I am starting a new system, and want to have the system as healthy and colorful as possible. I have dabbled in dosing here and there, stopped, started again, stopped and so forth.
I skimmed the PDFs for both systems and they pretty much work the same. The respective Zeostuff is placed in a reactor, water flows through it, it removes some stuff, promotes nitrifying bacteria and what not. This also seems like the most dangerous part. Improper usage, applied with some additives can cause cyno blooms, tissue narcosis and bleaching all the way down to an epic fail system crash.
Then I read on and, there are a bunch of additives which to me, are similar to stuff that has been on the market for years. Amino sups, iodine, iron, bacteria sups etc. There is also color vitalizing additives.
So what part of the ULTRA nutrient reduction is promoting coral growth and color explosion? I mean, I am sure it helps, but running a phosban reactor with a carbon filter is pretty much the same thing, right? They had me, until I read about the specific additives that many people already used (but from different companies) and about the...supplements designed to vitalize colors..which to me, is the stuff that is actually promoting healthy corals.
Now my question is, is the nutrient reduction headache really that necessary, or can I just run the more beneficial additives through my system? The whole nutrient reduction section of each PDF seemed vary vague and was almost put there to make there system a "system" and not just a cocktail of additives you can get elsewhere.
Zeovit goes even as far as to say they suggest using their activated carbon, because there is a wide varying difference between theirs and other manufacturers which my cause an implied downturn in your progress. Like really?
The PDFs also took the opportunity to remove all responsibility from themselves by saying that bad stuff can happen, quite often, almost definitely, if you don't follow the directions with laser precise percussion. To me, when I am using an eye dropper, in a guesstimated volume of water this is not laser precise precision. When I could get tissue narcosis on a coral I could probably keep in nutrient laden phosphate filled water this doesn't seem to promising of a formula. It just seemed like they were spamming their instructions with warnings and accountability loopholes because they are aware that they are going to have many ****ed of customers.
Maybe these systems work because they are just forcing people to dose properly and keep nitrates down. I have my doubts that their ULTRA low nutrient removal system is worth it. There additives and sups have merit though. Nothing a skimmer and a phosban reactor really cant handle
I could be wrong, I might be missing the vital scientific relationship between zeo media and the sups you put in. Seems to me that you are putting your corals so close to demise, to maximize their color potential. Again, i could be wrong.
Any help with me understanding this system better would be appreciated. Any comments, personal experience etc would be good too.
Thanx
