Benifits of ZEOwater only?

[MrMongoose]

I'm wondering if just useing ZEOwater for waterchanges is benifical to a tank, or do you need the reactor and additives to make an impact. The reason I'm asking is because I have a friend who is setting up a small 20G reef and we wanted to use the water I take out of my tank for water changes and add it to his tank. Will this have any effect?

[invincible569]

You will get a better response in this forum instead of the Lounge.

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

... we wanted to use the water I take out of my tank for water changes and add it to his tank. Will this have any effect?

An interesting question ... it depends. If the ZEOwater ... a new term? ... hehe ... is in fact "low nutrient", i.e., zero NH3, NO2, NO3, PO4, pH ~8.0, and KH ~7 ... then it might work well as a supplemental water choice. By the measure of those six factors, we're talking about an approximation to NSW, right?

But I suspect it's not that straightforward ... the presence of AAHC, PIF, Fe ... etc ... ZEOproduct remnants might prove problematic. Also, if the ZEOwater were to contain mulm residuals, we're talking about the transferance of bacterial strains and perhaps even "sequestered" phosphate/metal ion complexes. The bacterial transfer has the potential to negatively disrupt the receiving system's biodiversity and microflora/microfauna "equilibrium", not that that's necessarily bad. The transferance of "sequestered" phosphate complexes ... in whatever form ... is potentially problematic.

Additionally, there are things which are transferred in water from established systems that are typically neither measured, nor observed. Chemically, I'm talking about stuff like phenols, sulfides, bisulfides, sulfates ... yatayatayata ... which could become problematic over time. Biologically, I'm talking about the Big Nasties ... pathogens. I'm not at all comfortable with the concept of introducing disease/pathogen vectors ... particularly as a regular husbandry/maintenance practice ... but I have no way of making any reasonable risk assessment.

I'm wondering if just useing ZEOwater for waterchanges is benifical to a tank, or do you need the reactor and additives to make an impact.

This is a concept I encounter at work all the time. People focus ... quite naturally ... on the water. And yet, it's not about the water. This is why transferring "aged/old" water from the system during a tank move is a waste of effort ... unless the hobbyist has no ability, or opportunity, to match chemistry & physical parameters in the "new" water.

I submit that it's really about whatever "Heart" is at the center of the filtration design that the system utilizes. If that "Heart" is bacterial in nature, then the water is just a physical/environmental factor ... it's actually all about the biomass, local density, and colonized surface area of the bacterial media, and how fast metabolism of undesired reactants takes place.

Given that the ZeoBak and ZEOvit (... and their interrelationship within a ZeoReactor ...) comprise one of the "Hearts" of the ZEOvit system, I suspect that the use of ZEOwater would have minimal impact.

JMO ... HTH.

[Aged Salt]

Hi Nathan, while we have joked in the past about selling our discard zeo-water, this water is a the end result of the ZEOvit filtration method-zeolites, bak, food, & start, all interacting with each other & our skimmer, to produce nutrient-poor levels, but at the same time containing by-products of metabolism within the chemical soup which we know as "seasoned water", many of which are not desireable above certain levels for WC's. Bob

[nyfireman3097]

thats what i would think were changing it to add fresh water for the trace elements and such
Nick

[Micro-Reefer]

seems like i read somewhere skeletor was trying this.... here it is quote.... oh yeah, the other cool think about the zeovit is that I've been putting the WC water from my 20 into my two other tanks and they also are looking great as a result. While the bacteria doesn't have the zeolites to host in they still live in the LR so some of them at least are doing some good.

-skeletor-

hope you dont mind skeletor