Being the person that I am, I always do tons of research before diving into any long term commitments. I try to be patient and make sure I know as much as I can. It was difficult to find first hand knowledge on the system and even more so it was difficult to find before and after pictures of tanks running the system because the changes are fairly slow. So with that being said, I'm going to document my progress on reef central to share my knowledge and experience.
If you don't know about Zeovit, you can search for it on bing or google. The basic jist of it is utilizing a media reactor with media that removes ammonia thus preventing the nitrification process which eventually leads to undetectable levels of phosphate and nitrate, creating what they call ULNS or ultra low nutrient system. The drawback of the concept is that it strips the system of nutrients so well, you have to supplement the system with things you wouldn't normally have to with the berlin system. Here's a quick pro and cons list. Now this is specifically for the Zeovit system. I can't speak on behalf of other systems out there but there are several systems that have the same concept but they are different.
PROS:
* Corals, especially SPS, love the ULNS. The color and polyp extension is unrivaled by any other system
* In theory, water changes are still required, but only 5-10% weekly because you would only be doing water changes to replace the trace elements.
* Increased coral growth and vitality
* Super stable system once established
* I no longer have to use phosphate media
* I no longer need a refugium
CONS:
* The media reactors are fairly bulky
* The dosing schedule is strict with little room for laziness
* It's fairly costly
* You have to run carbon 100% of the time
* It's a sloooow process
* The system is compatible only with Zeovit brand products and cannot be mix and matched.
So I purchased the starter kit from bulkreefsupply for just under $300. Comes with the basic necessities you need to create the ULNS. After ULNS levels is established, you can then use additional additives for your specific system such as sps growth and color accelerators.
Bulkreefsupply didn't have the footprint measurements so I had to scour the internet for them. I came up with some numbers that appeared to work perfectly with the size of my refugium so I went ahead and ordered the kit with the nice 1.5L vertex reactor.
Packaging was awesome and I was immediately impressed by the quality of the vertex product. It appears to be inline with the Vertex Alpha line keeping true to the red and white theme. Everything was great except the foot print wasn't what I found on the other site and it turned out the reactor would not fit in the space I wanted it to. So I had to get to work and do a little modification.
The piping on the tube is smaller than US sized PVC so I had to do a bit of sanding down to get it to work for what I wanted it to do. I found that the output on the reactor was in a terrible place for the space I wanted to place the reactor so I had to either get a new sump or figure something out. I found that If I revamped the output on the reactor I can barely squeeze it in. So that's what I ended up doing. I had to throw in an extra elbow to move it over.
So you can see in the picture the compartment is tight and I had to bring the output over the wall of the sump and then bring it down away from everything else. It works fine. And no more refugium!
Ok that's pretty much it for now. I will take a start of system shot tomorrow when the lights come back on and I will update my progress.
Just for information purposes, my dosing schedule for the first two weeks is extensive but it tapers off as you progress more into the system. Eventually it will be dosing of two items every three days and one item needs to be dosed in small amounts everyday.
If you don't know about Zeovit, you can search for it on bing or google. The basic jist of it is utilizing a media reactor with media that removes ammonia thus preventing the nitrification process which eventually leads to undetectable levels of phosphate and nitrate, creating what they call ULNS or ultra low nutrient system. The drawback of the concept is that it strips the system of nutrients so well, you have to supplement the system with things you wouldn't normally have to with the berlin system. Here's a quick pro and cons list. Now this is specifically for the Zeovit system. I can't speak on behalf of other systems out there but there are several systems that have the same concept but they are different.
PROS:
* Corals, especially SPS, love the ULNS. The color and polyp extension is unrivaled by any other system
* In theory, water changes are still required, but only 5-10% weekly because you would only be doing water changes to replace the trace elements.
* Increased coral growth and vitality
* Super stable system once established
* I no longer have to use phosphate media
* I no longer need a refugium
CONS:
* The media reactors are fairly bulky
* The dosing schedule is strict with little room for laziness
* It's fairly costly
* You have to run carbon 100% of the time
* It's a sloooow process
* The system is compatible only with Zeovit brand products and cannot be mix and matched.
So I purchased the starter kit from bulkreefsupply for just under $300. Comes with the basic necessities you need to create the ULNS. After ULNS levels is established, you can then use additional additives for your specific system such as sps growth and color accelerators.
Bulkreefsupply didn't have the footprint measurements so I had to scour the internet for them. I came up with some numbers that appeared to work perfectly with the size of my refugium so I went ahead and ordered the kit with the nice 1.5L vertex reactor.
Packaging was awesome and I was immediately impressed by the quality of the vertex product. It appears to be inline with the Vertex Alpha line keeping true to the red and white theme. Everything was great except the foot print wasn't what I found on the other site and it turned out the reactor would not fit in the space I wanted it to. So I had to get to work and do a little modification.
The piping on the tube is smaller than US sized PVC so I had to do a bit of sanding down to get it to work for what I wanted it to do. I found that the output on the reactor was in a terrible place for the space I wanted to place the reactor so I had to either get a new sump or figure something out. I found that If I revamped the output on the reactor I can barely squeeze it in. So that's what I ended up doing. I had to throw in an extra elbow to move it over.
So you can see in the picture the compartment is tight and I had to bring the output over the wall of the sump and then bring it down away from everything else. It works fine. And no more refugium!
Ok that's pretty much it for now. I will take a start of system shot tomorrow when the lights come back on and I will update my progress.
Just for information purposes, my dosing schedule for the first two weeks is extensive but it tapers off as you progress more into the system. Eventually it will be dosing of two items every three days and one item needs to be dosed in small amounts everyday.
just be sure that the flow through the reactor does not exceed the recommendations 
