Maybe quitting Zeovit

[Oceanic]

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

Yeps I do. We don't sell any pro biotic systems currently but we may soon.

Keep in mind though that what I said here is my opinion and does not reflect my employer's etc etc.

[Patrick1]

well I am not a big fan of fighting on the internet. Zeo is Zeo like it hate it. I think the point of this thread was to help out Drew with his zeo system. There are so many factors to a reef tank, lights, temp, etc, etc and I think the thread is getting hijacked by us.. Drew if you need help with your system just contact Albert he knows what he is doing and helped me with my system. The biggest change to my lousy start was cleaning and scrubbing out all the hairy goop then things ran a lot smoother.

Once you get in the habit and get things running it goes pretty smoothly even if your lazy like me and miss a few days. When I started zeo I was told flat out that it was no replacement for basic tank care cleaning etc. If you don't have good skills to begin with, then zeo is going to make things worse. If you have the basics down and want to improve your system to your tastes then zeo offers some things. I have seen zeo tanks with brown coral and I have seen some people with zeo tanks with pastels. Same with systems with out. I have established a tank that is very stable and looks the way I want it. I used zeo to get it that way. Are there other ways to do it I am sure there is, but for me zeo has paid off.

[Oceanic]

Originally Posted by Patrick1

well I am not a big fan of fighting on the internet. Zeo is Zeo like it hate it. I think the point of this thread was to help out Drew with his zeo system. There are so many factors to a reef tank, lights, temp, etc, etc and I think the thread is getting hijacked by us.. Drew if you need help with your system just contact Albert he knows what he is doing and helped me with my system. The biggest change to my lousy start was cleaning and scrubbing out all the hairy goop then things ran a lot smoother.

Once you get in the habit and get things running it goes pretty smoothly even if your lazy like me and miss a few days. When I started zeo I was told flat out that it was no replacement for basic tank care cleaning etc. If you don't have good skills to begin with, then zeo is going to make things worse. If you have the basics down and want to improve your system to your tastes then zeo offers some things. I have seen zeo tanks with brown coral and I have seen some people with zeo tanks with pastels. Same with systems with out. I have established a tank that is very stable and looks the way I want it. I used zeo to get it that way. Are there other ways to do it I am sure there is, but for me zeo has paid off.

Who said anyone was fighting, this is good conversation!

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by Oceanic

Who said anyone was fighting, this is good conversation!

Ditto! This kind of discussion/debate is awesome!

[Delphinus]

I agree, learning lots here.

Question for the zeo gurus, are there any deterministic tells that signal you're out of phase 1? I've been dosing like I'm in phase 1 for 3-4 months now, I'm not sure what to look for to tell me I can start cutting back? Or do you just do it (cut back) and see where things lie? I'm for both a rock and carbon changeout. My NO3 is 5.0ppm...

[Snappy]

The ocean doesn't look like zeo tanks. For every pastel blue "wonder zippy" acro you see on a reef there are hundreds of dull brown boring ones. The super pastel colours are an aberration, a defensive reaction to photo saturation in a low nutrient environment. Promoting Zeovit as a way to get a "natural" looking reef tank is seriously silly.

Please don't take offence but it sounds like you've never been scuba diving on a reef before. As luck would have it I just got back from a holiday last night where I was diving and some of the sps colours I witnessed were absolutely amazing. That said not every sps is a bright colour but the most popular ones in the hobby are and zeo tanks can help them achieve their full potential. It's easy to keep a coral brown and still healthy but I personally enjoy a more colourful look. Now to address your point of "natural", since most of us have corals from many parts of the world together in a glass cage that would not be found together in nature the only way to get a true "natural" look would be to have a geographic specific tank. That goes for fish too.
I personally don't use zeo but I do carbon dose with pretty good results and I can tell you the principle behind them works. Yes you can achieve very good results without it but you can achieve even better results with it. I have tried many things and I'm not afraid to experiment and I can attest to the validity of zeo & carbon dosing. As mentioned it's not for everyone but since I tend to over stock I would have nitrate/phosphate problems without it. For me the hobby goes beyond just watching the tank, I enjoy the nuts & bolts of what makes what work, identification, propagation, photography, etc. One of the things that makes this hobby so great is there really is something for everyone at every level and you can taylor it to your own personal preferences.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by Snappy

Please don't take offence but it sounds like you've never been scuba diving on a reef before. As luck would have it I just got back from a holiday last night where I was diving and some of the sps colours I witnessed were absolutely amazing. That said not every sps is a bright colour but the most popular ones in the hobby are and zeo tanks can help them achieve their full potential. It's easy to keep a coral brown and still healthy but I personally enjoy a more colourful look. Now to address your point of "natural", since most of us have corals from many parts of the world together in a glass cage that would not be found together in nature the only way to get a true "natural" look would be to have a geographic specific tank. That goes for fish too.

No I haven't ever been diving, still on the to do list.

There's no question that some corals have amazing pigments in the wild. What I was saying is that it is more likely for them to have brown or at least more muted colours. It seems to me that the bright pigments you can get with a ULN system seem to be one of the leading reasons people try it out. As both Greg and Oceanic pointed out brightly pigmented corals are over represented in the hobby compared to any wild reef patch because those are the ones selected for collection and mariculture. Nothing wrong with that of course. Additionally everyone is trying to tailor their systems to encourage these pigments to develop further. Again there's nothing wrong with that, it's very attractive.

What gets me is when people charaterize this setup as "natural", it's just not. The meaning of natural has been so twisted when used to market products in every aspect of our lives, not just the hobby and it bothers me. Like Greg pointed out there's nothing natural about what we are doing with fish and corals in the first place. People read natural and they think it must be a simple or at least easy to manage system.

I'm not against Zeovit, I'm against bullsh*t.

If you look at Drew's original issues through my patented anti-bullsh*t filter it frames the problem he is having differently. What he's trying to do is establish and grow bacteria cultures to eliminate nutrients he doesn't want without any other things like cyano getting a hold of these nutrients and doing things we don't want with them. This would be tricky to do in a sterile petri dish but instead we're doing it in a closed system with god know what else growing in it and a limited ability to both measure and control the concentrations the nutrients involved. There may be too much of something, to little of something else etc.

I think that pretending that we have a clear, full understanding of how these things work, what factors influence them and what they really accomplish in the end leads to frustrations like Drew initially expressed. It's not a clear, simple or "natural" thing. Every system is different and therefore every implementation of the system must take into account these differences, many of which we can't measure or control very well. I would suggest that if Drew had looked at his problem from that point of view initially he wouldn't have been so frustrated.

Who knows maybe I am just an overly pedantic net troll but it is my natural behavior so it must be good right?