question : for those zeovit tank , how do u know the tank is matured for SPS ?

[chercm]

any idea of how to tell the tank is matured for SPS ?

[smalltime]

I just finished the 14 day cycle and transfered all my livestock from my old tank.
From what I read it's more about keeping levels at natural sea water. Keep your levels stable and your good.

[3.99AfterTaxes]

Try a small frag of something cheap. If that lives, you're good to go. I would suggest a Rainbow Monti since they're good indicators of water quality (they get dull really easily), cheap and something you'd probably invariably leave in the tank after all is said and done.

[JSeymour]

I'm not a zeovit person but thought I'd chime in. A couple days after I setup a new tank, whether for me or a customer, I do a water change if needed and add the beginnings to a clean up crew. At this point I start feeding small amounts, kalk dripping, and carbon dosing(vodka/vinegar mix). Usually, a week later or so, things are stable enough for a test frag. I usually use a piece of a birdsnest or red planet acro, as they grow like weeds in my other tanks. If they are happy one week later, fill it up. :) I've found the most important parameter to determine if a tank is coral ready, is your alkalinity. If you can keep it from swinging too much between day and night, you should be fine. JME

[r-balljunkie]

i always preach one year from setup is a good litmus test, not taking into consideration a tank transfer. im not practicing what im preaching currently, but special circumstances in my case.

[JSeymour]

So your saying that you recommend, but don't practice, that people don't put sps in aquariums under a year old?

[chercm]

is there any signs in the tank that it is a stable tank before i add sps ?

[dzhuo]

I normally advice newer hobbyists (not calling you such) the followings as signs of tank maturity:

1. You have a cycle or 2 of pod explosion. I call an explosion as pods everywhere (literally) and then they went away in a week or 2. Your pod population stabilized (you should still see a lot of them especially at night).
2. If you have macro algae such as chaeto. Grow should have slowed down after a few initial spurs. I consider a grow spur to be one that the algae grows faster than you can trim. In other word, you have to trim the algae frequently every week without it "overflow".
3. You are starting to see coralline algae growing both on the rock, glass and various other places such as powerhead. Having coralline is not a guarantee that the SPS will do well but the lack of is normally a sign of problem.

#1 and #2 are signs of nutrient level and #3 is a sign that your alk / cal / mag are stable enough for calcification. It normally happens around the ~6 months mark but lots of people are way ahead of this schedule so there are lots of variations. I don't normally like to rush things as I consider a SPS tank to be a 3 years project (1 year for maturity, 1 year for grow and last year for appreciation) so it's not hard for me to wait and stock the tank slowly.

[ryanrid]

simple test your n and p and when results are correct put them in. one zeo tank i ran took 6 months to do this other one only took 2 days as LR was precured etc.

[chercm]

I normally advice newer hobbyists (not calling you such) the followings as signs of tank maturity:

1. You have a cycle or 2 of pod explosion. I call an explosion as pods everywhere (literally) and then they went away in a week or 2. Your pod population stabilized (you should still see a lot of them especially at night).
2. If you have macro algae such as chaeto. Grow should have slowed down after a few initial spurs. I consider a grow spur to be one that the algae grows faster than you can trim. In other word, you have to trim the algae frequently every week without it "overflow".
3. You are starting to see coralline algae growing both on the rock, glass and various other places such as powerhead. Having coralline is not a guarantee that the SPS will do well but the lack of is normally a sign of problem.

#1 and #2 are signs of nutrient level and #3 is a sign that your alk / cal / mag are stable enough for calcification. It normally happens around the ~6 months mark but lots of people are way ahead of this schedule so there are lots of variations. I don't normally like to rush things as I consider a SPS tank to be a 3 years project (1 year for maturity, 1 year for grow and last year for appreciation) so it's not hard for me to wait and stock the tank slowly.

i am running zeovit tank and it is expect not to have so much coraline algae but does not mean that when i have a lot of pod that it is a sign of nutrients ?

[dzhuo]

Yes I consider excess amount of pods a sign of too much nutrient but it's hard to quantify. To give you an example, when I cycle my tank with pod explosion, the power cords of my Tunze were covered in pods; it was quiet scary to see. Eventually after the cycle continue and nutrient went back down, the population level out. Any mature tank would have a lot of pods but you will see and notice the difference when there are just excess amount. It was unmistaken.

I didn't know Zeovit tanks aren't suppose to have much coralline algae.

[cpllongjk]

With zeovit you're advised to keep dkh at or around 6-7. If you get much higher than 7 than people have found that their tips on sps start to burn. I have never had an isue with my dkh but some people use salts with 12 dkh out of the box. Ive been lucky and my dkh out of the box is only 8, which easily gets sucked up my the corals and is easily replaced with 2 part.

I think the reason that most people say zeovit doesnt have a lot of coralline is because the alkalinity is a lot lower than people's tanks with non-zeovit. In the past, people have raised their alk in order to make their sps grow at faster rates, this also makes coralline grow faster as well.

In any case, stability is key. Once your tank becomes stable, just keep it up and youll love the results. I will say this, and some people will shoot me for saying it. But, I have gone literally months without doing a water change to my tank. Everything was looking pretty, no algae, corals colored up, etc. When I finally did a water change, everything got shocked, and dulled out. I dont know what exactly happened and do not advise not doing water changes but as I said before and many say, routine is very important. If you're going to do weekly water changes or monthly or whatever, stick to your schedule if possible. Doing like I did, with a water change here and there, I have found, has negative effects.

Also, I am planning on switching to biopellets from zeovit. Only due to space requirement in sump and cost. Zeovit sure does cost a lot more than pellets.