Zeovit in a Nano (detailed update dec 5th)
 

So the other night I was considering the feasability of zeovit in a nano-sized tank. Namely in my 24 gallon tank. I thought about bringing up a discussion on the subject.

zeovit guide here: http://captiveoceans.com/pdfs/ZEOgui...%20English.pdf

It states that you need the following:

• efficient strong skimming
• sufficient lighting
• optimization of nutrient addition
• addition of elements at low levels
• optimum water parameters (ca, mg, k+, KH, salinity)
• regular weekly water changes
• sufficient water flow
• use of live rock etc

In a nano tank, most people already do weekly water changes however skimming is rarely used because of the larger 25% weekly water changes.

I've read through the zeovit guide and found it recommends efficient strong skimming:

"...the basis of this method relies on export of harmful substances through skimming" (zeovit guide p16).

The larger than normal water changes in a nano tank performs this function.

Now another requirement of zeovit is the reaction chamber. After calculating the requirements of a 24 gallon tank I found I would need 240mL of zeovit. A very small ammount which doesn't justify spending the $$ on a large reactor. So I thought about a HOB filter. Now one requirement of the zeolite is making sure the zeolite does not make contact with air. Thus, care would have to be taken to ensure the zeolite is at the very bottom of the HOB filter so if the power goes out the micro-organisms in the zeolite aren't damaged.

Another requirement is the addition of trace elements due to adsorption by the zeovit system. I'm thinking the larger than normal water changes will accomplish this just fine.

I'd like to hear about people's personal experiences and how they think it could be applied to the nano aquarium.

Phosban reactor.

You need to call me Sean :D

I like your idea a lot! While I run a 24g nano, and i have all the reactors, and a skimmer, I think that you could definitely do zeovit on the system as well. Phosban reactors work well, particularly the two little fishes ones.

I've been contemplating this, too! Kicking my phosban to the curb and going with Zeovit in my Two Little Fishies reactor.

Wouldn't the large water changes sort of negate the use of zeovit? Every water change you do not only greatly dilutes the zeovit additive concentration, but also disrupts the system unless you're really careful to make sure the levels of various zeovit additives "match" the water you removed.

Just wondering.:biggrin:

If your going to use a phosban reactor for the zeolith. How do you stir it daily?

You just turn it upside down and right side up a few times to stir up the detritus.

haha ok. maybe i should just drink my coffee.:redface:

hehe its a legit question as the phosban reactors don't have that handle pump action thing to stir the zeovit "manually". I just used to turn it upside down and shake the crap out of it until I saw detritus and stuff float down. Then I'd right it and turn the pump back on :biggrin:

You really shouldn't be doing large water changes with Zeo. Your best bet is to run SOME kind of skimmer.

Food for thought:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1209702

although I liked running rowaphos/phosban, I did not like the two little fishies phosban reactor. I was allways paranoid a hose would pop off and have water all over the basement floor. HOB filter's are nice and clean since there are no hoses. There's no sump so I have to keep my equipment minimalistic. So instead I'm going to buy a box of rubber gloves and daily throw on a glove to mix up the zeolites by hand in the HOB filter. There'll only be a cup of zeolites so i could just wiggle my fingers in there and that'd get the job done i think ;)

As for the water changes affecting the trace concentrations, I don't know if that's such a big deal because the salt mix is putting the trace back in. The zeovit guide says that the water changes are in order to replenish trace elements, and not really to export nutrients. If needed, I could just increase my daily dosing of the 4 core supplements. I only need like a drop of each anyways.

I'm going in to Gold's today to see if they have the little starter bottles in stock. If the entire thing doesn't work, I'm only out 70 bucks or so. Not bad considering some of the other expenditures out there.

Use a chopstick, lots of detritus really needs to be powered out of crevices and I don't think gentle currents will really stir it up.


As for the water changes, its not just the trace elements that need to be replenished. With zeovit, I do believe they actually want you to reduce your water change frequency/volume. Because you're adding all of the bacterial population, food for them and then whatever else (sorry I can't remember exactly what else you're supplementing with), you'd be disrupting those populations and their food source every time you did a water change.

I just can't see zeovit really benefitting you in this case and it would probably be a waste of money as you wouldn't see the results you were looking for.

Just my two cents :wink:

Christy, why don't you think it would benefit him? Because it's such a smaller tank volume than those who generally use Zeovit? I'm on the steep Zeovit learning curve as well, so....just curious! What about a 55G? Does anyone think there's a realistic minimum tank volume to make Zeovit worthwhile?

thanks for the chopsticks idea. I'm going to forge ahead and see if it works. I think there's about a 50% chance. As for it being a waste of money I'd be getting just the little bottles so it's not much of an initial purchase.

We'll see.

it's not the size of the tank that makes it questionable, it's the fact most nano's usually lack a protein skimmer and have larger water changes. Your 55 gallon would probably work if you have efficient skimming and follow the prescribed maintenance.

I'm planning on trying something that isn't proven so I know results won't be guaranteed because it won't be a "standard" zeovit system.

I don't think it would benefit him in the way he wants to use it.

Think of it this way. You have a nice glass of koolaid all tasty and sweet but you can't drink it. You can only look at it and follow the directions on the box. Then you dump half out and put water in. Now its all diluted and probably tastes like crap. So you add more sugar and more koolaid powder to hopefully get it right, but you never know. Then you have to dilute it again. Rinse. Repeat.

Hmm thats a crappy analogy. What can you expect at 8:30am? I think I need coffee too :razz:

All I can think of is what a huge waste of money to have to be constantly dosing zeovit to get those levels just right, only to be dumping it down the drain on a weekly/biweekly basis because you don't have a skimmer.

The zeovit principle is based on constant dosing. It only takes a couple minutes etc but you're dosing daily regardless to keep the system intact. If you're going to disrupt the system by removing half of the dosage through water changes and then dilute it and toss some extra in to hopefully make up for it, I don't really understand how it can be beneficial for your tank in the way its supposed to.

Its not that he can't do it, I just don't think he's going to get the best bang for his buck.

the zeovit guide prescribes 10% water changes for "heavily stocked aquariums" anyways, and at least a 5% water change. Water changes aren't "detrimental" to zeovit.

and we all do your kool-aid analogy anyways in our reef tanks. We do water changes and there are all sorts of supplements in our salt mixes that we can't track and we have no clue where they sit after a year or so.

what I'm expecting is less algae in my tank. I had used phosban before and still have frustrating problems. I'm not worried about more coral growth, polyp extension and all those other etceteras zoevit brings. I just don't want algae in this tank after it's been up for a couple months. If it does that then I'll be extatic.

No, I did run ultralith for awhile though and the dosing regime is hugely important to make it work. I'm away from home during the week and only home on weekends. I was having my boyfriend dose the tank when I wasn't there. However, he had extended periods where he was away for 2 or 3 weeks at a time during the time I was running the ultralith system and I could see that it just wasn't really "kicking in" not in the way that Wendells display tank at OA did. I attribute this to not being able to dose the tank properly and on a regular basis.

As well, I have a fair bit of detritus build up on the bottom of my tank (barebottom) which is not only unsightly but who knows whats brewin in there. So I was doing 10% weekly waterchanges at the time to siphon it all out. I'm not sure what they actually prescribe but I would imagine its much less than that. They almost reccommend that you run a sort of "closed" system and water changes are only for trace element replenishment like someone mentioned earlier.

I'm going to try it again if I ever move back home on a more permanent basis as I do believe it works (see Jason McK's zeovit tank photos for clear evidence, its amazing). I just need to follow the rules a little more closely :wink:

ok I scanned through the zeovit forums and zeovit works just as great in a nano. The larger water changes are just fine. What has to be changed is the dosing frequency. Dosing less often. Basically about half as often.

I'm starting to get excited about this; It's gonna work :)

As for running it in a HOB filter, it's done often. Just have to knead it like kneading carbon. Or use a chopstick like christy said. The two little fishies reactor is overkill since it holds 3/4 L of zeovit, while I'd only need 1/4L.

Today is my 100% water change with RO/DI now that the rock's no longer leeching nitrates. I'll see if it's in stock at Gold's today and probably be running it very soon.

Will you be documenting your attempt with zeovit? Photos maybe?

So um ..sorry, I'm a little confused. You're not running a skimmer on this system? Or are you? Funny you should bring this up, borne out of frustration for not getting fst enough progress on my tank build - out of spare parts I had lying around, I slapped together a 20g reef nano system this weekend. It's cute, it uses a Hydro Alkaseltzer or whatever it's called as the sump return, a seio for tank circ and a superskimmer 60 that I was going to meshmod. I was thinking, I wonder how zeo would work on a wee little tank like this. So your thread was rather timely! :lol:

Have you thought about running a small skimmer on your setup? I thought one of the reasons Zeo/Ultralith/Prodibio/Reef-resh type systems work so well is that the skimmers are constantly removing the nasties. I mean, sure, on a small system you can just change out the water on a weekly basis or whatever, but I thought the whole point with the dosing and skimming of a bacterial based system is that things are replenished and removed on a more steady-state type situation.

The wee little Euroreefs are the shizzle! A mesh'd Euroreef, that's a winner. I can't wait to see these guys hit the market! :)

you have to do weekly water changes anyways according to the zeovit guide. 5-10%

I checked the forums though and it seems doable without the skimmer with the larger water changes. If I have to do a 5% weekly water change anyways, how much more work is a 25% water change, really?

I'm trying to keep this within a budget too, being a full time student. Buying into zeovit will be about $70-100. Getting a skimmer would jump that to about $200-250 (or more). Not dooable for me.

The real appeal is the low-tech approach. About the only "techy" things my tank will have will be the HQI light w/ PC, the auto-top off, the zeovit, and the RO/DI. I just think it would be cool if zeovit could be possible in a low-tech style nano.

I don't know if the HOB filter will be the ideal way to hold the zeovit though. I'll need water flow of about 30gph through the media. the HOB filter does 200-400gph lol. I'm thinking a gravel vac would be a good media holder. I could cut it down to about 6" long, hook a pump to it and voila!

Please document it for us scaredy-cats :)

There are some higher quality substrate reactors like these PM models.
http://www.precisionmarinedirect.com...idProduct=784#

that's 6.5 liters of reactor. I only need 0.25 liters ;)

Room for expansion :p

You can't use a HOB filter. You'll be running too much water through the media. This = GAME OVER MAN.

For your tank, you're looking at 20 gph approx.

yeah when i get to the store I'm gonna figure out how I'm going to slap together a tiny, low flow reactor. probably going to use a gravel vac or the likes.

Hi Sean, I may be able to provide you with a little useful information, however I haven't read this entire thread so hopefully I don't repeat too much others have said, if I do I apologize.

I helped a friend setup a nano with zeovit, his post can be seen here:
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=35489

In addition I've been using zeovit for quite some time and have learned a lot about the system over this time. The most important thing I've discouvered is the guide is a guide and is only really useful to get an idea on how to use the system. You have to basically find a balance and find your own dosing and media requirements to best fit your system and needs.

My main question for you is why do you need zeo? Basically if you're planing on doing weekly water changes and keeping an average bio-load nutrients shouldn't be much of a problem. I think it will be more beneficial for you not to use the full system, forget the reactor and media and simply dose a few of the zeovit additives that do not require the reactor. There are many people that do this and get what they want and need from the system.

You have to be careful not to do too much, too many water changes and/or too many additives will create too many elements for the system which will actually darken corals and have other negative effects. I don't believe the system will work without a skimmer, but I could be wrong. As I understand it the system basically provides a type of bacteria that brakes down nutrients into more skimable organics. Water changes will help remove these organics but no more than water changes alone, in fact you with water changes you can only remove a percentage each time which will not have the same effect as a skimmer. A skimmer will be much more effective for the system, so basically if you're just planing doing more water changes what's the point of the zeovit?

Basically you skim heavy, the zeovit helps the skimmer skim more organics, and you make up for the lost elements with consistent water changes and the addition of extra zeovit elements not found in most salt mixes. In addition other additives are available to improve coral health, color, growth, and so on.

The best advice I can give you is try without zeovit first, see what you get by maintaining levels constant. Keep you nutrients low and be consistent with weekly water changes. Then try some of the additives available from zeovit such as the amino acids, potassium, and Macro elements. You can also use zeofood without a system as it provides corals with food, amino acids and vitamins, just dose quite a bit less than recommended for the full system. Zeostart can also be used as it simply provides a food source for nitrifying bacteria, however you may not want to use this very much as too much of this bacteria isn't necessarily good. Finally a really good additive to use with caution is Zeospur2 as you can flush out zooxanthellae from the coral improving color.

Unless you honestly cannot control your nutrient level I can't see why you would want to use the full system. Even if you can't with such a small tank I think you need to find the source of this problem and correct it. Zeovit is by no means a miracle system for saltwater, many people do extremely well without the system and many people who use the system have not had good results.

HTH,
Steve

I have the zeovit system except for the stones, I'm waiting for those to come in. I'm getting my levels where they should be in the mean time and setting up the last of the components in the tank. Once I have the rocks (few more days probably) I'll post pictures and log the set up.

The K Balance and the test kit where the whollop of the cost. But maintaining potassium has produced good reaction from corals so it's a thing I should be maintaining anyways. I think I'll aim towards sps though, keeping the easier ones because of the 150W lighting. Even if I have to move in 9 months if I move correctly everything should be ok.

I've decided on a Fluval underwater filter, model "1plus", as the reactor. It has a throughput of 50gph. I'm going to restrict the output to bring it to aproximately 20gph. I'll shake up the chamber daily when the media needs cleaning. Great choice for a little tank I think, especially with it only costing $30!

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...-07/fluval.jpg

got my K+ to 410ppm. Took almost 250mL of k-balance to do it.

and I built a zeovit reactor. the DIY thread's here: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=37037

http://www.kwirky88.com/images/aquar...r/complete.jpg

I know this is probably a x-post, sorry

ok update on zeovit and my nano. I've done a lot more research on zeovit and sps corals in general and I'm going to make it an SPS tank. I finally was able to get some zeovit stones today so this is the day I start it all.

I'm going to test the hype that zeovit can bring a new tank stable and ready for SPS in record time. I'm going to see if the system can meet those expectations. It will also require diligence on my part that I've never exercised on one of my own tanks so I also see this as an opportunity to bump my reefkeeping up a knotch.

Here are the specifications of my tank:
24 gallon bowfront (24" long, 12" wide, 16" tall)
aprox 30 pounds liverock (15 pounds fresh, 15 pounds cooked)
82F (stealth heater)
400gph koralia 1 water pump on full time.
two maxijet 1200's alternating on 15 minute timer. One runs across open water at back of tank, the other directly into the liverock.
aqua-c Remora protein skimmer. Started break in period Nov 12th.
automatic top off.
RO/DI water
150W HQI Aquaconnect 14k (6 hours a day)
2x65W Actinic PC (10 hours a day)

I have 200mL of zeovit in a home made reactor flowing aprox 15 gph.
Dosing according to latest zeovit guide.
Will be dosing Coral Vitalizer and amino concentrate once there are corals.
Weekly water changes of 5%.

So this thread will be used to track my progress with zeovit through nitrate testing (weekly) and photographs (weekly). There won't be any corals for a few weeks so the photographs will be sparse initially.

update: I swapped out 13 pounds of my "cooked" rock for 13 pounds of fresh rock last friday to try to follow the zeovit guidelines. I tested my nitrates on monday the 19th and they were 5ppm. I did a 10% water change which should have dropped the nitrates down to 4.5ppm.

I tested the water today, 2 days later, and nitrates are 2.5ppm. That's a 1ppm drop in 2 days if you don't account for the water change! At the beginning of the zeovit run I turned the lights on for 2 days and a bunch of fiber like algae about 1/8" in length showed up in the upper regions of the tank. Almost overnight tonight the algae's dissapeared! I'm running the lights full bore ahead now hoping to get some nice coraline growth.

There's something to this zeovit! :D

What's the thinking behind swapping out the rock?

biodiversity. The rock I had before sat at my mom's for a few months without a water change. Very high in nitrates (probably around 100ppm when I finally was able to bring the rock from her house) and most everything died off it. No algae but not much for anything else either. Only a few clams and a lot of white coraline. I figured it would be a good idea to freshen up the tank with some new rock.

Sounds good so far.

Once you get fish in watch out with your K-Balance. large dosing can kill fish.

I've switched to the K-B stronge. I found the K-B to not be enough to keep the levels up.

J

yeah I did the large dosing because there was no livestock in there. I plan on not dosing at all for the first while, only bringing my 10% weekly change water to 400ppm. I'll test weekly and see how it goes. I'm assuming since there are only 2 small frags in the water atm the K+ demand is very low.

once the k-balance regular is gone I'm switching to kbalance strong too.

I'm still debating whether to get the aminoacid for SPS's. it's "supposed" to be good but I already have coral vitalizer which should be good too. plus it's hard to find the 50mL bottles. the $100 bottle is overkill for my little tank.

I would say Amino Acid was the #1 greatest improvement in my tank. But really both AA and CV only need to be used once you have coral in your tank. I would actually run just the basics until you get a stable low nutrient system. Then start adding

J

ok I thought I'd post an update. I'm going to share the log for my tank and the results I remember seeing at various times...

(long read)

• November 16th, started zeovit. Started dosing 4 drops zeobac, 4 drops zeofood and 5 mL zeostart daily.
• November 18th, switched to 1mL zeostart daily (according to guide)
• November 19th, tested nitrate at 5ppm. performed a 10% water change. Nitrate should now theoretically be at 4.5ppm
• November 21, 2.5ppm nitrate? Tested again and yes it dropped down considerably. Added a few minor frags as biological indicators for the tank (a monti frag and an acan frag).
• November 30th, 4g water change followed by adding a pocillopora colony. Zeovit forums generally say corals can be added 2 weeks into a new tank often. Didn't want to fully stock just in case they're wrong so only bought one colony.
• December 1st, switched to dosing the zeovit products every second day and only 1 drop a piece (except zeostart which is one drop daily).
• December 3rd, ZERO NITRATE! already?! so yeah there's something about this zeovit. My tank sprung a little leak (dripping slowly) so I had to swap it out unfortunately. I cleaned up a 33g tank I had used as the sump for my old 120g. It's now my new tank. Added a bit of dead rock as filler because I can't afford fresh liverock ATM.

Also I've had my lights the entire time and previously I had wierd nasty algae outbreaks. I've had NONE. I had some flourescent green algae bare sections of rocks for a day (around the 29th november), and I had a bit of hair algae but it dissapeared in about 3 days after it had shown up. I've been cleaning the front of the glass every 4th-7th day or so but there's not much on it ever. When I swapped out the leaking tank for the 33g the back of the original tank had a very light film of algae on it and the sides had very little too (in regions the magnet cleaner couldn't reach). So far I'm liking the results of zeovit pertaining to algae management.

Now for a bit on the subject of why I chose zeovit. I wanted to start a second tank, but I also wanted to step my husbandry up a notch compared to my previous 120g. I did lots of things sporadically, changed methodologies. Lots of new reefkeeper mistakes. I wanted to do water changes that happen more often than once a month, dosing my 2 part on schedule (twice a day), cleaning the skimmer cup, watching my parameters, matching my change water to the tank water. Stuff like that. I look up to the "expert" reefkeepers on the forums and their patience and knowledge.

I figured if I was going to try harder at reefkeeping and spend more time with my tank why not start up zeovit too? What's another 5 minutes a day? So all this is a combination of zeovit and improving my own husbandry better than I've ever done before. I gotta say it's nice to see the results from doing things "mostly right" :).

As for the routine of zeovit I have done it every single day on schedule according to the guide. I put the frags in early and I'm glad I did because they were great indicators to the system, especially the acan. The acan's green sections would turn brown if I was late on dosing the zeovit chemicals (ie, dosing at noon instead of 8am). 2 days later after dosing on track it would go back to it's green and red colour. I saw that reaction a few times, so the zeovit is definately affecting the corals.

Also the pocillipora colony is another thing. I had asked around on the zeovit forums and the general concensus is that SPS can be added even within 2 weeks of starting the system... I was skeptical... (still am) I figured I'd test that theory and bought a colony of pocillipora. At the LFS they had 3 colonies. 2 were greened up and one was brown but were all from the same batch. Unfortunately one of the green ones was quite small and the other had a crab on it that was picking away at polyps.

I figured I'd take the healthy and brown specimen and take the chance of it colouring up. It's slowly begun to do that. The first day I took it home it didn't flouresce at all. It's now 5 days later and it's flourescing well under the actinics and starting to flouresce under the HQI 14k's. So I think it's reacting well to the new tank. We'll see though. One of the pumps walked a few times and was blowing directly on the coral, frying a spot on the one side...

Also the nitrate reduction was VERY interesting. That's pretty fast I think. Faster than some denitrator setups out there... I feel mostly comfortable now in only testing my nitrates once a month, or when things change in the tank (see some abnormal algae growth, add new rock, add a fish, etc). I think the nitrates are being managed to the point that if I stick to the daily/weekly routine I can use my livestock as visual cues to the health of the tank.

Now I'm trying to decide if adding sand will change these good results. There are issues surrounding sand and I've been weighing the positives and negatives for a while...

But yah at this point so far into using zeovit I have to say think carefully about it and do lots of research before deciding to use it. The system requires good tank husbandry and it's not to be used as a crutch. Good tanks, whatever the methodology, require consistent, long term effort. Wish me luck on maintaining that effort over the long term :)

Awesome results! :cool:

I agree these are fantastic results!

A question about the guide. I've seen more then one guide typed out, either on forums or websites. Where did your guide come from, and what does it include?

With posts like these I do honestly see the temptation for me to switch over to zeo.