zeolite in my filters

[Dave 54]

Thanks Dave, but that doesn't answer any of the questions I asked.
Years ago I had a highly stocked 100 gal aquarium and used zeolite in the external filter. What I didn't like about it was that the zeolite had to be serviced (recharged) regularly (monthly if I remember correctly) or I would get spiking ammonia levels if I ignored it too long. I changed the filter over to a straight biological filter (a rather large one) and my ammonia levels stopped spiking and the biological filter rarely had to be maintained, in fact I don't believe I ever had to do anything with it once it was set up.
I can see using zeolite if you suddenly have a large increase in ammonia levels for some reason (dead fish, sudden large increase in fish load, etc...), but it doesn't make sense to rely on it on an ongoing basis when there is a better way. It's like the difference between powering some important electronic equipment with solar cells or rechargeable batteries, one takes care of itself, the other you have to take care of. Except that in the case of using zeolite the rechargeable batteries could actually reduce the efficiency of the back up solar cells. (eg; starving the bacteria colony of their full potential growth)

Are you saying that over time zelolite acctually reduces in efficiancy whe it comes to storing ammonia Randy ?
Thats something weve never looked into before now and so will have to ask questions about it , nver used it before we ent into the pond from indoors but I've seen no such reduction in its ability to remove ammonia from the water, plus have had no problems with my other readings since weve been using it .
We use a 5kg bag as shown in this :-

http://www.absolute-koi.com/subcat333.html

Basically they dont say anything about watching out for any specific problems caused by the use of zeolite in the pond .

Dave

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Are you saying that over time zelolite acctually reduces in efficiancy whe it comes to storing ammonia Randy ?
Thats something weve never looked into before now and so will have to ask questions about it , nver used it before we ent into the pond from indoors but I've seen no such reduction in its ability to remove ammonia from the water, plus have had no problems with my other readings since weve been using it .

Dave

Actually no, that's not what I'm say Dave, although I imagine that is possible.
What I'm saying, (and I brought this out in my first post in this thread), is that putting zeolite in your pond will consume (absorb) ammonia, which is obviously good for your fish because the ammonia is poison to them, but it is bad for any biological filter you may have connected to this pond because the active bacteria need and depend on that ammonia for food to grow and flourish. Withhold that food and you will logically reduce the size and vitality of your colony, and with a reduced bacteria colony, your biological filter will have a corresponding reduced capacity to handle ammonia, which will make you more dependent of the zeolite to handle the ammonia. It's a catch 22 situation.
As I said, there may be circumstances where having a quick ammonia fixing product like zeolite might come in handy, but if your fish loads and ammonia levels are relatively constant, an adequately sized biological filter seems like a more logical, and safer, solution simply from a maintenance point of view.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Actually no, that's not what I'm say Dave, although I imagine that is possible.
What I'm saying, (and I brought this out in my first post in this thread), is that putting zeolite in your pond will consume (absorb) ammonia, which is obviously good for your fish because the ammonia is poison to them, but it is bad for any biological filter you may have connected to this pond because the active bacteria need and depend on that ammonia for food to grow and flourish. Withhold that food and you will logically reduce the size and vitality of your colony, and with a reduced bacteria colony, your biological filter will have a corresponding reduced capacity to handle ammonia, which will make you more dependent of the zeolite to handle the ammonia. It's a catch 22 situation.
As I said, there may be circumstances where have a quick ammonia fixing product like zeolite might come in handy, but if your fish loads and ammonia levels are relatively constant, an adequately sized biological filter seems like a more logical, and safer, solution simply from a maintenance point of view.

Very well put, Mucky Waters. I would just like to add that by inhibiting colony growth of the Autotrophic (nitrifying) bacteria, no restraint is placed on the growth of Hetertrophic bacteria which would quickly crowd the remaining Nitrifiers. Recovery to viable colony size would be extremely slow because of space limitations. Zeolite as a means of reducing an Ammonia spike is most effective, but continuous use would only impair the Nitrogen oxidation cycle.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Basically they dont say anything about watching out for any specific problems caused by the use of zeolite in the pond .

Dave

Of course they don't. They are attempting to sell a product.

 

[Dave 54]

Very well put, Mucky Waters. I would just like to add that by inhibiting colony growth of the Autotrophic (nitrifying) bacteria, no restraint is placed on the growth of Hetertrophic bacteria which would quickly crowd the remaining Nitrifiers. Recovery to viable colony size would be extremely slow because of space limitations. Zeolite as a means of reducing an Ammonia spike is most effective, but continuous use would only impair the Nitrogen oxidation cycle.

Well you live and learn, I've always had zeolite from virtually the start of keeping koi outdoors , strangely unlike Mucky I never used it indoors in all of 22 year .I believe its tme for me to undertake an experiment by totally removing the zeolite from the sytemwhich had always been in there and from now on I will keep a bag on standby for just in case and see how things go.


Dave

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Well you live and learn, I've always had zeolite from virtually the start of keeping koi outdoors , strangely unlike Mucky I never used it indoors in all of 22 year .I believe its tme for me to undertake an experiment by totally removing the zeolite from the sytemwhich had always been in there and from now on I will keep a bag on standby for just in case and see how things go.


Dave

I would recommend NOT removing all of the zeolite at one time. It may trigger an Ammonia spike because of the low level of Nitrifying bacteria that are present. In other words, if you remove all of the zeolite at one time, you will likely experience 'New Pond Syndrome' because of the low numbers of oxidizers.

 

[Dave 54]

I would recommend NOT removing all of the zeolite at one time. It may trigger an Ammonia spike because of the low level of Nitrifying bacteria that are present. In other words, if you remove all of the zeolite at one time, you will likely experience 'New Pond Syndrome' because of the low numbers of oxidizers.

Oh dont worry non Meyer I wasnt planning to do it right off the bat like that , I'll reduce the amount of zeolite present by a quater then by half and so on but those two sacks will reain in reserve for any future ammonia problems I may have .

Dave

 

[Willo]

Here is a link into the company we buy ours from Willo , it last about two years or so depenndant on how much you use in your filters .

http://kusuri.co.uk/kusuri-products/kusuri-lithaqua/


Could you post a photo of your zeolite containers, so I can get an idea as to the size of them please Willo

Dave,

Pics of my zeolite containers, they are 200mm X 75mm diameter, according to the info booklet theres 3kgs of zeolite in 4 containers.