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"
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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