Zeovit vs Vodka?

[demonboy369]

Who wins? ZeoVit or Vodka?

Whats the pros and cons of each?

Which do you feel is better? (Have you tried both?)

Zeovit has a guide per gallon, Whats is the general per g for vodka?

Whos more effective?

Any special vodka work better than another? 90$ bottle work any different than 6$ bottle of same size and proof?

How about 151 proof everclear compared to the vodka?

I want experienced advice only. You dont have to have experience with both to give advice on 1 but dont say bad about the other without a link or a reason to feel that way.

I want personal experience or proven reason.

I am planning my next tank and rethinking what I have.

Also how fish/reef safe is the alcohol. I know how it affects us. What if we would accidentally overdose our corals/fish?

[HighlandReefer]

If you are referring to reducing nitrates and phosphates in your system, then they both work. You need to follow the directions or you can end up with bacterial blooms when dosing any carbon source. Bacterial blooms can rob enough oxygen from your tank water to distress or even kill fish. If you reduce your nitrate and phosphate too low you can kill or damage many types of coral such as soft corals.

Which is better at reducing the nitrate & phosphate, I have no clue. Vodka is much cheaper. When you dose vodka, you know what you are adding to your tank. Zeovit does not disclose their ingredients. It is hard to compare things when you don't know what is in one of the items you are trying to compare. IMHO, vodka is the way to go for reducing nitrate and phosphate because it works and it is much cheaper.

This article explains in detail how to dose vodka:

Vodka Dosing...Distilled!
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...nftt/index.php

If you want to get into color changes in sps, growth of coral and other realms that many of the advanced hobbyists are working on with sps coral, then the Zeo system has worked this out for you in some cases & does provide directions to go by. But you need to pay the price. Many of the hobbyists in this realm, are working with combinations of carbons sources, amino acids, vitamins & micro-nutrients. You will need to read the threads on these subjects to find recipes that worked for the hobbyists who provide the information.

[HighlandReefer]

I just noticed your signature. If you are working with Gorgonia, then that is a realm of its own. Zeovit, from my understanding is mainly directed at the sps coral. I am not familiar with how effective it works with the Gorgonia.

Most threads dealing with the Gorgonia use their own special recipes.

[demonboy369]

Na its not for the gorg but thanks for noticing

Im setting up another tank in the future and was thinking about going zeo on it but everyone seems to be pro-vodka and i wanted to see what the feelings towards each are.

[Nanz]

I have tried both and I vote for the Vodka.

My reason is because I do keep some LPS and soft corals in my system and the Zeo rocks take out not only the bad but also the good. They can reduce your trace elements to a critical level and the Zeo users counter this by dosing these elements manualy or through more frequent water changes.

I tried the zeo system for 6 months so I gave it a good try but in my tank it never really helped. I performed weekly test on NH3 and NO3 and neither of them bottomed out. It might be because of my DSB and it might be because of the corals I have but I saw no significant difference than if I was just doing weekly waterchanges.

Now I dose vodka and only change my water monthly rather than weekly. The Zeo is a good system but you have to be really attentive to your tank and constantly dosing and testing. You will need to test your potassium because the rocks will deplete it from your system. Overdosing potassium can be deadly to your tank and the test kit for it is not cheap or easy to use. I am lucky that I can test it in my lab on an ICP.

Either way if your going to use Zeo or Vodka you need to have a good skimmer.