N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[daveonbass]

thanks deej...I am so friggin happy to finally test for NO3 and get a paler shade of yellow than the reference card. AND practically over night the "proper" corals responded to the lack of NO3. in other words my zoas are NOT happy...and i've heard they don't need a ULNS system. My rics got used to it...and my LPS finally started to look better...But my SPS are looking better than ever.

The Nem started walking around again though that little pill. But all in all the water is crystal clear, and the tank glass is not needing to be cleaned every day/every other day. The residual algae on the rocks is white, so now I can see that I had more than I thought I did. And there is NO cyno anywhere...after the lights have been on ALL day, just towards the lights out time, the WHITE sand gets a slight tint of brown to it in the flats. Then after the lights go out...HUNDREDS of tiny snails and pods come up from the sand and clean it bleached white by morning.

I LOOOOVE IT. The tank is so much more stable now that the NO3 is done fluctuating. So I'm hopeful that it IS the BP and that any tiny amount of N or P will be much easier for any bacteria to control and keep it at the undetectable levels.

If I come across any money I wish to invest in all the more accurate test kits to help in setting up NEW tanks...and to monitor how low things are in the current tank. But for now I cant find any trace of N or P with the average consumer grade API test kits...

IT may not be a ULNS, but its at lease a uLNS.

[tntneon]

great to hear Dave

But look out with sugar as it sometimes triggers cyano.
Decreassing sugar slowly , else you get massive starvation of bacteria and NO and P will rise again , and see what happens if every thing stays in check then you can decrease slowly to zero sugar dosing.

As for the new formula pellets , the ones i left soaking for 48 houres , i added yesterday to my reactor , and it seems that they don't float as much like the first ones (wich is a good thing ).
Had no blooming or so ever , due to the fact nitrates are a rocksteady 0.2 ppm and po4 i don't know anymore (no test kit , still waiting for an anwser of HANNA for the ULR checker , they don't sell here... ).
I'm very curious if my Chaeto growth will decreasse again , it first increassed alot when BP's where worn out.


greetingzz tntneon

[stevedola]

Originally Posted by Moser

Why??



If it's not broken, why are you trying to fix it????

Mo

what am I fixing? Im only trying to see the difference. Do some tests...ect.

BTW...Who are you again>? dont concern yourself with me and Ill do the same with you. THX

[pfy333]

Originally Posted by pfy333

I'm on my 8 day using 1000ml in a Nextreef reactor with a Tunze pump rated around 600+ gph in my 120. My pellets are tumbling pretty aggresively. Put 500ml first, then 4 hrs later 500ml more. No ill effect on my tank so far.
I decided to use it due to cyano and hair algae out break. 2 cups of GFO didn't put a dent on my algae problem. My NO3 is 0 on Elos and PO4 is .03 on Hanna before NP pellets. My cyano and hair algae is disappearing. I'm not going to test for another 3 weeks because I can see it working.

Well, its been almost 5 months and the first 3 months the cyano just kept growing, but I'm happy to say I got the cyano pretty much beat expect for 3 quarter size areas. What did it for me was starting back up on MB7 on month 4, after 1 month later it seemed like nothing was going to kill it. Then I read a post (forgot who) about dropping the temperature. I changed my temp from 80F to 79F while still dosing MB7 and presto. The cyano started dying! This is with no water change for 3 months. At the moment I have reduced MB7 to 20ml and hope to ween it out.

[ari5736]

Any updates Dave? Have you stopped sugar dosing? I started vodka this week to try and get my pellets going again.

[daveonbass]

so far so great.

I have not added any sugar, pappone since the bloom. I finally moved my two cardinal fish back in (higher bioload) and also bought some more mysid shrimp and have been doing heavy feeding...and nitrates are still 0ppm.

so as I keep testing through the weeks I think that they are finally working for me...still.

[Gromert]

Good results for me now too. This was what I learned from the distrubutors here in Sweden. Use a 1250 Eheim (1200L/H) together with a Deltec FR509 with max 500 ml of pellets. Add 100 ml/week over 5 weeks. Now my nitrate has decreased from 50 to 2 in about 5 weeks. No other changes in the system has been made)

[Tony Romano]

This stuff is fantastic! I now have my 8 big fish, sps, lps, softies, non-photos all thriving. sps is still a bit too brown, I am going to see what I can accomplish with some ZEO products.

BTW - I add MB7 most days, ZOEvites in zeoreactor, ZEObac weekly or when I change rocks. I also have a string of PM reactors with old ZEO rock. I removed 2/3 of my live rock about 3 months ago and created a multi level wide open structure. Last I run GAC in bags and am debating GFO.

I have removed Ozone and Sulfur reactors.

[daveonbass]

good to hear tony. I too have been slowly adding to the system, mostly corals. And still my N and P levels are zero (undetectable). It took a week or two for the corals to get used to the sudden drop of no3 to zero. But now things seem to be running fine again. The added bioload didn't seem to do anything to increas the no3. So I'm still gladi stuck it out.

[SaltwaterAdict]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

haha...thanks guys...now I don't know what to do with my life/tank. This morning I noticed that the tank is cloudy again...and my skimmer is going nuts with clearish dirty water. It's just overfowing like crazy. If anyone remembers when I did rice, it looks and smells like that did. Only difference is that NOW, after just testing, the NO3 is 0ppm. I think the test tube was a lighter shade of yellow than the reference strip. Like I have negative NO3. I'm thrilled that it's doing "something" but not to pleased with the cloudy tank. My fish and lps are looking upset, but the sps look fine. Now that the skimmer is not dialed up and over flowing, the fish look better, and don't seem as stressed. But my zoas, gsp, and rics are not too happy. The lps are looking better but still not great. And again the sps seem to have had no change.

should I add anything else now, like gac...or just let the cloud go away on it's own.

IMO I think these just like anything that comes out new hasn't been experimented with enough and the buyers are at risk with their livestock. Whoever came out with these should've done tests to prove they accurately work how they have been perceived to work. I'm going to stick with GFO and carbon because the majority of people I have read through have only experienced bad results; cloudy water, cyano outbreaks, skimmer going nuts, corals bleaching out, corals looking unhealthy, the list goes on.

Waterchanges/GAC/GFO has always worked well for me and plenty others so that's what I'm going to stay with. Good luck to those who are in a maze with these pellets..

[daveonbass]

the whole event lasted a couple of hours and now I have had nothing but "blue skys," it's been great. The life in my tank has never looked better. I simply maintain calc, alk, and mag, and do the occasional 10g water change now. So what's the problem? My corals are being "fed" from the run off bacteria that are not skimmed...and PE and color are the best my tank has seen. All my LPS are splitting/multiplying so my tank is spontaniously growing faster than it ever has. My sps look great and all new additions look better than in the store, and my montis are going nuts with growth.

I had the HARDEST time getting these pellets to work, but I really wanted to know why they didn't. And now that they have become active, I can finally see what all the rave is about. Cyno, and algae disappeared almost over night.

I'm going to have to make sure I keep using them in all my tanks...its been a long road...but now I'm very happy with them. The next time I use them I'm going to try the original batch I got (that never worked) and try to replicate what I did in the current tank to try and activate them.

this has been a great thread to helping understand how these work best in all the different systems.

[sirreal63]

Originally Posted by SaltwaterAdict

IMO I think these just like anything that comes out new hasn't been experimented with enough and the buyers are at risk with their livestock. Whoever came out with these should've done tests to prove they accurately work how they have been perceived to work. I'm going to stick with GFO and carbon because the majority of people I have read through have only experienced bad results; cloudy water, cyano outbreaks, skimmer going nuts, corals bleaching out, corals looking unhealthy, the list goes on.

Waterchanges/GAC/GFO has always worked well for me and plenty others so that's what I'm going to stay with. Good luck to those who are in a maze with these pellets..

Good thing it is just your opinion and your experience with the product is invaluable.

If you took the time to look into the product you would see it wasn't created for the aquarium industry, but someone saw the benefit and realized it would work in place of a liquid carbon dosing regimen...something many of us have done for lots of years. This just makes it easier, and the testing and R&D is being done by those who actually bought the product and have learned from it and tried to pass that experience on to others. That is what the focus of this thread is about...helping others with the product, not coming into this thread and saying they are not worth your time.

I respect your right to an opinion but really...how has it contributed?

[izzy123]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

the whole event lasted a couple of hours and now I have had nothing but "blue skys," it's been great. The life in my tank has never looked better. I simply maintain calc, alk, and mag, and do the occasional 10g water change now. So what's the problem? My corals are being "fed" from the run off bacteria that are not skimmed...and PE and color are the best my tank has seen. All my LPS are splitting/multiplying so my tank is spontaniously growing faster than it ever has. My sps look great and all new additions look better than in the store, and my montis are going nuts with growth.

I had the HARDEST time getting these pellets to work, but I really wanted to know why they didn't. And now that they have become active, I can finally see what all the rave is about. Cyno, and algae disappeared almost over night.

I'm going to have to make sure I keep using them in all my tanks...its been a long road...but now I'm very happy with them. The next time I use them I'm going to try the original batch I got (that never worked) and try to replicate what I did in the current tank to try and activate them.

this has been a great thread to helping understand how these work best in all the different systems.

I'm very happy for you!!

[lbaldrey]

daveonbass...what was your sugar dosing regimen? can you post some more info on that?

[jason2459]

Only major problem I've had with np type pellets are my nutrient levels falling to fast and having that upset my LPS.
Starting off with fewer pellets and slowly adding in more is probably a good idea.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[ryanuuy]

Ive been using the NP biopellets for about 3 weeks now and so far so good. i just find it strange that diatoms are showing up in my glass again.

im not sure if its because of the pellets because of 2 reasons:

1. i upped the magnesium to 1600 to get rid of pesky bryopsis
2. i added a few new dried live rocks into my tank because i was doing a little re-aquascaping.

what do you guys think? do you think this is normal?

[daveonbass]

Originally Posted by lbaldrey

daveonbass...what was your sugar dosing regimen? can you post some more info on that?

none.

I dosed 2tsp for 4 days...got the bloom...then stopped to see if the pellets would continue to work. So far they have. My N and P levels are still undetectable.

sorry I'm not more help...thats all I did with sugar. I now just monitor the N levels to see if the pellets still work.

[daveonbass]

Originally Posted by ryanuuy

Ive been using the NP biopellets for about 3 weeks now and so far so good. i just find it strange that diatoms are showing up in my glass again.

im not sure if its because of the pellets because of 2 reasons:

1. i upped the magnesium to 1600 to get rid of pesky bryopsis
2. i added a few new dried live rocks into my tank because i was doing a little re-aquascaping.

what do you guys think? do you think this is normal?

interesting cause I noticed a similar thing in my tank after adding more rock. I now have a tiny algae out break on the sand...and I think it's all from the new rock getting "broken in" by the life in the tank...from the bacteria all the way up to the higher life forms.

keep me/us posted if it goes away. I'm interested because I've had to clean the glass more too and yet my N and P are still undetectable.

[ryanuuy]

same here. my sps are doing great while my acans arent opening up as much and my favorite acan is actually missing a head! i hope it recovers in due time though!

have your LPS recovered after they got used to low nutrients in your system?

[daveonbass]

yes. After 2-3 days everything was better than normal. All my corals are not growing and splitting and all that fun stuff. But that funky spell only lasted a few days. I was referring to the new appearance of algae on the sand in the corners and needing to clean the glass just as much as before, butthats only occurred after adding more rock. So there may be a corrilation...

[wloftin]

I started using the Ecobak pellets about 5 months ago and placed 500mL in a bag hanging in my 120's overflow drain area, so I'm not using a reactor set up at all... I have shaken the pellets once or twice to knock off debris, but they are pretty much undisturbed where the are. I have been measuring zero detectable nitrates and phosphate for the past month now... I hadn't tested in a while, but the last time I did, before I started using the pellets, I had ~5 phosphates, ~5-10 Nitrates.

My corals, both LPS and SPS are doing great (euphyllia, plate coral, mushrooms, birdsnest, monti- setosa/digitata/caps, stylophora, to name a few).

[ryanuuy]

i have a question for when you guys LPS were affected by the addition of the NP biopellets!

I added mine over the course of 3 weeks. My water volume is around 110gallons so im using 500ml of the biopellets and i added them at around 150ml a week. My acans and brains were incredibly opened up before but ever since i added the last batch of the biopellets, the dont seem to be opened up as much at night. Is this normal? How long did it take your LPS to recover?

[bluereefs]

ryanuuy do you feed your corals? I feed a loot when I use bio pellets and they enjoy. I do had similar issue in the begining of bp usage but after I start again with weekly slow adition do not see negative changes in lps corals

[ryanuuy]

yes i do feed my corals a lot. i target feed them at least once a week with chopped shrimp. i lowered the amount of zooplankton i broadcast feed though because i noticed that i get a hydrioid problem when i do that. And the weird thing is that its only one acan thats not opening up as much. the other acans i have are all doing great!

[wloftin]

Originally Posted by ryanuuy

And the weird thing is that its only one acan thats not opening up as much. the other acans i have are all doing great!

This sounds like a problem with that particular coral, not with pellet dosing. I'd look to other reasons for your acans problem...