A Response to Zeovit "Pastels"

[AlohaTropics]

Recently, I was going over the issue that people say they don't like the way Zeovit tanks look pastel in pictures they have seen. Pastel being the easter colors you see which seem like every color has been washed out with a little white added in to make reds pink and greens a lime green, etc...

My research into this is actually a direct quote from successful Zeo users who actually have Zeovit tanks and also has seen the ultimate successful Zeovit tank that belongs Thomas Pohl, the creator.

Here's what they had to say:

"Zeovit, as a system, does not encourage pale coloration (Pastels). If anything, like VSV, Prodibio or any other probiotic system, it intensifies coloration dramatically. A quick glance through any actual startup threads for these methods (on zeovit.com) will prove this beyond any speculation otherwise. That said, there are many pictures of Zeovit systems out there that admittedly seem to be choked full of bland, pastel looking corals. This is intentional and brought about via dosing of a product called Spur2.

I suppose the question one would ask to this is ?why???? Now, German people aren?t aesthetically challenged by any stretch of the imagination. They?re not doing this because they have quirky tastes or because they have genetic predisposition towards color blindness. They?re doing it because they can see an improvement that does not readily capture in photography. Anyone who has ever seen a tank makes successful use of Spur2 knows what I?m talking about. If you?ve ever tried to take a picture of a glo-stick, they never look vibrant, they look pale and pastel. Glowing objects just don?t seem to capture well in photography. Browse through the threads about Thomas? tanks at Korallen Zucht and you will find that every visitor to his shop will state the same thing: ?his corals glow so brightly, they look radioactive?.

In short, Zeovit does not cause pale colors. Those colors are an artifact of photography and are a misrepresentation of Spur2 dosing.

I hope that answers any questions about the pale horse that all the naysayers seem to ride so highly?"

So further on, I learned that Spur2 is a very "dangerous" product but also a very powerful tool. Spur2 when added causes a "controlled" bleaching of corals. Meaning it causes zooxanthalle to leave the corals. When dosed properly (and many have told me that it takes a lot of trials to figure out how much Spur2 your tank will use) it will cause an almost "radioactive" glowing of the corals. This is the observation that many have seen when they visit Thomas Pohl's system in Germany. They say that they've never seen corals so vibrantly colored. I guess I can compare this look to the deepest LED actinic glow on your corals but under daylight bulbs!

Spur2 as well as many of the other supplements are really not for tanks that aren't ready for them. These products are for later phases in your Zeovit journey. Many of these supplements are for what they call "canvasing" your tank or literally painting your tank, directly controlling the hues and brilliance of each corals colors.

Now I'm not a photographer, nor do i know anything about the technical aspect of photography so if any of you camera oriented people want to chime in, please do. The analogy of the glowstick was given. This really means that Zeovit tanks cannot be captured properly under regular photography. The radioactive glow comes out as pastelly.

I hope to offer a first person look at a fully running Zeo System to those who are interested. It'll take time to perfect, but I think I'm up for the task!

 

[DCG1286]

It's all in the eye of the beholder ... some people are going to like it .. some people are not.

 

[AlohaTropics]

Yes, it is all up to opinion. What I was trying to address was the "pastel" look that everyone hates, and I myself do not really like. I wanted to know why the germans do it and why it so popular, and I discovered that the "pastel" look is really not what you see in real life. Its the camera's not capturing the glow properly and making out to look pastel. I'm hoping thats what it is, but I guess I'll find out!

 

[AlohaTropics]

Here's actually a decent shot of a Zeovit tank

 

[DCG1286]

That picture almost looks fake ... lol ... I guess we have to wait for decent shots from your tank

 

[john90009]

That yellow/green millie is crazy i wish i had one of them.

 

[Galantra]

I been wondering I am adding a denitrifier with a phos option on my new system and also running the zeo system as well. Any views on what might happen?

 

[Josh]

Its pretty simple, come to MACNA and look at the corals in the Zeo tanks. They are MUCH more washed out than what appears in the photo.

Two years ago there was a huge tank of zeo acros and they looked strangely out of place next to the other tanks.

Personally, I like the color (even if it is not natural), but I'm not interested in amping up the chemistry in the tank with the risk of a huge crash.

 

[DCG1286]

I'm not interested in amping up the chemistry in the tank with the risk of a huge crash.

I fully agree!

 

[AlohaTropics]

I been wondering I am adding a denitrifier with a phos option on my new system and also running the zeo system as well. Any views on what might happen?

With the zeovit system, GFO and Denitrifiers are not needed because the system itself will produce a low nutrient environment. Phosphate will be measured in .001 realm. Denitrifiers are really not used because the system aims to eliminate ammonium before it even breaks down to nitrite or nitrate.

Zeo products can also be used on regular non-zeo systems. Products like Pohl's Xtra and Coral Snow, Zeozym, all are very beneficial to normal systems and will improve the quality and health of your corals. Supplements like Iron, B-Balance will all help improve coloring as well.

 

[Josh]

Do you have any documentation on benefits of supplementing with iron on non Zeo systems?

 

[DHaut]

i've said it before and i'll say it again, zeovit tanks look like a cruise ship full of old people in swimsuits. imo.

 

[AlohaTropics]

To my knowledge, Iron brings out the green colors in corals. The only documentation would be on Korallen Zucht's website for the product.

 

[Galantra]

With the zeovit system, GFO and Denitrifiers are not needed because the system itself will produce a low nutrient environment. Phosphate will be measured in .001 realm. Denitrifiers are really not used because the system aims to eliminate ammonium before it even breaks down to nitrite or nitrate.

Zeo products can also be used on regular non-zeo systems. Products like Pohl's Xtra and Coral Snow, Zeozym, all are very beneficial to normal systems and will improve the quality and health of your corals. Supplements like Iron, B-Balance will all help improve coloring as well.

I been really wondering about that, I really want to use the Natureef denitrifiers since it lenghten the time that i will need to do water changes by a large margin. But I already purchase reactor and everything needed to run ZEO system.

 

[SevTT]

To my knowledge, Iron brings out the green colors in corals. The only documentation would be on Korallen Zucht's website for the product.

Not quite. If someone wanted to take the time to go through back issues of Advanced Aquarist, there's detailed information on the various pigment molecules found in corals. Reds in acroporoids, for example, are enhanced by iron. If I could find out the molecular composition of the pigment molecules, I could verify whether certain atoms are necessary for them, but that information isn't contained in the AA articles and I can't be arsed to do additional research, which would probably involve plumbing into scholarly journals that I don't have easy access to.

Edit: Here's the article that talks about the red pigment in acropoids: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/4/aafeature1

 

[SevTT]

With the zeovit system, GFO and Denitrifiers are not needed because the system itself will produce a low nutrient environment. Phosphate will be measured in .001 realm. Denitrifiers are really not used because the system aims to eliminate ammonium before it even breaks down to nitrite or nitrate.

Zeo products can also be used on regular non-zeo systems. Products like Pohl's Xtra and Coral Snow, Zeozym, all are very beneficial to normal systems and will improve the quality and health of your corals. Supplements like Iron, B-Balance will all help improve coloring as well.

I don't know much about the Zeo system, though I've done a bit of reading about it. What I distrust about the Zeo system -- as I understand it -- is that certain aspects smack of snake oil. For example, adding a couple drops of bacterial culture to a tank every few days for the life of the tank. This makes sense if you're starting out with dry rock or something, or initially cycling a tank, but by the time you have your rock and substrate properly colonized, a few drops of bacteria are gonna do absolutely nothing, unless you had a catastophic crash that wiped out all life in your tank. There're a bunch of other additives that you 'have' to dose regularly, and it doesn't seem like most of them give any detail as to what they actually are. Plus, they do stupid things like mislabeling amino acids as 'food'. (They're not. They're one of the building blocks of food, but it requires actual energy to use raw amino acids. Breaking proteins down into amino acids releases energy which can be used to power the organism. And I have distinct doubts about how tiny concentrations of freely-available amino acids are actually used. Soaking food in them makes sense, but just adding them to the tanks in tiny amounts? Not so much.)

...Oh, and according to zeovitusa.com, they charge about fifteen bucks for two pounds of rocks (their zeolite material.) Not even live rock. Sheesh.

And I'm even more concerned about being dependent on one company for their voodoo to keep my tank going. God help all these zeovit users if the company goes belly-up and doesn't sell its IP.

 

[AlohaTropics]

Well, I'm not arguing about the fact that the ingredients are kept secret. But to address the few things you mentioned above:

The Zeobak is added daily because when you dose Zeostart2 (the actual carbon source that is dosed to help keep the tank at ultra low nutrient conditions) cyanobacteria and certain algae will constantly compete with the zeo bacteria in colonization. Once your zeobacteria is established, many have documented a decrease in dosing but you must still continue to dose because of the carbon dosing. You don't want cyano to win the battle. Also, because your zeolites are changed out once every 6-8 weeks, you need to recolonize your zeolite rocks with zeobacteria as well.

The only elements that are absolutely "necessary" to dose in the zeosystem is the zeobak, zeostart2 and some sort food for the bacteria such as zeofood7 or spongepower. those 3 are essential. all of the other supplements aim at tweaking your system to make it better.

Realize also, when you say the bacteria will colonize the rock, I only have 200lbs. of rock in my 600gallon system. By general rule, that is not enough rock. Also realize, that the chemisty is completely different. You no longer use denitrifying bacteria for breakdown of ammonia as the zeolite rocks aim at absorbing and containing ammonia itself.

I'm not sure about the amino acids. I do know that there is distinctively different products called Zeofood7 and High Amino Acids for SPS and LPS. Pretty sure they're not the same product so I do wonder what you mean by labeling Amino Acids as Food.

Finally, the zeolite rocks are completely different than live rock.

I agree, there is very much unknown factors in the zeo method. But through the zeovit forums and speaking directly to people like Albert at proline aquatics and Bob and Alexander on the forums, many zeo users that have successful tanks for years have a better in depth knowledge of the chemistry and what each product really does. I'm still learning myself, but with anything new, you sometimes have to put aside what you've learned already and just try to start with an open mind. I know the big controversy is the detailed ingredients to the products but thats how Thomas Pohl feeds his family. Even without the details put out, Brightwell has "copied" the method.

IMO, we want our tanks to look as good as they can. If there is a method that works really well, I can follow it, and slowly learn and discover what makes it work. I don't need to understand every bit of the science involved, as long as my results are good. But thats just me

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

IMO, we want our tanks to look as good as they can. If there is a method that works really well, I can follow it, and slowly learn and discover what makes it work. I don't need to understand every bit of the science involved, as long as my results are good. But thats just me

You should also consider hwo easy is the system. I did not use Zeo but will be interested to know your results especially if you can detail how easy or hard to follow the procedures.

Let me give an example why people use MH over many other lighting technologies. I have been asking this questionbut many "experts" in the forums and/or real marine scientists has never asnwered it yet-what wavelength fo the light the corals need to grow, what wave length of light get you better color. Of course, the question extends to what type of corals too. No manufacturer of MH lights make specific documentation on that nor much of them have official PAR rating. Most hobbyist rely on third parties results such as Sanjay lighting guide and/or from other hobbyist word of mouth. Nevertheless with this amazingly lack of official info or details of a light bulb, MH become the major lighting technology of reefing. When a hobbyist go to buy a bulb the most likely mind of thought is what color is the bulb as he knows from users' feed back, in most cases, they all work. No need to be too picky of the choice what percentage of certain wavelength can the light bulbd makes if you are not planning on doing a Tank of Month thing or Most Green Lighted Ever on Earth. That means an easy system is very important for the success of that technology. Good Luck, I eagerly want to hear your documentary of the system. Please be objective too when you come to a conclusion.

Good Luck

 

[juiceguy]

well i am following along.....i think the basic idea of the zeolites removing ammonia before it can get processed into nitrate and so on is great but you walk a fine line because of the constant dosing to maintain that environment. i don't want to be married to my tank that is why i shy away from zeo.

 

[AlohaTropics]

Definitely agree that a Zeo system takes more care. I also believe that with any system, you get use to it and the care gets quicker and easier, but its all about how much time your willing to spend. Right now, here is my schedule:

10am - 10:30
quick pumping of the rocks (10 sec)
add 2mL of Zeostart2
add 15 drops of Sponge Power
on Sundays and Wednesdays add 25 drops of Zeobak mixed in with either Zeozym or Coral Snow

9pm - 9:30
pump the rocks
add another 2ml of Zeostart2 (I can add 4ml at once but like any carbon dose its better to split it more evenly)
If I'm using zeozym with the bak the next day, I mix 2 tblspns to prepare for the next day (it needs to sit for 8hrs)

These things are basically daily along with wiping down the glass, etc...

On Sundays I spend and extra hour changing out 10% of water, testing all my levels, etc...

I'm sure when I get into phase 3 & 4, it will get more involved with all the coloring supplements but that is a personal preference option and not necessary. Hope this gives an idea of basic Zeo schedule.

Oh yeah, and contrary to popular belief, if I miss a day here or there, my tank will not crash. The nutrients may rise alittle but it will go down again.