N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[thebanker]

I don't know of anyone running an ATS and pellets. If you have the ATS working at capacity, it might be worth trying.

[daveonbass]

or try taking the ATS offline and see if the nitrates bump up to the right ratio for the PO4 to then come down with the NO3. Or in my case just jump start it all with sugar doseing. Like Mary Poppins said "...a spoon full of sugar helps the N and P go down..."

sorry I'm in a goofy mood. :P

[ryanuuy]

I have been using BP for about 3 months now in my 120g DT and 50g sump and so far its been pretty great. My water is clearer and my N and P are definitely way less. My sps all have colored up and are showing pretty good signs of growth.

By next month, Im actually going to be adding a new fuge to my tank where i will place a DSB, liverocks, and a little macroalgae. This isnt really for reducing N or P further but to develop the organisms like pods and whatnot that will help feed my SPS. Would my macroalgae all just die? Does anyone keep macroalgae that do okay with BP in their systems as well?

[thebanker]

I keep chaetomorpha and green grape caulerpa. Both grow, not as fast as they did before BP but they still grow.

[ryanuuy]

Should i still add a DSB to that fuge? I was thinking that it would just be redundant since the BP will take care of the nutrients and the little left will be taken by the macroalgae so the DSB will basically be useless. Am i right in saying that? I was still going to put maybe 1 or 2 inches of sand to house critters like pods which provide food for the corals.

[tmz]

I keep chaetomorpha refugia for the habitat and opposite photoperiod oxygenation. The chaeto does reasonably well even with carbon dosing with PO4 in the .03 to .05ppm range and NO3 sub 1ppm. In the past I dosed a little iron for the chaeto with good results.

[tntneon]

I had to upgrade my lighting in order to keep my chaeto alive and growing in combination with the bp's

greetingzz tntneon

[ryanuuy]

I plan to keep mostly chaeto in opposite photoperiod of the tank.

tntneon, what lights are you using for your chaeto now?

[tntneon]

hi ryanuuy ,

I use an 26 watt PL lamp 6500°K , i'm very happy with this lamp

here 's a link of a dutch online shop thats sells them

http://www.aquariaveldhuis.nl/index....productID=8141

greetingzz tntneon

[kirkaz]

I'm going to give the biopellets a try in my heavily stocked 240. I have a Precision Marine Reactor on the way, 20 inch tall by 4.5 inches dia.. I have a Mag 2.5 sitting around, curious if this would work ok, or is it too much flow? Also curious if anybody has tried the Warner Marine ecoBAK ULNS Pellets? Premium Aquatics seems to be fond of them....Thanks.

[Scej12]

Should be fine with the flow. I'm using a mag 3 on a 6" diameter reactor (18" high). Works okay for me. I've only used SWC and Vertec which look identical. I suspect any one of the products will work, not sure how much difference the actual binding agents might make, but everyone seems to be reporting good results from any of the brands.

SJ

[intenseimage]

If you happen to overfill your reactor and cant get any tumbling of the media, would it be safe to remove some pellets, dry them off, and store them in an airtight container

[Scej12]

yes... rinse in ro water first though.

[bertoni]

I agree that a rinse in RO water would help reduce any precipitation on the media, and maybe remove some organics. The media should be fine.

[intenseimage]

Great, thanks for the prompt response!

[tntneon]

happy new year everyone !!!!!!!


tntneon

[gary faulkner]

Just found this thread. Is there a concise run down on one or two of these pages? 136 pages is a lot of reading. Can someone help a fellow reefer out?

Thanks in Advance

[rguyler]

It's been a month now using the Vertex pellets and my GHA has definitely been dying off at a good rate. I still have some left on the plumbing and powerheads but most of it is gone from the rock.

My nitrates started at 20 when I first added the pellets and thought it wouldn't be too long before they reduced down to nearly zero. However, I just tested again and they went up to 60! My only theory here is that the GHA die-off has caused this to happen but I haven't heard anybody else report this so I'm skeptical that's the reason.

Currently I'm running a full liter (1000ml) of the pellets in a TLF550 with total water volume of 300G. At first I was pushing a lot of water through the pellets to keep them fluidized but didn't see any change in the GHA or get the typical algae bloom so I slowed the flow down somewhat and that brought the bloom I expected but the pellets started to clump up so I increased the flow again. I haven't heard of anybody really commenting on the optimal flow rate for the pellets, only to keep them gently tumbling. I also have another liter of the pellets sitting on standby so maybe I should add more pellets.

Anybody have any suggestions or ideas here?

[FlammySnake]

Havent seen mention of the tlf pellets, which I began using in the tlf 150 reactor about 2 weeks ago. Will report results as seen!

[langtudatinh01]

well, seem like i can't control the amount of bacteria too much. i have LPS slowly receeding. there is a film of translucent bacteria then slowly they die. i did a lugo's dip today for all the infected corals. i also reduce the amount of pellets in half (125 ml for 50 total gallons of water). i think i might have low bioload and the pellets depleted nutrient in the water and too much bacteria for my bioload. side note, all my sps are doing really good.

[SaltyNovice]

Well its been 4 weeks since I added the first 500mL of the WM Ecobak pellets and two weeks since I added the second 500mL. The skimmer has been producing a whole lot more foam than before so I thought I might see some difference in the params this time - at least a little improvement. But no, My "trates are still 80+ on my API tests and the Salfiert tests are still showing 50 or so. It's hard to compare since you don't have the vials and their colors from the last tests. I even tested the water coming straight out of the TLF reactor that contains the first batch of pellets (the ones that have been tumbling for a month now). That reading was still 80+ on the API tests. So unfortunately I don't have any good news to provide for my tank. I'll let you know how the tests go next couple of weeks or so.

[rguyler]

Originally Posted by gary faulkner

Just found this thread. Is there a concise run down on one or two of these pages? 136 pages is a lot of reading. Can someone help a fellow reefer out?

Thanks in Advance

Gary, I don't know if there is good summary that can be given. In all of the threads I've read, regardless of the brand, the results seem to be mixed. For every one person who has great results there is another who has negligible results.

Here's what I can summarize through the last few months of reading these:

1) Add the pellets slowly initially. Take a couple of weeks at least to get up to the final amount of pellets you want to run. This seems to reduce the algae blooms you will experience at first.

2) You need to keep the pellets tumbling but how much seems to be subjective. In my personal experience, if you don't tumble them enough they will clump together.

3) Most people try to dump the effluent of the reactor at the input of the skimmer pump in order to reduce the bacterial bloom. IMHO this may not really do much but it's a current "best practice". Either way, expect your skimmer to kick into overdrive when using the pellets so make sure the skimmer is ready to handle the load.

There is still a lot of experimentation to be performed here. Results are too variable to form solid opinions for the most part. You will also find a mixed camp on things such as adding some form of starter bacteria supplement or how these will really (or if at all) these will change the water chemistry and what we have to do to create the ideal environment for the pellets to be effective.

The bottom line is there really isn't one. It doesn't require an extreme investment so if you have an available reactor and have an issue with algae or your nitrates/phosphates are too high then consider just giving them a try for yourself. If you read my previous post, you'll see that even though my nitrates seemed to go up, my GHA is definitely receding. Figure that one out!

[gary faulkner]

Rik,
Thanks for the run-down. At least now I have an idea of what it's about.

Thanks again

[Scej12]

Originally Posted by rguyler

It's been a month now using the Vertex pellets and my GHA has definitely been dying off at a good rate. I still have some left on the plumbing and powerheads but most of it is gone from the rock.

My nitrates started at 20 when I first added the pellets and thought it wouldn't be too long before they reduced down to nearly zero. However, I just tested again and they went up to 60! My only theory here is that the GHA die-off has caused this to happen but I haven't heard anybody else report this so I'm skeptical that's the reason.

Currently I'm running a full liter (1000ml) of the pellets in a TLF550 with total water volume of 300G. At first I was pushing a lot of water through the pellets to keep them fluidized but didn't see any change in the GHA or get the typical algae bloom so I slowed the flow down somewhat and that brought the bloom I expected but the pellets started to clump up so I increased the flow again. I haven't heard of anybody really commenting on the optimal flow rate for the pellets, only to keep them gently tumbling. I also have another liter of the pellets sitting on standby so maybe I should add more pellets.

Anybody have any suggestions or ideas here?

Originally Posted by SaltyNovice

Well its been 4 weeks since I added the first 500mL of the WM Ecobak pellets and two weeks since I added the second 500mL. The skimmer has been producing a whole lot more foam than before so I thought I might see some difference in the params this time - at least a little improvement. But no, My "trates are still 80+ on my API tests and the Salfiert tests are still showing 50 or so. It's hard to compare since you don't have the vials and their colors from the last tests. I even tested the water coming straight out of the TLF reactor that contains the first batch of pellets (the ones that have been tumbling for a month now). That reading was still 80+ on the API tests. So unfortunately I don't have any good news to provide for my tank. I'll let you know how the tests go next couple of weeks or so.

Hey Folks - I'm going to suggest what I would call for lack of a better title: "a bucket test". when you're next servicing or de-clumping your pellet reactor, try removing the pellets; put them into a pail with some aquarium water (enough water to allow for your pellets and a powerhead to operate); and measure your trates/phates the next day. I bet they will measure at zero.

I did this rather serendipitously when I was wondering why my tank params were taking months to change. I'm now at the conclusion that it takes time. I was coming down from somewhere well over the 160ppm that the api test measures. I've been running the pellets for about 3.5 months in total now; and run approx. 3.5L on a 500g (total) system. I just hit 40ppm convincingly (sometimes hard to decipher the shades of red) over the last couple of weeks. I expect to be down below 10 by February. In all I'm guestimating it will take me a total of 5 months to go from 200+ppm to 0ppm nitrates. My phosphates are currently around .5ppm, but I've removed my gfo until my trates get down to zero, as there has to be a ratio of both in existence for the system to work.

The bucket test did in fact help me to confirm that the system was in fact working correctly. The effluent coming directly off of the reactor will not be very different from that going in. There is a dwell/contact time factor that figures in. But give your bucket 12 hours, and both trates and phates will measure absolute zero. In my case, I was then comfortable with adding more pellets to my reactor.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Sheldon

[Scej12]

BTW - make sure you have a powerhead running if you are going to have your pellets in your bucket for more than a day or two, otherwise you will end up with a stench or hydrogen sulfide when you pour off the water, more proof that there is copious amounts of bacteria inhabiting your pellets.... I experienced this, rinsed off the pellets in a well ventilated area a couple of times, and threw them there pellets back into the reactor - they continued to work fine...

SJ