Calling ZEOVIT Quits

D

drw94

New member
So today I made up my mind that I was calling it quits with zeovit. There are multiple reason why I am doing this. I do believe the system works. I had developed some amazing colors on my corals. With a system like zeo I believe your are running your system on the edge and need to always be tinkering with it. There is no doubt there are dozens of tanks that run zeo successfully. Thomas Pohl has done an amazing job perfecting a system like this. Here are my reasons for discontinuing zeo. I love to tinker with my tank, but it has become to time consuming. I felt like I was neglecting my children as I was tinkering all the time. I need a system that is much more hands off and simpler. Two of my favorite corals never responded well to the zeo. My purple rim cap lost all of its color, and my montipora stellata lost its tissue on the shaded areas. I believe this is due to two things, me running too much carbon and second the tank was too clean. Lastly I kinda got bored with the whole process. Like I said it got too time consuming for me. I never really got to sit back and enjoy my tank because I was trying to observe every little thing so I could properly dose that tank.

So at this point I am going to step back and reevaluate my tank. I want to still keep SPS so I am going the Carbon/GFO route to minimize nutrients. And if that don't work, a softy tank is in my future. I have been keeping SPS for about 10 years now. I tried zeo on a whime, and gracefully bowing out. To much work, not enough reward. I have never kept anemones before, so that might be an interesting challenge if the GFO/Carbon route is too time consuming as well.

Any input on how to make a SPS tank less time consuming I am all ears.
 
well, your wallet will be happy based on the prices i see for a full zeo system and refills.

carbon and gfo here. minimal fish that i feed daily with water changes twice a month.
about the only test i should check more often is alk. otherwise pretty easy. a few hours
every two weeks.
 
Do you dose anything with biopellets. I can't wait to enjoy my tank more. Before I get the gfo and carbon online, i am going to let the tank settle after stopping zeo and go from there.
 
Just the main three really, cal alk and mag. Sometimes ill throw some k balance, b balance or pohls in there. dont know if it does much but its fun lol.
 
Dose vinegar automatically with a dosing pump/controller. Run carbon and occaisonal GFO as needed. Works for me.
 
Or um just run the tank old school: good equipment (lighting, skimmer which I assume you already have) and do water changes once in a while. Since when did Zeo and carbon dosing become REQUIRED to be successful. The best success I ever had with SPS was before carbon dosing became a known technique (I had skimmer, cheato, UV sterilizer, two tangs and four anthias that got fed two/three times of day. worked wonderfully. EVERY SPS looked better in a month or two than when I purchased them and growth was fast). If you dont want to be cleaning glass panes and have a clean tank without much maintenance squirt an appropriate amount of vodka daily (or every other day for that matter) and call it a day. That's all that's needed to keep a "clean" system and it will even fade your monti's too if done aggressively.
 
I have bac, biomate, zz, aahc, bb, start 3, k balance, some zeoliths, CV, extra, extra special, jod and zeo food. Are you interested in some? I am going to keep some but others I can part with.
 
I run rowaphos and carbon and love it. you need to enjoy your tank not be a slave to it.

I add a capful of b-balance and k-balance daily when feeding but thats it
 
I have a bare bottom tank with gfo, calc reactor, good skimming and remote dsb. I was running pellets until the remote dsb became effective, once it was online I removed the pellets and dont dose carbon. I have <.064 nitrates and 0 phosphates. the only thing I check regularly and supplement is alkalinity, everything else stays very stable and I also do weekly 20% water change just because. Its very hands off but just enough to keep me interested as I mess with coloration supplementation...if i want to.
 
I don't run anything, including carbon and gfo. The only thing I do is skim well and dose ATO via kalk reactor. This allows me to really appreciate my reef and the acros look great.
 
I'm just doing gfo/and carbon as well. I'm finally getting good colours out of some of my stuff it just takes a little extra in the water change world, being a bit careful with your feeding, and being more diligent on my parameter movement. I keep thinking more and more however about adding biopellets back on. Even though my phosphates, and nitrates are rather in a good range. I'm starting to see an increase in nuisance algae which is the result in the addition feeding I've done lately so I want to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. I ran biopellet for some time they seemed to work well, however now I'm a bit cautious about making any changes as I have a lot more invested in my tank now then I did when I initially ran them.
 
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It's good to see that many of you run gfo/ carbon. Gives me confidence that my tank will rebound nicely after it gets all the zeo products out of its system. I am still going to run RBS until it runs out and then switch to TMP. The RBS is also a pain in the ..s, you have to really dry mix initially or you get way wacky reading. I am glad I tried zeo, all these new methods will really advance our hobby. It still blow my mind that I can grow SPS with only 50 watts of LEDs. Thank for all the great input.
 
I am running a 60 cube with roughly 50 us gallons net. What amounts of gfo and carbon should I run. My reactor will run from a tee line off my return pump so I can control the volumn of water passing through them.
 
just a FYI, but changing your carbon source, will change the biology of the tank. and the bacteria removing nutritions. so be carefull :)

removing carbon source, would mean death of most bacteria you have cultured, so again, be carefull going off Zeo. or in fact any other bacterioplankton system which is holding water quality in check :)

it can be alot of work ... till you find a balance ... which is usually 3-6 months ... its prety smooth after.
 
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