.

Then he sold me the setup at a great price.
 
Nice looking stuff. :)

I tried to look up the "ZEOvit" system and found where to buy it but not a lot of info on what it does? What's the scoop on it?
 
@Pneumatic wrote:
Nice looking stuff. :) I tried to look up the "ZEOvit" system and found where to buy it but not a lot of info on what it does? What's the scoop on it? said:
in a nutshell, it's a way to probiotically reduce nutrients to near nsw levels and adding various additives to bring out natural coral colors.

the zeovit stones absorb ammonia which prevents nitrates from really ever developing in the tank. they also remove phosphates. so, you get great color and great growth from your sps.

here's a link to the zeovit user's guide:
http://www.korallen-zucht.de/files/zeoguide_english_1_03.pdf

i've also attached a good article about what zeovit does and some research behind it. if you want some good info, go to www.korallen-zucht.de or www.zeovit.com (forum website). lots of good info there.
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alright, i'll stop teasing you guys with old pics. here are some updated shots of the 180...

this set was taken right after the water cleared up when i moved everything over from the 90 (all pre-zeovit)

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i'll post a few more later
 
as promised...the recent shots.

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New pics look pretty typical of a zeo tank, especially the red digi. What are you currently dosing for zeo? Might want to try and bump up your PO4 a touch. The rest of the corals look great though, especially that light blue tipped acro. I love the RBTA as well.
 
When I originallly read the thread title I was under the impression that zeovit was a type of fishtank. But after reading the thread I see its the additives used in starting the tank. By the way it looks pretty nice. Is the zeo stuff expensive?
 
@DaveG99 wrote:
When I originallly read the thread title I was under the impression that zeovit was a type of fishtank. But after reading the thread I see its the additives used in starting the tank. By the way it looks pretty nice. Is the zeo stuff expensive? said:
yes, it can be expensive. most of the additives i have are in the $50 range.

as for what zeovit is...well, it can be used to start a tank, but really it is used to maintain the tank long term. i dose a handful of the additives daily.

here's my dosing schedule:

Daily:
• Add 0.5 ml ZEOstart2 twice daily
• Add 4 mls Pohl’s Extra daily
• Add 8 drops of Amino Acid High Concentrate daily
• Add 8 drops of Sponge Power daily
• Add 4 drops of Pohl's Coral Vitalizer daily

Twice Weekly:
• Add 4 mls of LPS Amino Acid Concentrate twice weekly
• Add 4 mls of B-Balance twice weekly
• Add 8 mls of Coral Snow mixed with ½ teaspoon ZEOzym twice weekly
• Add 4 drops of Iron Concentrate twice weekly
• Add 8 drops of Potassium Iodide Flouride twice weekly
• Add 8 drops of ZEObak twice weekly
• Add 4 drops of ZEOfood7 twice weekly

Stop Dosing (temporarily):
• ZEOlife
• ZEOspur2

Monday and Friday:
• Add 0.5 mls ZEOstart2 x2
• Add 4 mls Pohl’s Extra
• Add 4 mls of LPS Amino Acid Concentrate
• Add 4 mls of B-Balance
• Add 6 mls of Coral Snow mixed with ½ teaspoon ZEOzym
• Add 4 drops of ZEOfood7
• Add 4 drops of Pohl's Coral Vitalizer
• Add 4 drops of Iron Concentrate
• Add 8 drops of Potassium Iodide Flouride
• Add 8 drops of Amino Acid High Concentrate
• Add 8 drops of Sponge Power
• Add 8 drops of ZEObak

Tuesday – Thursday:
• Add 0.5 ml ZEOstart2 x2
• Add 4 mls Pohl’s Extra
• Add 4 drops of Pohl's Coral Vitalizer
• Add 8 drops of Amino Acid High Concentrate
• Add 8 drops of Sponge Power
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