N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[Palpatine]

I seem to be the only other user having the rare "honor" of having his biopellets do nothing.

daveonbass had a similar situation to me.

I've had 500ml of the new formula NP biopellets in a TLF reactor in my tank boiling steadily since march last year. They have not changed colour or gotten smaller or changed in volume since the day I put them in. No bacterial bloom and my nitrates and phosphates have not lowered except by using the more classical means of GFO and water changes.

I'm about to attempt to "kickstart" the pellets in the same way dave did by adding 2tsp of sugar a day for the next few days and see if anything happens.

I have a 2ft cube running GFO, carbon and macro algae in a bare bottom fuge and running a reef octopus nw-110.

Looking for comments on what i'm about to start or alternative theories/methods for getting the pellets to work.

[timvdb]

Did you add bacterial strains to start the process?

I managed to kick start using ZeoVit stuff:

ZeoBac 1 drop / 100 liters/25 US gallons 2-3 x weekly
ZeoStart3 0.1 ml / 100 liters/25 US gallons 2 x daily


PO4 is now down to 10ppb (>0.001ppm/ mg/l) and NO3 is still hovering at 25ppm/ mg/l.

[Palpatine]

No, the zeovit stuff isnt easily available or cheap down here.

I also agree with dave, we shouldnt need anything like that to get the pellets to start working. It has to be something unique about our tanks that is stopping them from just starting by themselves.

I know he tried bacterial additives with no luck but the sugar worked for him, im hoping the same will be true for me.

[Rhodes19]

Originally Posted by plankton99

Biopellet Usage Summary

So here is what I get from this entire massive thread… Summarized in laymans terms. ***Please feel free to disupute any of my statements. This is meant to be a starting point...

Good for tanks with
- already high Nitrates and Phosphates
- hair alage problems (caused by N and P)
- tanks that require heavy feeding
- tanks with heavy bio loads

Not so useful for tanks with… and can have negative impact to tanks with…
- already low Nitrates and Phosphates
- no or little algae
- low bioload
- low feeding needs
- reduces food sources for corals by completely depleting phosphates (because corals internally grow algae as part of their food source, so if no phosphates, they can’t grow it.

Biopellets won’t help with
- improving coloration of corals because they have nothing directly to do with that
- growing your corals

Nice summary. Learned something new about zooxanthella.

[TheFishMan65]

tntneon, If you can't redirect the flow away from the skimmer what about turning the slimmer off for an hour and sunset? Any thought if this would be better/worse?

plankton99 here is another good summary

[purge43]

Im on week three of brs bio pellets. I mis-read the instructions for the zeobak. For the first two weeks I added 5 drops per day for my 125g. Still no reduction with po4 and no3. I havent noticed anything except my dendrophillias are staying closed most of the time now. I did my scheduled water change two days after I stopped adding the zeobak(but changed about 40%). Do I have cause to be alarmed?

[NyReefNoob]

ive been using the pellets 8 months or so now, with great success and no issue's, but it seem that almost all the people who have had issue's have been using the two little fish's reactors or other not sufficent reactor for flow, so would love to get a poll seeing how many who actually had issue's didnt really use a proper reactor

[aquatictec]

Originally Posted by mic209

starting a new tank, with dead rock, should i start biopellets from the get go, or should i wait until i start to see nitrate/phosphate?

We started adding biopellet reactors to all of our new setups a few months ago. I am not sure what you mean by dead rock but some setups started with uncured rock and we put bio reactors using our pellets and good skimmers in on day one. The tanks have all had zero nitrates and most zero phosphates within 4 to 6 weeks. On some of them we added liquid phosphate remover to zero the phosphates.

On tanks started with cured rock we have never experienced any nitrates and phosphates to date have been less than .03. We are using 1 liter of biopellets per 200 gallons of tank size.

Greg Smith
Aquatic Technology

[Scej12]

Originally Posted by purge43

Im on week three of brs bio pellets. I mis-read the instructions for the zeobak. For the first two weeks I added 5 drops per day for my 125g. Still no reduction with po4 and no3. I havent noticed anything except my dendrophillias are staying closed most of the time now. I did my scheduled water change two days after I stopped adding the zeobak(but changed about 40%). Do I have cause to be alarmed?

BPs have an effect on pH balance of your aquarium most likely due to CO2 addition to your system. It would not be uncommon for your pH to drop slightly or even significantly following the intro of bp. This will stress your corals if not kept in check. Important to monitor your key params when starting and continuing to run this system.

Cheers,
Sheldon

[DarkSephiroth]

I just took mine off, this tank is giving me so much problem. Two of my corals are STNing from the bottom up. Hopefully this will be the cure for it, if not i don't know what to do next.

[sneaton]

what are the main parameters i need to keep an eye on when running pellets? after using the pellets for 8 days my ph is 7.8 in the morning and 7.9-8 in the evening right before the lights go off... is ph the parameter that changes most when using pellets

[gary faulkner]

Originally Posted by DarkSephiroth

I just took mine off, this tank is giving me so much problem. Two of my corals are STNing from the bottom up. Hopefully this will be the cure for it, if not i don't know what to do next.

Alk higher than 8 has been known to STN corals when running low nutrient system.

HTH

[NyReefNoob]

Alk higher than 8 has been known to STN corals when running low nutrient system

ive see n alot of people say this, i run mine at 9 and have with every type of carbon dosing ive done, vodka, sugar, vinegar and currently the pellets, and have had no issue's with any or my corals, sps, lps, zoa's ect

[sneaton]

good,my alk is 8.5-9 and im letting it drop naturally

[Scej12]

Originally Posted by DarkSephiroth

I just took mine off, this tank is giving me so much problem. Two of my corals are STNing from the bottom up. Hopefully this will be the cure for it, if not i don't know what to do next.

Parameters... parameters;;; parameters!!!

Lots of factors can contribute to a wide variety of things. Take a snapshot of where you're at and start by getting back toward an approximation of NSW parameters.

Originally Posted by sneaton

what are the main parameters i need to keep an eye on when running pellets? after using the pellets for 8 days my ph is 7.8 in the morning and 7.9-8 in the evening right before the lights go off... is ph the parameter that changes most when using pellets

Beside N & P: IME yes... depending on your O2/CO2 balancing strategies in place. Those who employ large skimmers and well functioning refugiums have less of an issue with this but the bp definitely contributes to CO2 rising, therefore pH dropping when a large amount of work is being done by them.

Originally Posted by gary faulkner

Alk higher than 8 has been known to STN corals when running low nutrient system.

HTH

Just to add - the last time I was experiencing STN with my sps it was because I was misusing my refractometer... In particular I was warming it up due to my insidious habit of washing everything in warm to hot water, which meant that the SG reading I was getting was always 0.003 - 0.004 lower than the actual level. In other words, when I thought I was maintaining 1.025 based on my reading, I was in fact maintaining 1.028-1.029. When I finally started using my refractometer cold (rm temp), the sps started to thrive once more after about 2-3 weeks of proper (1.025 SG) salinity.

But I do agree that dKH is also a culprit.

SJ

[DarkSephiroth]

Originally Posted by Scej12

Parameters... parameters;;; parameters!!!
Lots of factors can contribute to a wide variety of things. Take a snapshot of where you're at and start by getting back toward an approximation of NSW parameters.

Calc is 430 (Salifert)
ALK is 9.3 DKH (Salifert)
Mag is 1260 (Salifert)
PH is 7.7 (Salifert)
NO3 is .05 (Elos)
PO4 is 0.01 (Elos)
Salinity is 1.025

This is before taking it down. I took it down, cleaned it and pumping it with RO/DI in a 5 gallon bucket

[gary faulkner]

Just to add - the last time I was experiencing STN with my sps it was because I was misusing my refractometer... In particular I was warming it up due to my insidious habit of washing everything in warm to hot water, which meant that the SG reading I was getting was always 0.003 - 0.004 lower than the actual level. In other words, when I thought I was maintaining 1.025 based on my reading, I was in fact maintaining 1.028-1.029. When I finally started using my refractometer cold (rm temp), the sps started to thrive once more after about 2-3 weeks of proper (1.025 SG) salinity.

But I do agree that dKH is also a culprit.

SJ

SJ, Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that a high SG will cause alk and calcium to be higher than at lower levels. Everything else remaning the same that is. Everything seems to be a balancing act especially when running low nutrients.

[Scej12]

Originally Posted by DarkSephiroth

Calc is 430 (Salifert)
ALK is 9.3 DKH (Salifert)
Mag is 1260 (Salifert)
PH is 7.7 (Salifert)
NO3 is .05 (Elos)
PO4 is 0.01 (Elos)
Salinity is 1.025

This is before taking it down. I took it down, cleaned it and pumping it with RO/DI in a 5 gallon bucket

For your alk to be that level (above 9) and your pH to still be that low, I do think taking the bp off-line will help in your particular case. Your pH is too low for sps and lps to uptake calcium. I believe it was said that below 7.8 your corals actually begin to dissolve calcium back into the water column. NSW pH is pretty stable around 8.2 from what I've read.

I experienced your exact same scenario first hand. You'll find that even if you don't dose Ca your calcium will remain high, simply because your corals aren't using it at your current pH.... In fact I wouldn't be surprised if your Ca actually went higher (without dosing). You will very likely find that as you remove some of your pellets (say half the quantity) you're pH will eventually start to climb as the CO2-producing bacteria mass decreases somewhat.

Originally Posted by gary faulkner

Just to add - the last time I was experiencing STN with my sps it was because I was misusing my refractometer... In particular I was warming it up due to my insidious habit of washing everything in warm to hot water, which meant that the SG reading I was getting was always 0.003 - 0.004 lower than the actual level. In other words, when I thought I was maintaining 1.025 based on my reading, I was in fact maintaining 1.028-1.029. When I finally started using my refractometer cold (rm temp), the sps started to thrive once more after about 2-3 weeks of proper (1.025 SG) salinity.

But I do agree that dKH is also a culprit.

SJ

SJ, Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that a high SG will cause alk and calcium to be higher than at lower levels. Everything else remaning the same that is. Everything seems to be a balancing act especially when running low nutrients.

Sorry Gary - I honestly don't know what the relationship is... outside of my formal expertise... In my particular case the system in question had a modest to low alk level even though the SG was high. If I recall correctly, I was running alk at 5.5 - 7 dKH even though my SG was 1.028. So based on my experience I'm unable to confirm a correlation.

[DarkSephiroth]

Originally Posted by Scej12

For your alk to be that level (above 9) and your pH to still be that low, I do think taking the bp off-line will help in your particular case. Your pH is too low for sps and lps to uptake calcium. I believe it was said that below 7.8 your corals actually begin to dissolve calcium back into the water column. NSW pH is pretty stable around 8.2 from what I've read.

I experienced your exact same scenario first hand. You'll find that even if you don't dose Ca your calcium will remain high, simply because your corals aren't using it at your current pH.... In fact I wouldn't be surprised if your Ca actually went higher (without dosing). You will very likely find that as you remove some of your pellets (say half the quantity) you're pH will eventually start to climb as the CO2-producing bacteria mass decreases somewhat.

I have to add in Calc every 4-5 days tho, but only a little bit. My calc drop from 420 ish to 380 in about 4-5 days so thats not much considering all my corals are SPS with a few LPS. I used to keep my alk at 7dkh for a while then it wasn't working so i raised it up bit by bit until 9dkh and that didn't work either so taking off the reactor seems like a better choice.

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by TheFishMan65

tntneon, If you can't redirect the flow away from the skimmer what about turning the slimmer off for an hour and sunset? Any thought if this would be better/worse?

plankton99 here is another good summary

-It surely would have the same effect than bypassing the reactor i think.
But i would let the skimmer run though , since in my case , if i stop my skimmer i always have issues to get him started again
And also when you stop your skimmer , the foam collapses back in the tank / sump water probably releasing some accumulated organics , don't know for sure .

greetingzz tntneon

[gary faulkner]

Originally Posted by tntneon

-It surely would have the same effect than bypassing the reactor i think.
But i would let the skimmer run though , since in my case , if i stop my skimmer i always have issues to get him started again
And also when you stop your skimmer , the foam collapses back in the tank / sump water probably releasing some accumulated organics , don't know for sure .

greetingzz tntneon

If you're having trouble getting it restarted you might want to check the impellar magnet. They all swell over time and need to be replaced.

HTH

[tntneon]

Thx for the tip Gary , didn't knew that

If i blow some breathing air into the air line of the skimmer it seems to kickstart the skimmer (air less mass then water ,to move ??)

greetingzz tntneon

[gary faulkner]

Originally Posted by tntneon

Thx for the tip Gary , didn't knew that

If i blow some breathing air into the air line of the skimmer it seems to kickstart the skimmer (air less mass then water ,to move ??)

greetingzz tntneon

That's what I had to do to get mine started. Check against a new impellar and you will see that your old one is swollen. Need to get it replaced before it damages the inside of your pump.

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by purge43

Im on week three of brs bio pellets. I mis-read the instructions for the zeobak. For the first two weeks I added 5 drops per day for my 125g. Still no reduction with po4 and no3. I havent noticed anything except my dendrophillias are staying closed most of the time now. I did my scheduled water change two days after I stopped adding the zeobak(but changed about 40%). Do I have cause to be alarmed?

I don't think so. Go slow -- consistancy is more important than fast reduction. I am on 6 months plus and still have never hit 0 on NO3. But I am consistantly under 5 ppm and am seeing less color over time. I feed haeay for fish and corals, hard to find sweet spot and keep tank there. What do you feed your dendrophillias?

[Sentari]

Recently added NP Pellets to my system.

Bubble Magus 100 Filter.

I've added 250ml pellets. This weekend i will be adding another 250ml of pellets.

I also have a DSB which i feel has been causing troubles. I will be removing this soon as i feel it has become a nutrient sink.

Here's a video of the reactor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7WuCnzIn70