Thread: Zeovit System
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Old 04-24-2013, 08:50 PM
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I think some of my general suspicion about zeovit is that for it the entire line to work the way it's advertised, with all those myriad of drops and ointments, claiming to do X Y and Z to coral colour, growth, health, etc. it implies that the people at korralen-zucht know a great deal more about the molecular biology of corals than the biggest universities and public institutions in the world.

At the very best, shame on them for not publishing some of their data in a way that could benefit marine sciences, and at the worst, I call shenanigans on at least some of it.

What I think is more likely, is that there are some very basic elements of the system that do exactly as advertised - the zeolites and liquid carbon (zeostart and zeofood smell to me very much like they have something like vinegar in them) aggressively reduce nitrates/phosphates, and a few of the supplements with known pigment enhancing elements, and maybe the amino acids do bump up some of the colours that would otherwise be washed out in the ULN environment. But zeovit has dozens more (extremely expensive) products like Coral Booster, Pohl's Extra, biomate, etc. with these incredibly vague descriptions that claim to act on coral or microfaunal processes in much the same way that the pseudo-scientific alternative health industry labels their products. I'm immediately suspicious of any product that claims to 'boost immune response' in anything, because

a) Health is nothing more than the absence of disease and an immune system that behaves normally. A 'boosted' immune system is what causes diseases like MS and Lupus in humans and is the exact opposite of health. In humans and all animals, the goal is an immune system which is just active enough to keep disease at bay, any activity beyond that and the 'immune system' (whatever that looks like for corals) is likely to become pathological to the organism.

b) The immune responses of corals are many and myriad, and are at the very highest scientific levels only vaguely understood, so to claim that there's a commercially available product that can influence those responses in some beneficial way requires a huge leap of faith on the part of consumers. I think Korralen-Zucht should at least back up that claim by publishing what specific responses they have found to be effective in 'enhancing' in some beneficial way - that in itself would be be giant leap forward in our understanding of coral biology and would likely be accepted by a very prestigious journal.

That's just one example, and I know it's not the only claim that the zeovit products make, but it raises a red flag for me. I have a hypothesis that many of the products that are sold and re-branded with a fancy new name are simply re-formulations of their original products that were successful, in slightly different concentrations. If I have a few extra grand lying around one day and I don't want to spend it on new lights, I've half a mind to buy the whole line and have them analyzed chemically.

The only other thing I'd say about zeobak (and this applies to all bacterial supplements) is that unless it's refrigerated all the way along it's chain of custody it likely has very little bacteria in it by the time most people buy it. And the notion that the microfaunal assemblage of a tank could be influenced in any way by adding 5 drops of a solution to a system that's already populated by several hundred billion bacteria of who knows how many species, even if there actually were lots of bacteria in the solution being administered... that seems far-fetched to me. It would honestly be pretty easy to set-up a trial to test whether that was true or not, but it would require getting ahold of a sample of fresh zeobak and first confirming over a period of months whether or not there were any living bacteria in it at all.

*sigh* I promised myself I wouldn't write another novel. I have to stop leaving my soap-box so easily accessible.

Disclaimer - I type all of this with a bottle of Pohl's Xtra and Coral booster hooked up to my auto-doser, and a drawer full of zeovit products.
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