Opinions on Zeovit

[alazo1]

"people who run Zeo are not very vocial because of attacks by people here on RC there was some bad stuff that went down a few years ago on both sides"

I've read some of those arguments as we all probably have. For me I want to learn everything I could about our awesome hobby. They lead to further advancement. I'd bet their are companies and individuals out there now trying to simplify these newer methods.

Albert

[raulalonso]

I guess the debate is lost in who is right and who is wrong, there is no balck and white in this hobby, if Zeo or any other system is working fine for me it does not necessary that will fit the needs of somebody else (like investing time in adding the doses, check parameters frequently, weekly water changes, etc).

So, Does Zeo work? YES it works because my system is running on zeo and I am pleased with the outcome.
Does any other method work? YES, I am sure, as I have witness here in RC some awsome tanks using other than zeo.

The point is read, learn either by you trying, or by somebody else who has tried a particular method, from there you can make the choice.

[Johnsteph10]

My problem is and always has been with these new "systems" is that you cannot isolate results.

They require large frequent water changes, lots of light, and lots of flow.

Those are 3 things that beautiful non-system tanks depend on for great results in the first place.

[Canarygirl]

Zeovit doesn't require large frequent water changes....5% weekly is recommended.

[Zedar]

I dont use Zeo, or any of the other products.

For a carbon source, I use a blend of sugar/vinegar/vodka.

For bacteria I use a Seachem product called stability.

The bottle states: Stability contains a synergistic blend of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative bacteria which facilitate the breakdown of waste organics, ammonia, and nitrate.

Think of it like this. A balanced system such as a natural reef contains very little carbon, nitrate, phosphate.

Ahh but it contains these three elements in a balanced ratio. The redfield ratio 10616:1

Bacteria have used these atoms in this ratio for millennium.

What happens in our closed systems is we get out of balance. We add phosphates and nitrates daily to our tanks in the form of food.

Where is the carbon source?

We don't add any!!!!

The bacteria that naturally break down and consume phosphates and nitrates, quickly use up the available carbon ,and once its gone all thats left is the phosphate and nitrate.

We now have a tank that is carbon limited. And loaded with Algae !!

So how do we rectify this?

In the past we looked to lower the phosphate and nitrate, with water changes and GFO. Hence we tried to dilute it.

Instead what Zeo, prodibio, etc does is look to balance the tanks water back to its natural state. the redfield ratio. 106:16:1

So we need to add carbon. And it has to be enough to satisfy the redfield ratio. That number cant be determined as a fixed number good for all tanks. The quantity to dose, depends on the levels of phosphate and nitrate in the water of each particular tank. So its a guessing game at this point in time.

I use sugar,vinegar, vodka because it supplies more then one type of carbon so many types of bacteria will consume it.

You don't want to create a mono culture in the tank.

Thats the reason for adding a product like stability. It replenishes the GOOD bacteria.

Anyone that claims this is not a natural way of keeping a reef needs to read up on the redfield ratio.

[Canarygirl]

I like the simple and understandable way that you explained this complex concept.

[Horace]

Originally posted by Zedar
I dont use Zeo, or any of the other products.

For a carbon source, I use a blend of sugar/vinegar/vodka.

For bacteria I use a Seachem product called stability.

The bottle states: Stability contains a synergistic blend of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative bacteria which facilitate the breakdown of waste organics, ammonia, and nitrate.

Think of it like this. A balanced system such as a natural reef contains very little carbon, nitrate, phosphate.

Ahh but it contains these three elements in a balanced ratio. The redfield ratio 10616:1

Bacteria have used these atoms in this ratio for millennium.

What happens in our closed systems is we get out of balance. We add phosphates and nitrates daily to our tanks in the form of food.

Where is the carbon source?

We don't add any!!!!

The bacteria that naturally break down and consume phosphates and nitrates, quickly use up the available carbon ,and once its gone all thats left is the phosphate and nitrate.

We now have a tank that is carbon limited. And loaded with Algae !!

So how do we rectify this?

In the past we looked to lower the phosphate and nitrate, with water changes and GFO. Hence we tried to dilute it.

Instead what Zeo, prodibio, etc does is look to balance the tanks water back to its natural state. the redfield ratio. 106:16:1

So we need to add carbon. And it has to be enough to satisfy the redfield ratio. That number cant be determined as a fixed number good for all tanks. The quantity to dose, depends on the levels of phosphate and nitrate in the water of each particular tank. So its a guessing game at this point in time.

I use sugar,vinegar, vodka because it supplies more then one type of carbon so many types of bacteria will consume it.

You don't want to create a mono culture in the tank.

Thats the reason for adding a product like stability. It replenishes the GOOD bacteria.

Anyone that claims this is not a natural way of keeping a reef needs to read up on the redfield ratio.

While I dont disagree with any of this, I will say that for the average reefer, trying to determine the amount of carbon that is needed is not an easy task. Unless you have a hanna and can accurately determine your nutrient levels, and are able to track them over time, figuring out the sweet spot is quite difficult. So even though it works, and does work well, it is a HELL of a lot harder to do than to use GFO. It also requires alot of maintenance to keep stable. So the moral of the story is yes, it works, but IMO I never saw any visible benefit, even when I did hit the "sweet spot", over what is achievable with standard GFO Po4 removal. So until there is an EASY way to accurately determine proper dosing, I think many people doing carbon dosing may actually be doing more harm than good.... Just MHO

[MCsaxmaster]

Think of it like this. A balanced system such as a natural reef contains very little carbon, nitrate, phosphate.

Ahh but it contains these three elements in a balanced ratio. The redfield ratio 10616:1

Actually, by and large, most natural waters aren't anywhere close to the entire C:N:P Redfield ratio, and most of them aren't even close to the N:P ratio. The Redfield ratio applies to nutrients in the deep ocean and the net phytoplankton over the entire photic zone over many generations worth of time. Natural waters do not provide the Redfield ratio because that is what is needed, rather phytoplankton create the Redfield ratio in deep water because they are the source of these nutrients to the deep ocean.


What happens in our closed systems is we get out of balance. We add phosphates and nitrates daily to our tanks in the form of food.

Where is the carbon source?

We don't add any!!!!

Is there no organic carbon in food? If not, then it's not food

The bacteria that naturally break down and consume phosphates and nitrates, quickly use up the available carbon ,and once its gone all thats left is the phosphate and nitrate.

We now have a tank that is carbon limited. And loaded with Algae !!

The growth of some heterotrophic bacteria is limited, but it is not correct to say that the "tank" is carbon limited. Besides, heterotrophic microbes are organic carbon limited anywhere in the ocean where this isn't a direct, large source of organic carbon (like decomposable detritus, or leaky corals or algae). Algae are the major consumers of inorganic N and P in nature, not heterotrophic bacteria.

In the past we looked to lower the phosphate and nitrate, with water changes and GFO. Hence we tried to dilute it.

Instead what Zeo, prodibio, etc does is look to balance the tanks water back to its natural state. the redfield ratio. 106:16:1

But not even nature achieves that ratio in the shallow ocean, and there's no reason to regard this as "balanced." Besides, then we are balancing organic carbon to inorganic nitrogen and inorganic phosphorus. This is not what nature does.

So we need to add carbon. And it has to be enough to satisfy the redfield ratio. That number cant be determined as a fixed number good for all tanks. The quantity to dose, depends on the levels of phosphate and nitrate in the water of each particular tank. So its a guessing game at this point in time.

I use sugar,vinegar, vodka because it supplies more then one type of carbon so many types of bacteria will consume it.

You don't want to create a mono culture in the tank.

Thats the reason for adding a product like stability. It replenishes the GOOD bacteria.

Anyone that claims this is not a natural way of keeping a reef needs to read up on the redfield ratio.

We CAN add organic carbon and induce heterotrophic bacteria to bloom and suck up inorganic N and P, but this is not how most nutrients are processed in nature. This is a bit like saying that a sewage treatment plant naturally purifies water just like a clean pond or river. No, no it really doesn't. Relying on biological processes does not imply that we are seeing something "natural"

Chris

[kkris]

Zedar,,
Thanks for the explanation. Do you have a starting point and basic ratio for your carbon brew that you can share?

[jmaneyapanda]

Our local reef club just had Dana Riddle speak, and he was astonishingly vocal in his attack of Zeo. Essentially, he said that Zeo tanks get colors by starving the corals.

Not necessarily my opinion, but interesting to hear from someone who is considered an expert.

[Canarygirl]

Our local reef club just had Dana Riddle speak, and he was astonishingly vocal in his attack of Zeo. Essentially, he said that Zeo tanks get colors by starving the corals.

It's fascinating in a sick kind of way how riled up people get about zeo and similar systems. If a tank had fantastic colors due to having a powerful skimmer, phosphate reactor, a big fuge, a sulfer denitri..whatever, would Dana Riddle get upset that the corals were being starved?? I tend to doubt it.

[MCsaxmaster]

Actually, I tend to think he would if only because I would Proof is in the pudding. If the method leads to underfed corals...or whatever other problem, then the method needs to be revamped.

cj

[Canarygirl]

So colorful corals mean they're underfed, and brown corals mean they're healthy???

[MCsaxmaster]

Ha, of course not! I don't know what Dana said, because I was not there. I've seen some tanks using zeovit where some of the corals were definitely somewhat bleached due to starvation. I've seen the same in tanks using certain other sorts of methodology. I don't think this is inherent to the methodology, but it certainly seems more common with some methods than others. Healthy corals typically show their colors as fairly deep, vibrant shades. Starved corals are usually very pastel-looking due to really messed up zoox. (= bleaching, starvation).

cj

[Canarygirl]

OH, okay...I'm glad we are defining our terms then here.

[stony_corals]

Zeo doesn't attempt to balance the water to the redfield ratio. It simply attempts to reduce the nutrient levels to NSW levels. When you get to that low level of nutrients, starvation is a ral possibility. I think a couple of years ago when Borneman spoke at our club meeting, he also came down hard on Zeo for starving the corals. But corals need N to grow... so feed the fist more, and you'll be feeding corals too.

Some corals don't respond as well to NSW nutrient levels. It seems that many of the captive grown, like ORA do not respond well these levels, A millepora, also just doesn't seem to like it and will be one of the first to become very pastel colored.... When this happens, I simply feed excessively, and reduce the carbon source.

Also just for clarification, the bacteria don't eat NO3 and PO4, they use the O and in NO3s case, the freed N bind with other N to become N2 which is liberated to the atmosphere. P probably combines with other organic molecules to become something else (correct me where I'm inaccurate Chris).

[stony_corals]

Like Kurt said, it's really challenging to understand how much carbon to dose (with any bacteria driven system). I think this has lead to many of the crashes people have had with vodka, they just don't know how much to dose, and usually overdose and get a nice bacteria bloom. What is further challenging is that you can take two systems of similar water volume, and require two different amount of carbon to be dosed....

I think in the original vodka thread Jorg posted some dosage schedule for vodka that was planning on being published, but it was never published. Zeo provides some guidelines, but they are just that...

Again, based upon experience with vodka and zeo... have a good skimmer. One should never try this with an inadequate skimmer, you want to 1) skim excess bacteria out of the system, and 2) provide good gas exchange as the bacteria may consume O, and respire CO2, depressing O2 levels and your pH.....

My .02cents....

[szeth13]

now ima come out and say i've never used zeo. but thats because its so expensive, and do you really know whats in those bottles? i dont like how non descriptive they are about the contents

[stony_corals]

Do you know what's in any bottle of product? What's in Seachem's buffers? The simple ones are kalk, and CaCl, most other additives, especially liquid, you do not know...

I'm comfortable with the results.... it's really not that expensive. With zeo, once you get into consistently low nutrient levels, your use of the basic four go down drastically. I believe that Alexander Girz said that is uses only a few drops of ZeoStart2( a source of carbon) daily. In a 250ml, that lasts a looooong time.

[szeth13]

all of the bottled products i use i can test for after i dose and i'll see the difference. let me rephrase that, its too expensive for me at this point(college starts in a lil and so do payments). best of luck to anyone who uses it

[slojmn]

Interesting to here Dana Riddle's opinions on the subject...So much furor over this product. Well, what works for me may not work for someone else and I am very open to different methodologies. I love to see all the beautiful reef tanks people have regardless of their methodology. On a side note, I think anyone that came to my house, and a number of RC folks have, and saw my sps corals would agree 100%...no starving corals, no pastel colors, no bleached out unhealthy corals at all. Quite the opposite, rich deep colors with great health . Thats good enough for me. I also have no problem algae in my sps tank, the reason I decided to try Zeovit in the first place. I know, I am repeating myself but I think it is important for the experts to know that many folks are using Zeovit very successfuly with very healthy, beautiful corals to show for it. It is not hard to do, it isn't time consuming for me. It is part of my daily routine and no more expensive than other methodologies for my size tank. This thread has been pretty nice to follow, healthy discussion and differing opinions .

[HBtank]

Originally posted by stony_corals
Zeo doesn't attempt to balance the water to the redfield ratio. It simply attempts to reduce the nutrient levels to NSW levels. When you get to that low level of nutrients, starvation is a ral possibility. I think a couple of years ago when Borneman spoke at our club meeting, he also came down hard on Zeo for starving the corals. But corals need N to grow... so feed the fist more, and you'll be feeding corals too.

Some corals don't respond as well to NSW nutrient levels. It seems that many of the captive grown, like ORA do not respond well these levels, A millepora, also just doesn't seem to like it and will be one of the first to become very pastel colored.... When this happens, I simply feed excessively, and reduce the carbon source.

Also just for clarification, the bacteria don't eat NO3 and PO4, they use the O and in NO3s case, the freed N bind with other N to become N2 which is liberated to the atmosphere. P probably combines with other organic molecules to become something else (correct me where I'm inaccurate Chris).

How do you feed excessively and reduce the carbon source at the same time?

[Zedar]

Originally posted by MCsaxmaster
Think of it like this. A balanced system such as a natural reef contains very little carbon, nitrate, phosphate.

Ahh but it contains these three elements in a balanced ratio. The redfield ratio 10616:1

Actually, by and large, most natural waters aren't anywhere close to the entire C:N:P Redfield ratio, and most of them aren't even close to the N:P ratio. The Redfield ratio applies to nutrients in the deep ocean and the net phytoplankton over the entire photic zone over many generations worth of time. Natural waters do not provide the Redfield ratio because that is what is needed, rather phytoplankton create the Redfield ratio in deep water because they are the source of these nutrients to the deep ocean.


What happens in our closed systems is we get out of balance. We add phosphates and nitrates daily to our tanks in the form of food.

Where is the carbon source?

We don't add any!!!!

Is there no organic carbon in food? If not, then it's not food

The bacteria that naturally break down and consume phosphates and nitrates, quickly use up the available carbon ,and once its gone all thats left is the phosphate and nitrate.

We now have a tank that is carbon limited. And loaded with Algae !!

The growth of some heterotrophic bacteria is limited, but it is not correct to say that the "tank" is carbon limited. Besides, heterotrophic microbes are organic carbon limited anywhere in the ocean where this isn't a direct, large source of organic carbon (like decomposable detritus, or leaky corals or algae). Algae are the major consumers of inorganic N and P in nature, not heterotrophic bacteria.

In the past we looked to lower the phosphate and nitrate, with water changes and GFO. Hence we tried to dilute it.

Instead what Zeo, prodibio, etc does is look to balance the tanks water back to its natural state. the redfield ratio. 106:16:1

But not even nature achieves that ratio in the shallow ocean, and there's no reason to regard this as "balanced." Besides, then we are balancing organic carbon to inorganic nitrogen and inorganic phosphorus. This is not what nature does.

So we need to add carbon. And it has to be enough to satisfy the redfield ratio. That number cant be determined as a fixed number good for all tanks. The quantity to dose, depends on the levels of phosphate and nitrate in the water of each particular tank. So its a guessing game at this point in time.

I use sugar,vinegar, vodka because it supplies more then one type of carbon so many types of bacteria will consume it.

You don't want to create a mono culture in the tank.

Thats the reason for adding a product like stability. It replenishes the GOOD bacteria.

Anyone that claims this is not a natural way of keeping a reef needs to read up on the redfield ratio.

We CAN add organic carbon and induce heterotrophic bacteria to bloom and suck up inorganic N and P, but this is not how most nutrients are processed in nature. This is a bit like saying that a sewage treatment plant naturally purifies water just like a clean pond or river. No, no it really doesn't. Relying on biological processes does not imply that we are seeing something "natural"

Chris

Chris,

Thanks for correcting me. I don't pretend to know the more technical version of this immensely complicated process.
As they say a little knowledge ....

I tried to put it in simple terms. I understand enough to know it works

I worked for 10 years at a sewage treatment plant. No i don't have your back ground. I'm a biologist trapped in a network administrators body . I learned the process from the engineers that work there.

I guess natural is the wrong word. Let me rephrase that.

We manipulate natural processes. Speed them up, if you will.

[Zedar]

Originally posted by kkris
Zedar,,
Thanks for the explanation. Do you have a starting point and basic ratio for your carbon brew that you can share?

Sure, but its not very scientific. I dose by feel. What I mean is, I dose based on the tank conditions and the corals appearance.

1 cup vodka
1 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Thats not how much i dose thats the mixture. Right now im dosing about 20ml per day.

As others have stated, please don't try this if you don't have a large skimmer. I use a needlewheel skimmer. I use outside air to feed the skimmer. My house air is high in C02. I came to that conclusion based on my PH. I couldn't keep my PH above 7.9 with a nightly low of 7.7
After I plumbed outside air to my skimmer the PH went to 8.1 in 24 hrs.

This matters because the bacteria will consume Oxygen. If you Overdose the Carbon you'll get a bloom of bacteria that will consume most of the Oxygen in the tank. And we all know what the results of that will be.

So, to counter this, make sure you have a large skimmer. My skimmer processes all the surface skimmed water from the overflow before it goes to the sump. Hence theres a lot of oxygen in my system.

The other reason for a large efficient skimmer is to quickly skim the bacteria out of the system. Hence you are exporting the N&P with them.

[jmaneyapanda]

I think the talk Dana gave to our club was similar to the one that he gave at MACNA. But anyway, he actually did contend that pastel colored corals, THROUGH WHATEVER METHOD, are usually quite starved. He had simply brought up ZEO in a response to aquestion about it.
He actually made some VERY STRONG cases and evidence about coral coloration. For example, Zooxanthellae is brown, and plays a role in the colors of corals, but not nearly as much as some of the other proteins in the corals. Manipulating conditions to get the best out of these other proetins played a huge role in the colorations. For example, he mention putting a sunset monti under 180 to 200 PAR got him amazing coloration (with photos to prove), as compared to the same coral under 350 PAR and low nutrients (which looked sickly by comparison). Its a little above the sacle of me replicating his talk, but the essence of it was the majority of tank owner overilluminate (depending on the coral), underflow, underalkinate, and underfeed their tanks. Coral coloration depends on variable which were quite easy to repoduce.