Zeovit, my journal (1 Viewer)

[soymilk]

Just journaling my experience with zeovit. I know brandon has done this back in 2008, but I've had a few people ask about it so I thought I might start a new thread. Hopefully answering some questions and perhaps the zeovit experts out there can lead me in the right direction.

First of all, what is Zeovit?

Zeovit is a system that uses certain bacterial strains to consume phosphate and nitrate from the water column. It creates a Ultra Low Nutrient System that is suppose to simulate natural sea water.

What is it in a nutshell?

You put these special rocks into a reactor or filter bag. Then you add a few drops of a special mixture of bacteria into the tank every day. The bacteria will grow on the rocks and multiply. You shake the rocks every day to release the majority of the bacteria into the water column. Majority of the bacteria is removed by your skimmer. Some of it is consumed by your coral. So you're effectively removing the excess phosphate and nitrate out of your tank.


Does it work?

So far, it seems so. My skimmer easier gets twice the amount of skimmate a week. My tank has never been cleaner looking. Unfortunately my corals have all been fading in color, but I think I got down to the bottom of this.


What is the cons?

$$$$$$$. Huge amounts of money. More so that I thought originally. First I bought the reactor and basic four to start off with. Then sponge power, then I bought the potassium test kit. Then found out my potassium is really really really low. I think this is the reason why my coral have been fading and my birdnests die.

Found out later that the zeolith rocks suck out potassium. Great.... so basically I have to buy another product to make up for zeolith rocks.

 

[soymilk]

Started Zeovit 12-9-2010

50-60 Gallons net total
.3lt Zeolith rocks in 1.5lt reactor

.3mL Zeostart3 Daily
2drops Zeobak Daily for the first 2 weeks
2drops Sponge Power 3x a week

 

[soymilk]

12-22-2010

Finally tested my potassium because i've been having problems keeping the colors vibrant. Sure enough my potassium is really low. 290-300ppm when it should have been 390ppm.

Started dosing Potassium.

Dosing less now
Zeostart .3mL Daily
Zeobak 2drops 2-3x a week
Sponge 2drops 3x a week

 

[soymilk]

12-26-2010

Not sure if its the potassium, but i've started to see blue tips on a lot of corals that went pale. Things look better. Potassium is 350ppm atm.

dKH 7 - elos
Calc 390 - elos
PO4 .017 - hanna
Nitrate 0 - api

Looking to order
Coral Snow
Coral Vitalizer
Bio Mate
Xtra
maybe Iron

 

[steveb]

Soy thanks for documenting your journey. I am watching this with interest as I am considering it for my 90 gallon when/"if" it ever comes online...

 

[soymilk]

Sure thing Steve. Hoepfully you can learn from my mistakes. Because I know Imma make some.

If you have any questions don't hesitate to shoot. I'll try to answer them the best I can, if not I'm sure Brandon or one of the other Zeovit gurus can answer.

 

[soymilk]

I just got my order from aquarium specialty in. I cancelled the order buy they ignored it and still sent it. I guess they don't answer emails and don't pick up phone calls. It was right before christmas so I'll cut them some slack.

Just got in
Pohl Xtra
Coral Snow
Biomate
K-balance

And like idiot I went to town dosing. I should practice what I preach. I lost 2 tiny Sps frags. A few are showing necrosis at the base. I later read on the Zeovit forum to dose minimally to get the tank used to it.

So I lost a few, but the ones that didn't show problems.... Wow. Getting colors in under 2 days. What once was pale is now vibrant. Purple plasma seems to like it a lot.

I'll resume dosing today. Half dosages for a while. I should photo journal this.... I'll start next week lol.

 

[steveb]

Did you start dosing all of the products you listed?

 

[soymilk]

Yep so total

Zeobak
Sponge power
Xtra
K bal
Biomate
Coral snow

I do like what I see so far. Getting some nice deep color tips on some corals

Thinking about adding
Iron
Potassium iodine

 

[soymilk]

.... so week 5 roll in

i just changed my zeolith rocks for the first time. I added a little bit more like what the directions said.

I'm having major sps issues. More RTN and etc etc. I never had this much problems with prodibio. I'll re-evaulate my zeolith amount and flow rate thru the reactor but gee whiz this stuff is getting annoying.

So far, i'd have to say... SAY NO to zeovit. My general problem is not many people use it so not many people can really set you straight. Its trial n error for the most part. The zeovit forum is ok, but theres only really 2 people answering questions. I dont' even think they work for zeovit.

Prodibio + Zeostart3 sounds really good right now.

[/rant]

 

[kgk]

e: n/m, read the first post..

 

[steveb]

Man soy you are scaring me away from trying this - have you noticed any significant/rapid drops in NO3, PO4 or K?

 

[soymilk]

my nitrates have always been low. I was using biopellets and it did a very good job of keeping N03 low, it was just having a hard time with po4.

I really never tested potassium so I really don't know if it dropped. When I did test, it was ~300. It should be around 390-400ppm.

PO4 dropped slowly. I had one week it jumped back up to around .04-.05 but since then its been ~.01. Tested with Hanna UL phosphorus tester

 

[steveb]

None of that sounds bad. So any thoughts on what it might be?

 

[soymilk]

they said my potassium was too low. So i dosed it up.. its around 360-380 right now...

Everytime I dose coral snow, bad things happen. So I really have no idea what is it. When I changed the zeolith, I added more. I don't know if the new rocks shocked the system. Im not sure what it is.

I'm setting up a frag tank soon, so imma frag a lot of things and move it over to that. We'll see if theres any change.

 

[soymilk]

i just tested my mag, which i've been pretty lazy to test the last few weeks. 1100... which is pretty low. This is probably the reason why. I just kicked it up to 1150 for today. Gonna do another 50ppm tomorrow and one more time the next day after that. I'm not sure this is the reason for the sudden rash of RTN, but it is dishearting to see 2-3 of my nicest pieces wither away.

Imma chalk this up to user error. I do miss having elevated parameters like alk around 9, calc 500, and mag 1400-1500. That gave me a ton of wiggle room.

Let this be a warning to all trying zeovit to stay on the ball with testing. Test all 4 parameters religiously. Alk, Calc, Mag, K

 

[merkurmaniac]

I have never even seen a potassium test. I guess its not something that "regular" people have to test for, right ? Just Zeovit folks ?

Since you say you are testing every day, I'll give you one of my magnetic stirrers that I am building. I just need to order some teflon coated stirring elements. Its a neodyum hard drive magnet on a computer case fan with a wallwort. You can place a small beaker on it, and it spins your test solution while you count drops. It makes it kind of fun to test (for a while anyways.)

 

[soymilk]

Lol, nice. Potassium is sorta only for Zeovit guys. The rocks they make you use, apparently suck up potassium. So you gotta buy their potassium solution to reup it.

That litte gizmo sounds cool. I don't wanna test my water daily though lol. I'm lazy 1-2 a week should be good enough for me.

 

[soymilk]

My adventure continues. Seems like everything is leveling out. Im getting great PE again.

Dosing K-Balance, Coral Snow, and Xtra

Everything looked ok but for some reason my ALK shot up to 11dkh. I decided against my better judgement to stop dosking alk for a few days. So the alk level would naturally drop.

I looked at my corals again after a few days and started noticing STN along a few corals. I thought that was weird. That would mean my water parameters aren't right. So i tested everything again... this time BEFORE dosing. Low and behold, alk was at 5.5-6. So my alk was correct before. What I didn't know was Coral snow will skew my ALK test for a few hours after its dosed. So its best to do tests before dosing.

A dollar short, a day late. The zeovit journey continues. I am pretty dissappointed in the poor documentation and support of zeovit. So far my tank is pretty much algae free though... so it is working.

 

[steveb]

From some of the zeo vit advertisements "Coral Snow contains among others a natural Calcium-Magnesium Carbonate mix.". You think this is what is elevating your ALK (at least temporarily)?