Starting Prodibio
 

Hello Everyone,

Since I am seeing good results again in my tank, after a couple years of grief. Coral growth is happening, coral seems happy, and overall tank just looks really good. I have decided to try out the Prodibio system to see if this assists with the coloring up of the corals.

With great help from Kevin @ Red Coral, I have purchased the Bioptim and BioDigest, and started my first dose today.

I found the fact of dosing every 15 days much better than ZEO (Thanks Mike @ Aqua Digital for pointing this out), and the cost is so much cheaper. The BioDigest I bought from Kevin will last 15 months, so that is very cheap overall. Bioptim, I will have to purchase every 3.5 months. I have averaged the monthly cost for these 2 to be about $15 total, so much more economical over the ZEO system of which I was averaging $2-300 per month.

Lets see what happens. Wish me luck!

Could of just replaced the corals, rather then buying ZEO. Just saying. :lol:

how much is the biokit in Canada anyways? It is currently 30 vials for $37.49USD at MarineDepot and I am thinking of getting some.

The user reviews on all the Prodibio stuff is actually pretty good.

regs
msjboy

In this hobby it isn't a matter of just replacing, for me it is the ability to create a bio environment like in nature, or try to get as close. And if I can enhance things, then great. Zeo didn't work well for me... Currently I don't do anything, not even carbon, but now I am seeing good results. So now I want to try the Prodibio for the enhancement of things.

For me I like the challenge, and when you invest alot of money in coral, even replacing them isn't an option.

So things are starting to improve and looking good and you're going to introduce something new? Is this a new hobby for you? :wink: JK hope all works out.

Global let me know how you made out I remember taking to Mike about that product too. he got me start on the Fauna Marin and I loved it made my SPs grow and color up.

Now that i have LPS and Softies i wanna know if Prodibo is right for my tank I feed alot too to my acans and LPS and fish

240 gal with a 30 gal sump
Dose KALK 24/7
and run Carbon

You'll have good luck with this stuff, it does work well. I started dosing last May up until the middle of October. I quit because it became harder and harder to get with the mail order thing and I don't get to Calgary or Edmonton very often. No ill effects going off the stuff but you will be pleasantly suprised.

LOL while these were my thoughts exactly we all like to tinker. I'll wish you luck though =)

Hey play nice... As I said things are going well, still not like the rest of you... So yes, I am introducing something new, maybe it can take me to where many of you are at for great looking reefs. I have NEVER had a tank with beautiful colored coral... I always seem to make the exotic high end coral I buy turn to many shades of brown.

If you keep it up, I am going to hunt you down, prior to doing so, eat a gallon of beans, sit on your head and make you suffer! :biggrin: You have been warned. HEHE. :fart: Damn I need an emoticon for this.

I would love to have the ability to have a gorgeous reef without adding anything, but that isn't the case.

I have been able to stop the RTN, now I can actually keep coral without it dieing in a day, and there is actually growth starting to happen. BUT... is it growth to what others have or is expected, NO. Is there color? NO... Some of the new ones I got from Red Coral, are they healthy. YES, seem to be, but again starting to brown out.

So, this is why I am trying this product. ZEO failed in the past and cost way too much. This product has great reviews, and is easier and cheaper. So why not?

As Brett said, in this hobby you tinker. In my case, I tinker cuz I want to have what you all have, but can't seem to get it.

I will let you all know how it works for me. Maybe I can one day post and win a POTM award?

I don't like when products don't have good instructions on use. Zeo had alot of guesswork, I now see Prodibio also does. Even their website doesn't outline when to use supplements.

The reason I say this is because I did my Bioptm and BioDigest dose, then that evening when lights went out, dosed Reef Booster and turned off skimmer for overnight.

Well, doing more research after the dose I found people stated NOT to use Reef Booster until 6 weeks after first using BioDigest and Bioptm so you can create the ULNS. Well the box didn't say this, nor did the manufacturers website or .pdf's they have for each product.

I think all is ok, and tank looks good today (still). I had to adjust skimmer when I plugged back in, as it was going crazy and overflowing. Kinda like when you use too much epoxy glue in the tank. Once adjusted skimmer is now running fine, and I will watch over the next couple days. I read it is the acids in the Reef Booster causing this.

So do I NOT dose Reef Booster in the future for the next 6 weeks, or if my tank doesn't develop cyano or anything bad from this initial dose, do I keep going with it?

I should state that I haven't been feeding corals, been letting the natural bioload of fish poop feed them. So my tank probably was starved for nutrients anyways... But again maybe not.

Prodibio experts please, lets hear from you.

Thanks.

Hopefully this thread will clear up some of your questions?

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...light=prodibio

I used to use the full prodibio line of products and had good success with it. I have since stopped and gone to daily vodka dosing with the addition if fauna marin ultra A-min. I have noticed that with daily dosing it doesnt matter how much my bio-load increases my tanks stays constant ULN were as with the prodibio there was some minimal measurable nutrients as the carbon sources were exhausted.
And vodka and animos are way cheaper...

Corey you should PM me your number and tell me about the vodka if you would

Prodibio/zeo/fauna marin/vodka/sugar/vitaminC......all the same principle.....different bacterias.........the nice thing about the probibio syastem is the the dosing is every two weeks......so, while it may cost more than vodka/suger/vitiminC the ease and frequency of the dosing schedule makes it appealing......I started Prodibio three weeks ago and it has already started clearing up the cyano problem that has been plaguing me since the re-start after the crash

I agree Doug... I did the full Zeo and even vodka, but with daily dosing, it was a pain. Summers are every weekend camping with lots of 4 day or longer camps, so when doing these, I had to keep coming back to dose. Was a real pain. That is why I am trying Prodibio, if it works well, the dosing regime is more pratical for me. It will be nice to be not bound to it, and that is worth paying a few bucks for.

Both of you are correct BUT what it costs a person to purchase a large pack of bioptim, the carbon source which I paid $60, I have a full 100% self sustaining dosing system.
So at the end of the day you pay around $120 for a large pack of biodigest and bioptim which is somewhere around 6 months worth of carbon source and almost a year of bacertia source, both depending on your system.
I have a 100g total system volume and it costs me $27 to run my system for 5 months. And in the end it cost me less then what it costs for 1 box of optium/digest to set up my system and touch once every 5 months... Once every 5 months is alot less then once a week... sounds like an alot easy method to me:mrgreen:

I haven't found Probidio Biodigest and Bioptim to help with nutrients, algae growth or cyano. I did notice an immediate color increase when I first started dosing it though. Prodibio has not been able to create anywhere near an ULNS for me, but I like what it does for colors, so I continue to use it. I'm going to start limewater + vinegar dosing as soon as I get a pump for it...might add some vodka to the mix as well, but will start with vinegar.

This is great news to hear, as I don't have any algae or cyano problems, but want to see the color increase. So hopefully I see the same increase in color that you did.

My God! 300$ per month for the zeovite system??? I had no idea it was so expensive. The only thing I ever bought from them was sponge power and amino acid and that was enough to color up my coral nicely (I have very low nitrates etc) and that cost me about 75$ and will last about a year and half for my tank.

why? can't this be automated with a dosing pump?

Well I run straight Kalk on a drip setup from my RO/DI Line and whatever i dont use in Kalk gets the straight DI Water. However using kalk all the time you are slowly causing the Mag to deplete. Yes u are getting the right amount of CAL and ALK but the MAG is neglected. I was going to dose vodka, but hmmmmmmmmmm really i remember looking at a chart before and sending it out to fishoholic to use. but if some one is out there using Vodka let me know how its making out for you.

What other methods are you using then Vodka, Carbon Phosban,

Using limewater doesn't cause magnesium to deplete. Limewater is essentially calcium and alkalinity together. Dosing limewater without dosing magnesium would be the same as dosing calcium and alkalinity without dosing magnesium. I'm sure you know this, but the way you said it is misleading.

I could, but I didn't want to invest in the hardware... Also what if the dosing pump goes nuts and overdoses. I don't like having that variable, thus no automation.

Also, with Zeo, there were many things being dosed, and that would be alot of money on many dosing pumps.

any updates?

My dosing pump, marine magic, does the job for about 4 months now without problem. It does have a fail safe and you can set the amount of second that it will do max before it stop. That is to prevent the pump going nuts and overdosing. It never hapened so far but if it does, the more it's going to dose is 30 seconds. Same with my ATO, it does have a fail safe. I am more afraid of my controler (reef keeper lite) freezing and stopping everything in my tank including the heater..that hapened to me once already.

But it is more interesting to dose every 15 days rather than each day. I can't help to wonder though, that a little vial will work the same for a 20 gallons as it does for a 120 gallons...and will last for 2 weeks...hmmm..I am a bit skeptical about it lasting 2 weeks.

I thought you said daily dosing with Vodka was a pain.

good to hear I have started in on 23rd Dec.

UPDATE:

Well I got back last night from christmas holidays expecting algae all over my glass, and to who knows what. I told the person taking care of my tank to not bother cleaning the glass (I am withholding his name to protect his innocence :biggrin:)

Well, I come home and to my surprise, not much algae at all to clean off the glass. Corals look great, actually I think even better. Wife even commented on how good it looked. The tank only had its second dose of the goods.

Color looks slightly better, but more importantly some corals that were quite brown or dark greenish, are now showing signs of color improvements.

So far I am impressed!

cool!! :)

Great to hear!

I started dosing about a week ago, hope to see some positive results in the near future.