Zeovit method increasing in popularity, examined
Posted September 14th, 2008 by Ryan
Seriously it is. If you haven’t heard of Zeovit then where have you been? Zeovit is a American German method of nutrient control. Using zeolites which are a group of natural occurring minerals on earth, hooked with a reactor, the zeolites rob the water of most all nutrients. The material does not directly remove nitrite (NO2), nitrate (NO3), or phosphate (PO4) from the tank water. Instead it permanently absorbs ammonium (NH4+) and ammonia (NH3), the first two chemicals in the nitrification cycle, thus preventing the formation of nitrite (NO2) and nitrate (NO3). What’s left? Not much, your going to need to dose additional supplements to counteract what the zeolite system strips out. The theory is to only dose what is need for your corals to thrive. The trick? The right amount to dose per tank and the schedule in which you need to keep up. Your going to have to dose drops every day and weekly water changes of at least 5% (or more depending on your system setup) are a must. Running ozone, or PO4 reactors aren’t an option and need to be discontinued. And to be honest, we’ve never seen a bad Zeovit tank.
It’s my understanding that the Zeolites also play a role in culturing bacteria which are the real source of nutrient export in the system when they are removed by the protein skimmer. I am sure bad zeotanks exist but no one is proud to show those off.
I didn’t go into full detail but yes you are correct the zeolite’s mulm help feed culturing bacteria. I doubt you’ll see a bad zeotank, you either are doing it correctly or in a very short time your tank is fryed.
The zeolite’s mulm IS the bacteria. Personally I feel more comfortable with Prodibio’s products and I am trying their pro line on a 1200 reef at the moment.