Bacteria driven systems and zoas!

Sir Patrick · 11-13-2010, 10:39 PM

Anyone doing it? Anyone have success/issues, good or bad? Experiances?

Leaving this one open ended....hehehe....see where it goes!

Manoj's Reef · 11-13-2010, 11:31 PM

Chris, I was doing the vodka dosing and my acans and zoas were not happy. And the ones that were okay had started loosing color so I decided against it.

Sir Patrick · 11-13-2010, 11:55 PM

^ were ya just carbon dosing, or were you suplimenting bacteria too?

Manoj's Reef · 11-14-2010, 07:31 AM

I was carbon dosing and supplementing bacteria as well.

ReeferRob · 11-14-2010, 08:47 AM

For the year that my current display has been up I've been bac driven for at least 9 months of it. I started with the Prodibio "diet", thinking I wasn't seeing good results I stopped and moved on to MB7 and Vodka.
At this time I noticed a significant shift in the tanks health. I experience a temporary algae explosion, which helped me realize how well the Prodibio was working and how much more I preferred dosing one vial once every other week over multiple doses daily.
Shortly after starting the MB7 and Vodka I started running some Warner Marine BioPellets in a TLF150 reactor. I still on occasion, typically once a week, will add a few drops of MB7. Not sure if its beneficial or not but at this time that is how Im caring on.

To cut to the chase I've been success full keeping SPS (until I went of prodibio, too many changes at once I think?)and LPS, with very healthy vibrant acans, micros, wellsos, blastos, dendros basically everything.
But the one thing for the life of me I could not grow what so ever was zoa's and paly's. Doesn't matter the morph attempted, the size of the colony vs. frag, placement high or low, spot feeding etc. I even took a frag of the "Ultra Weed" also known as Mohawks and attempted them in multiple locations only to see them loose color and whither away and die.

So no, from my personal experiences it is not possible to grow these guys in a bac driven system. Some can and some do, maybe one day I'll learn their secrets.

rmalone · 09:20 AM

My 180g has been probiotic since day 1 about 14mo. I mostly have sps with a few lps and a very few zoas and a couple of rics. Oh yeah and a couple "big 'ol" rbtas. The only thing that wont do anything for me is acans, but I couldn't grow them in my small non-probiotic tanks either.

I will say that I use vodka/vinigar with mb7 (1x per week) and probibio (1x per 3wks) vodka mix is at 3ml per day. I still run gfo and don't try to take the tank all the way to ulns (I think this the point where pro-biotics gets tricky). Normally I see nitrates at about .2ppm and I have never seen nitrates over 2ppm. I don't trust phosphate kits and don't have meter so I don't bother to test.

I don't think I would even bother with sps if I couldn't use probiotics, it's just sooo easy!! In 14mo I have never cleaned my sump or overflow and thats because there is just nothing to clean. My sump is unlit and spotless and I do not shut off the return when I feed. I have tons of pods and about 18 fish, four of them tangs so you know I am feeding quite a bit.

WARNING, probiotics is not the system for guys who think "more is better". And you must have a very effective skimmer. And like everything else in this money pit hobby take it slow, and learn what you can first.

jolson10450 · 11-14-2010, 09:16 AM

i vodka/mb7 and i have great growth in zoas, they actually grow a lot better than my sps right now but that could be due to a calcium issue i am working on.

Sir Patrick · 11-14-2010, 11:34 AM

I too have been having issues with zoas. They do not grow well at all.

The palys on the other hand are exploding!!! I feed very heavily- they are well fed. I think my skimmer is pulling the smaller particals of food that the zoas use to sustaine themselved, before they get a chance to utilize it.

One think I have noticed- the colors! They look sooo much better than they ever have for me in the past. I dont typically run my system ULNS, but at times I get pretty close. My polyps really lighten up!

Anyone else ever see this?

MizTanks · 11-14-2010, 12:01 PM

Hmmm this makes me wonder if my zoas are lacking nutrients due to me depending so much on just my salt mix for it. Also am I keeping my tank TO clean? Should I be dosing anything? I have a variety of corals.
I'm learning that different corals have different needs, ahdah! Apparently just the salt method has been enough for my lps, so far my lil sps and maybe not for zoas. All other softies are doing great.