hahnmeister
In Memoriam
The changes that a Zeo type system include are many fold. Some of the parts act just like dosing ethanol (vodka method) in that you are providing a carbon/food source for bacteria which then consume excess nutrients in the water/reactor. These bacterial-plankton act as food. However, it is my belief that ethanol alone is not a sustainable approach. By having the bacteria in the water column all the time, you can have problems with fish. Also, what happens when/if your tank just plain 'runs out' of nutrients? I have dosed ethanol to the point where my chaeto turns white and dies because of no nutrients left in the system... something that often happens with Zeo/Ultralith. Also, unless you are constantly doing sand trading and introducing new liverock, one bacteria strain can dominate, and if its to the point where the other strains die off... well... what happens when you need them? Also, once you are done 'stripping' a system with ethanol, no more bacterial-plankton! So now you need to dose some bacteria, or at least some sort of nutrients besides just carbon to continue feeding the corals... hey... thats what ZeoBac and those other couple additives of the 'basic 4' are, you know?
I can see where taking the system offline could be dangerous though. I think that if you stop dosing, you should remove the reactor as well right away, or you will continue nutrient reduction with the 'rocks', yet you wont be adding any food. So you could end up 'starving' corals all together.
Esp if its a well established tank... many can achieve their own level of 'Zeo' on their own, you know? The bacteria are in balance, able to keep up with the fish load, etc... so nutrient reduction is being done by a well established system anyways (ever notice how after 9-12 months, or as time goes on, unless your fish load is high, your skimmate production starts going down?), and the Zeo is just taking the levels down even further.
I can see where taking the system offline could be dangerous though. I think that if you stop dosing, you should remove the reactor as well right away, or you will continue nutrient reduction with the 'rocks', yet you wont be adding any food. So you could end up 'starving' corals all together.
Esp if its a well established tank... many can achieve their own level of 'Zeo' on their own, you know? The bacteria are in balance, able to keep up with the fish load, etc... so nutrient reduction is being done by a well established system anyways (ever notice how after 9-12 months, or as time goes on, unless your fish load is high, your skimmate production starts going down?), and the Zeo is just taking the levels down even further.
