N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[fat walrus]

I actually just installed a reactor from 2LF along with the same brand NPX Plastics(?) and have been adding the bacteria NPX8(?) After 2 days, the tank is becoming cloudy? What can be going wrong? I have stopped adding the bacteria even though it calls for 10 days of dosing. It is now day 4.

[Aquarist007]

Originally Posted by fat walrus

I actually just installed a reactor from 2LF along with the same brand NPX Plastics(?) and have been adding the bacteria NPX8(?) After 2 days, the tank is becoming cloudy? What can be going wrong? I have stopped adding the bacteria even though it calls for 10 days of dosing. It is now day 4.

did you use half the suggested dose of pellets?
You have a bacteria bloom. Make sure the tank has good circulation, the surface is churning and not covered. also crank up your skimmer/
All these provide more o2 which is the concern with a bacteria bloom.
After the bloom disappears start up the reactor again with half of the pellets you intially used

[Aquarist007]

I don't know if it has been mentioned before but installing small glass beads along with the np pellets will stop them from clumping and building up the mulm in the reactor.

[fat walrus]

Originally Posted by capn_hylinur

did you use half the suggested dose of pellets?
You have a bacteria bloom. Make sure the tank has good circulation, the surface is churning and not covered. also crank up your skimmer/
All these provide more o2 which is the concern with a bacteria bloom.
After the bloom disappears start up the reactor again with half of the pellets you intially used

Thank you for the reply. I was not aware of of a suggested half dose. I just went with the whole bag because it said "treats 100 gallons" and the Phosban Reactor said up to 150 gallons. This tank is 75 gallons but with a 40 gallon refugium and a 60 gallon sump.

There is plenty of circulation. My wave chop from just the 2 returns is about 2 inches.

I did not turn off the reactor, just stopped adding the bacteria. Do you think it is a "must" to turn off the reactor?


Also, what is using Vodka all about? I seemed to have missed the boat on that one.

[Robert Patterso]

taggin along

[Rhodes19]

Originally Posted by gregr

Thanks
A fairly slow tumble- there are areas where there is only a tiny bit of movement but every pellet does see flow- no completely dead areas and no fast tumbling. At that rate (I can do a quick video if you want) the media gets consumed pretty quick. Two months and I had to top it off.

Cool beans. Thanks Greg. I appreciate the video, it looks like mine are tumbling just like yours. The pellets are all moving, some more than others, but dead spaces. I'll have to mark the biopellet level on the reactor so I can see how much gets used up. Didn't think about doing that before. Thanks.

[SputnikNYC]

Originally Posted by fat walrus

I actually just installed a reactor from 2LF along with the same brand NPX Plastics(?) and have been adding the bacteria NPX8(?) After 2 days, the tank is becoming cloudy? What can be going wrong? I have stopped adding the bacteria even though it calls for 10 days of dosing. It is now day 4.

http://npbiopellets.dvh-import.com/i...Important.html

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by barrycuda

I don't know if there are any horror stories posted from useing bio pellets and I have'nt read all this thread about them. I want to share my story in the hope that this will not happen to your tank! and possibly learn why this happened to mine! I have a 180g with 35g frag tank and 100g rubbermaid sump it has been running for 2 years, I had many sps colonies that were doing well. I picked up a calcuim reactor filled with media about 4 months ago and shortly after that I developed red slime, My phosphates would test .5 and my no3 was 15ppm, I continously ran gfo. I do a 30-40g water change every 2 weeks. I could not get rid of this slime, my lfs recomended dosing mb7 so I did that for 3 wks, 8 caps a day, still had it! So I read about the pellets and that you need a huge skimmer and I have a SWC 300 skimmer and to use less than recomended pellets (800ml) for the capacity of my system so I started with 300ml in a phosban 550 reactor with a mag 5 pump. They ran for 3 wks with no change so i added another 200ml for a total of 500ml after a total of 27 days I came home monday 6/27 to a cloudy tank and all the sps faded and clams, p's & z's, lps all closed. I immediately disconnected the reactor and did a water change, My lfs recomended I feed the fish more because the pellets brought the nutrients down too low, so I did that for a few days as things continued on a downhill spiral! I did'nt even think about having an ammonia problem until 4 days had passed and things were still getting worse! I have over 200# of live rock and 75# of sand in the system. I tested it on thurs .25, I have done 4 40gwc and today i'm at .1. for the last few days I have been clearing out all the dead! Talk about stink! my wife is freaking out about the smell and the tank and sump is in our basement! I'm adding mb7 in the hopes of rebuilding my bio filter. The fish look and act normal no problem with them yet and some things are beginning to open up and look a little better after all the water changes. I have finally rid my tank of the red slime! and all my sps colonies and 2 clams so far!

This is a sad story -- LFS is nutty, the fish don't care about pellets! (corals do!) Do you think media in Ca reactor is root cause of tank going south?

I've had 2 or 3 big die offs over the years very disapointing. My latest mini die off was due to crap in my pump impeller, before that was auto top off error. I suggest slowing down on fixing tank, I have learned the hard way go slow...

MB7 is good stuff, ZEObac is good for almost instant good bio filter. I use both at times with good results.

[barrycuda]

Yes, If I had to do it again I would have added new media to the reactor. It was suggested to me not to start bio pellets until the red slime was gone and I got so sick of fighting it, I went and did it anyway thinking it would speed up the process! I asked another local expert and he thinks the red slime death caused my ammonia to rise and began killing my sps and it snow balled from there. Another mistake, that may have minimized my losses would have been to start adding mb7 when I new I had a problem to get the good bacteria going again.

[Scej12]

Better late than never I supposed... anywho, here are some pics of the the calc reactor related to my previous quere... for those of you who missed it is is post No. 3885


Here's an overall shot of the dual chamber reactor:



Here's a comparison of both chambers: the Right is the primary (recirculation) chamber; the Left is the Exit (pass-thru) chamber - the outlet at the top of the second goes back to the sump. Note the right side melting away; the CO2 feed is only 1 bubble/5-6 seconds:



Here's a close-up of the right chamber. Keeping in mind that the entire reactor (both chambers) was totally dismantled and cleaned out 8 weeks ago; the CO2 was only turned back on 4 weeks ago; and the media showed signs of melting prior (running only system water through for about 2 - 2.5 weeks prior to adding CO2):



And finally, here's a close up of the base of the Second (exit) chamber. Notice the signs of melted calcium-mud in the base of this chamber, as well as in the (clear) polyethylene line feeding this second chamber from the primary (recirculating) chamber:



Soooo.... Still looking for some expert feedback on this issue... I mean I have an assumption as to a logical reasoning, but I'm not a bio-chem guru..

Regards,

Sheldon

[barrycuda]

Do you have the ph monitor set to low on your reactor, to much co2? I have mine at 7.0, any lower than 6.8 and it will dissolve the media.

[Scej12]

No... I never had a pH monitor or controller on this system. I simply monitor the bubble count; and measure the effluent with a simple API test.

You've touched on my actual question... if there is too much CO2 in the system, it's certainly not from what I'm feeding in. Prior to my vodka dosing I was able to maintain a bubble count of 1.5bps; however, now that the carbon-dosing is established in this system, the reactor can only take 1 bubble per 5-6 seconds; and the media is melting like I've never seen before on any of my systems.

SJ

[gary faulkner]

What is the Ph on your system? Has it been reduced since running the carbon dosing?

[Scej12]

The pH on my system varies between 8.0 & 8.2 depending on my dKH level and the lighting of two large refugiums (75g each filled with chaeto and caulerpa); total system volume is approx 900 Gallons; dKH is between 6 - 8.

pH has certainly been more difficult to maintain with carbon dosing. But this system has lots of CO2 relief, including a large bio-tower; two large beckett run skimmers; in addition to the two large refugiums mentioned above. In contrast, another system on which I use bp and which doesn't have nearly as much CO2 relief really struggles to maintain pH above 8.0, and requires the dKH to be much higher in order to do so. I personally have come to conclude that you need lots and lots of aeration/CO2 relief on any system employing any form of carbon dosing as I'm pretty convinced that the bacteria produced uses up O2, and contributes CO2 to the water column... big-time!!

SJ

[Scej12]

Okay so I finally figured out how I could test the pH in the primary (recirc chamber) without making too much of a mess. As it turns out the pH here is no different than that measured coming off the second (pass-thru) chamber. Both are only 0.2 below the pH of the system water. So with the refugiums on night mode (lit) the system pH measured 8.1; while the pH within and exiting the calcium reactor was only 7.9.... yet the media is melting away like mad! Any ideas what could be dissolving the media while not registering a low pH reading. IIRC from a post by Randy Holmes Farley, pH is actually a measure of CO2, so could there be some other bacterial activity dissolving or contributing to an acidic micro environment without adding CO2... Secondary metabolites of some sort... who knows at this point.. but something is certainly going on here.

Any way time for me to call it a [long] day....

TTYL,

Sheldon

[Scej12]

Oh... and the other point/observation I forgot to mention was that it appears as though the current setup (significantly reduced CO2 feed even with melting media) is doing little or nothing to maintain Ca and dKH; contrary to what was thought when I posted the original quere. As it turns out (following last night's/this morning's) water tests, I was able to confirm the following:

1. The calcium level in the system was constantly dropping (from 440 to 380) over the past 1.5 to 2 weeks , as a result of relying only on this anomolous Ca reactor operation. In other words: once I stopped dosing liquid Ca, and relied only on this reactor which can only take 1 bubble per 5-6 seconds, there was suddenly not enough Ca production to maintain my system, even though the ARM media appears to be melting like never before;
2. The same reduced CO2 bubble-count also results in an inability to maintain dKH without dosing a liquid buffer/Alk supplement; soooo
3. It would appear as though whatever is causing the ARM dedia to melt may not necessarily be CO2, as originally assumed, considering the fact that the actual pH drop within the reactor system appears to be only affected (and apparently proportionately so) by the amount of CO2 fed in by my modification of the bubble-count...

Sorry about breaking up all of the information in so many separate posts, but I think I got all the info covered this time...

Sheldon

[thebanker]

Just an update, I've been dosing vinegar and it has knocked back the red cyano I've struggled with lately. Seems to be a common issue w/ biopellets. (mine are vertex)

[Aquarist007]

Originally Posted by fat walrus

I did not turn off the reactor, just stopped adding the bacteria. Do you think it is a "must" to turn off the reactor?
.

I am a little confused by your post

Also, you really should not dose with another carbon source such as vodka at the same time as using the np pellets. That could add too much bacteria for the system to handle causing a bloom again

[Aquarist007]

I would suggest you start your own thread in this section(reef chemistry)
These posts are probably being overlooked by the chemistry experts as it is a very long specific thread

[bagz727]

Originally Posted by thebanker

Just an update, I've been dosing vinegar and it has knocked back the red cyano I've struggled with lately. Seems to be a common issue w/ biopellets. (mine are vertex)

may i ask how much vinegar per gallon do you dose? i also have some cyano. thanks

[thebanker]

I have 45 gallons total volume, and I'm dosing 2ml per day, which i understand is the equivalent of 0.25 ml 80 proof vodka per day.

[bagz727]

Forgot to ask what vinegar you use? Thanks

[thebanker]

Generic, white vinegar. I bought it at Walgreens here, although I'm not sure what brand you would find in the Philippines.

I'm not sure if it would make a difference if you use rice wine vinegar, it is probably readily available there. There may be a few threads on vinegar dosing where you could read more.

[Plantbrain]

Sounds like 5% acetic acid, does it say "distilled"?

[bertoni]

Distilled is fine. I'd be very careful about any other type of vinegar.