About to ditch ZEOvit!

i ran full zeovit religously for 6ish years here is my last zeo tank
IMG_8075_zpscfce55a3.jpg.html


and now i run a tank with nothing but a skimmer
 
Let me try this one last time... and I will be more emphatic before I bow out. You will not be able to be in charge of this and have it work out. If you must control the nutrients on your own, then you will fail and somebody will be getting a good deal soon on all of your really nice stuff.

Stop everything that you are doing but water changes and feeding your fish. The N and P need to rise to later fall. You will need to have cyano, diatoms and the ugly phases to get past them. Bringing anything online to keep them low will just keep you on the same path that you are on now where you are not going to be able to do what nature has learned to do so well.

Just let go for two or three months. Then, test some water and see where you are at.

Adding extra real live rock to the sump is a good idea, BTW.

@jda - i was thinking of adding some live rocks to my sump due to lack of biodiversity , starting with all dry rocks and falling a prey to modern hypes .

The hype about pests in live rocks is so overrated that it's of lesser significance to the abundance of micro fauna we get in live rocks .
Anyways , which live rocks do you suggest ? I thought pacific ones are the best . If so , any suggestion where to get good ones ?

Regards,
Abhishek
 
i ran full zeovit religously for 6ish years here is my last zeo tank

IMG_8075_zpscfce55a3.jpg.html




and now i run a tank with nothing but a skimmer




You tank looks great. For some reason thI first picture didn't work. Can you repost?


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I think you are thinking about this wrong. You dont remove filtration because you have too much. There really is no such thing. You just ADD FOOD. More food equals more growth. The more/better filtration you have, the more you can feed while keeping Po4/No3 in check. Just feed more....its pretty simple man. You are overthinking this.
 
I used to run Chaeto until it all died on me. Best thing that could have happened as the chaeto was keeping my water to clean of nutrients.
 
To the OP.

I ran Zeovit for several years with mixed results. This is what I gathered with their method.

1. You strip the water of Nitrate and Phosphate using zeolites to grow a bacterial bed in.
2. You strip the water so well you actually have to add Nitrate and Phosphate back into the tank.
3. The zeolites deplete potassium (I THINK)
4. If you neglect your tank for even a few weeks it could end very badly for you.
5. Zeovit has a very high upkeep cost.

For all the reasons above is why I stopped using zeovit. Does it work, yes it can. But it takes someone with more devotion/OCD than I.
 
I ditched Zeo. It stripped the water of nutrients until it starved all the SPS. They lost all their beautiful color. I followed the rules down to a science. It just didnt work for me. That only works for SPS reefs in Poland and Germany..lol

But really.. Im following a "keep it simple, stupid" approach right now.

I have a Ca. reactor hooked up, and dozing Aquavitro Fuel since it has worked for me in the past..
 
Update here for everyone. So I pulled the ZEOlite reactor and added about 20 more pounds of live rock to the sump. I am still using the ZEO products for dosing but I am not dosing and nitrate and phosphate remover, only the bacteria to build up some more in the new rock as well as coral foods like Coral Vitalizer and Sponge Power. Doing this for a few weeks to let nitrates and phosphates creep up. Wish me luck!


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Hi, All.

So just a quick status here. Pulled the reactor last friday and the nitrates crept up to 5. Phosphates are still 0 but my plating montipora looks like it's getting its color back. Going to keep doing what I'm doing and see where I'm at after the week.
 
The phosphates are likely binding to the aragonite. Lots of people get fooled here and think that they don't have any - you have some. Keep on with your water changes to export them. If you stay on the water changes, then the aragonite will never stay full - your water change will lower them (a bit) and the aragonite will release them back to equilibrium.

Eventually, the aragonite will fill up. This is no bueno, as you can imagine. Doing water changes regularly and early is key to long-term success.

I am glad to hear that stuff is looking better.
 
The phosphates are likely binding to the aragonite. Lots of people get fooled here and think that they don't have any - you have some. Keep on with your water changes to export them. If you stay on the water changes, then the aragonite will never stay full - your water change will lower them (a bit) and the aragonite will release them back to equilibrium.

Eventually, the aragonite will fill up. This is no bueno, as you can imagine. Doing water changes regularly and early is key to long-term success.

I am glad to hear that stuff is looking better.

Thank you for the tip! Yes, it's very easy for me to do 6% water changes every 3 days because of how I make my salt. I know it's not much but that's what I'm going to do for now until I have another problem because it appears like things are stabilizing.

Cheers,
Joey
 
I think you are thinking about this wrong. You dont remove filtration because you have too much. There really is no such thing. You just ADD FOOD. More food equals more growth. The more/better filtration you have, the more you can feed while keeping Po4/No3 in check. Just feed more....its pretty simple man. You are overthinking this.

There is such a thing as too much filtration, Zeovit is very good at stripping the water of all nutrients. Then you have to feed a sh*t ton of food just to get some nutrients back into the tank.
 
There is such a thing as too much filtration, Zeovit is very good at stripping the water of all nutrients. Then you have to feed a sh*t ton of food just to get some nutrients back into the tank.

Yeah and also I have an Omega 150 Skimmer and a Rollermat so the ZEO reactor is really unneeded. I could still use the products if they yield benefit with out the reactor but since I pulled it, I had more space for 20 more lbs of live rock which can only help.
 
I have been using zeolite methods (Zeovit and Neozeo) since the very early years about 10 years ago but I ditched them all and went back to simple Berlin method in 2012.

They did work very well to clean the water (and deplete all nutrients) and you have to keep adding them back (AA, food, K, B, St, I).....just too complex and time consuming. I have had a time that I didn't keep up the nutrient level, then many corals such as SPS and LPS went terribly pale. I spent about 8 months to have it recovered.

Now I only use skimmer and Ca reactor, and the Prodibio to add bateria and carbon source every 14 days. Some food and additives of course. But much more simple and easy.
 
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