Zeovit, biopellet, or nothing

[Afoer499]

Current tank setup is a 40 gallon aio with carbon reactor, tunze algae reactor, hob protein skimmer for filtration. I want to take my algae reactor out of the system cause it is such a pain to clean out since I don't have it setup with a sump and it makes a mess everything, plus it never wants to prime the pump correctly. I have never had water quality issues although I recently lost a large amount of corals due to not realizing my rodi filters were shot. That will be solved today, lots of headaches trying to figure out the issue to finally think of rodi. My question is, I like a low maintenance tank as I don't have a ton of time to work on it but if I remove the algae reactor will I have a huge jump in nitrates? Thinking of installing a zeovit system but worried about the time involved with dosing everyday? Think I can get by without nitrate reduction? Should I install biopellet reactor to help? Somewhat new to reefing but have had this tank setup for a year. Want to keep mostly LPS but add some sps as I figure out issues. Have a zoa colony and a couple other small corals that survived the rodi issues. Fish in the tank are a few clowns, a royal gramma, and a red dragonet. Any input on this is much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Spare time]

You could try carbon dosing (tropic marin line up looks good, and they have a few ones for different levels at which your phosphates currently are. However, carbon dosing means you really should have strong skimming performance so make sure you can do that.

You could also try dosing waste away (or the non dosed waste away gel), vibrant, etc, to act as a nitrate and phosphate remover.

Both those work, but you just need to make sure not to over do it.

You could also try a hang on back refugium from fijicube or cpr aquatics as they would be easier to clean than an algae reactor.

 

[PeterC99]

IME there are pluses and minuses to each setup. Tired the zeovit but went back to the the Tunze MAR with chaeto after nitrates shot up. Agree with the cleaning/maintenance issue with the algae reactor but my tank is happiest with the chaeto and kept nitrates low.

 

[Afoer499]

Thanks for the responses. I will look more into carbon dosing. Never tried that method. I had a hob refugium on an old tank and didn't like it. I really want to start a new build with a way oversized sump and run the triton method but can't justify that build right now. I have never had nitrates spike or phosphates get out of hand with my current setup, even while cycling. Everything has been extremely balanced since day one, I just don't like cleaning the algae reactor.