N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[gregr]

SJ and others interested in the calcium reactor issues-- I normally get at least a few months of clog-free behavior after I change the media out in my Korallin 1502. This time it went about 7 weeks before it clogged. Significant difference! The bubble and drip rates were pretty much consistent throughout the last year so I think it's directly related to the bio-pellet reactor.
Do I care? Heck no! Small price to pay. Tank is doing great-- pellets running for six months now.

[daveonbass]

Shifty: I wouldn't worry yet. I had mine for 8 months or so before they worked. so it could rake some different trigger to get them to work. for me I had to finally dose sugar in excessive I got a bacterial bloom, and after that the pellets dropped my levels to ulns. now I just feed like crazy to keep my water healthy.

good luck.

[shifty51008]

wow 8 months. do you thnk by dosing the suger to get the bacteria started in the tank is what caused it? or just time

[thebanker]

Shifty, I'm wondering if you have a (rare case of) phosphate limitation on your bacterial growth?

If that's the case, I'd dose some phytoplankton to spike phosphates.

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a reef chemist, and would seek expert advice here.

[daveonbass]

shifty:

I FIRMLY believe that it was the sugar...OR the bacteria that the sugar produced. The reason why I say this is because I have had to add MORE pellets after the first working batch wore off, and those didn't work for almost 2 months...added sugar till I got a bacteral bloom and once again...the pellets reduced the N and P levels. and has continued to.

The PROBLEM is that I wish I could KNOW when the doseage of sugar was about to spike a bloom, that way I could avoid it and still get the benefits of the bacteria that are buliding up for the pellets to utilize.

good luck and as always go slow and try to be more patient with the pellets than Me. haha. once they start to work I think you will be pleased with how easy they are to help maintain your tank levels.

[daveonbass]

Again, now that the sugar bloom is well over, my pellets have finally turned from their light tan/whitish color now to a orange brownish color. It's the color of the old pellets that were in there. The tank had measurable NO3 when I added them, but now that they are populated (sped up with the vsv dosing) I now have lots of thick skimmate, and NO3 is unmeasureable. My other tank with NO filter (none at all, just rock) has NO3 off the scale. I guess I gotta be careful and stop swapping frag. :/

Proof in the pics.

[rguyler]

Dave, would you please describe your sugar dosing method? How much, how often, duration, etc. I've had my pellets running for a few months now and like you just haven't see much difference (although the hair algae disappeared) so I think I'll give the sugar a try also.

For what it's worth, I'm also still running GFO. I don't have a good means to measure phosphate at the moment but if it's a rare occurrence to limit the phosphate to the point of affecting the performance of the pellets then I'm skeptical that my tank is one of the rare ones. I think it's more likely I just don't have things running well yet.

[daveonbass]

Like said, I dosed in excess. I did 1n2 tablespoons everyday till the bloom started. That only took about 4 days tops, then I never dosed sugar again. Once the pellets were working there was/is no need to add any more carbon sources.

Also if I were you I'd investing at least a cheap api phosphate test kit. It doesn't have to be super accurate, but its nice to be able to know what you are starting with and tell if it shifts (up or down). Also if you are running GFO, and your hair algae is gone, its possible that you are PO4 limited. I started feeding like crazy to up my po4 as well and it seemed to help the pellets activate finally. (my text kits have always shown zero, so I was very low on them also.)

If you are po4 deficient, then I say feed more Bork, or crushed pellet food. Do water changes to lower the no3, and try dosing vsv for a while till the levels all reach their ideal points and the pellets start working in the system. Then just keep the feeding up to keep it all working.

[daveonbass]

Sorry, Bork(?) = nori. Stupid auto correct.

[coltrref]

this is my report with the biopellets with only two months in use



for the increase of the NO3 for the feeding of the azoox corals, I have changed partially the water only two times.

[gregr]

I got one month before the calcium reactor started clogging up this time. Changed out the media today using bigger pieces and I'm reducing the bubble rate from 25/min to about half that. Corals continue to thrive, even when the reactor had been working intermittently.

[Scej12]

Originally Posted by gregr

I got one month before the calcium reactor started clogging up this time. Changed out the media today using bigger pieces and I'm reducing the bubble rate from 25/min to about half that. Corals continue to thrive, even when the reactor had been working intermittently.

Hey gregr - I've been a little too scattered to keep up with my thread visits, but I meant to add a little observation re the calc reactor/carbon dosing topic. On the system I've been referencing, it actually employs vodka. You might recall that I've been struggling with a gas pocket at the top of my first chamber, and have been reducing the bubble count to try to eliminate it. Well as it turned out, no matter how much I reduced the bubble count, the gas bubble persisted (not a reverse flow reactor incidentally), and the media continued to slurry. So far, I think that DarkXerox gave the best guestimation of what might actually be happening with respect to his dental (cavity effect) analogy. I believe the bacteria is somehow hetertrophically feeding on the media, and this has little to do with CO2... In fact when I finally gave up on trying to compensate via lessening the CO2 bubble count and actually raised to bubble count back up to the normal 2 - 3 bubble/second that was running originally, I found that the persistent gas bubble finally began to disappear (highly ironic but a definite cause/effect of the CO2 increase); also the pH of the effluent actually began to resemble that of a normal calc reactor mode of operation; I was able to better control dKH and Ca levels; and finally the media was dissolved by low pH (in addition to the slurried effect) as would be expected (again by normal CaCO3 reactor operation).

In other words, I opted to ignore the anomolies, and my reactor began to function as normal, with the additional effect of slurried media we are currently discussing.

In response to your clogging issue, I would submit that a dual chamber reactor would help to mitigate some of the clogging in the primary chamber, if you allow a settling area/plenum below the second chamber. I've seen the calcium dust accumulate in this area.

HTH,

Sheldon

[gregr]

Thanks very much for the info. I'm going to wait and see how it goes with this latest batch of media, using the same bubble/drip as I have for the last several months. I used bigger pieces of CC (Brightwell Reborn) instead of the standard ARM stuff this time. If it starts clogging too soon a-shopping I will go.

[snaza]

]Hey guys,

Been running my tank for 8 months now. mostly used caribsea base rock with some LR. since the start i've had sort of snott slimy stuff over my rocks and back panel. also lots of air bubbles on the substrate too. I also get really bad waves of cyano which last a month or so. not sure if its realated to the pellets but i'm thinking about taking them offline to see if it goes away. my tank is 200g with about 800ml of pellets in a reator staight to the skimmer.

All params are stable and P04 and N03 are 0.00 on multilple hanna. Everything seems to be going well then all of a sudden sps looks bad. poor PE, loosing colour and some even RTN. then its seems to come good again. I'm just confused and not sure what else to blame.

i'm thinking about trying a bit of Rowaphos to see if i can get rid of the algae.

anyone got any ideas or also get the snotty algea stuff.

thanks

Aaron

here is a bad pic of my back wall.

[Scej12]

Originally Posted by snaza

]Hey guys,

Been running my tank for 8 months now. mostly used caribsea base rock with some LR. since the start i've had sort of snott slimy stuff over my rocks and back panel. also lots of air bubbles on the substrate too. I also get really bad waves of cyano which last a month or so. not sure if its realated to the pellets but i'm thinking about taking them offline to see if it goes away. my tank is 200g with about 800ml of pellets in a reator staight to the skimmer.

All params are stable and P04 and N03 are 0.00 on multilple hanna. Everything seems to be going well then all of a sudden sps looks bad. poor PE, loosing colour and some even RTN. then its seems to come good again. I'm just confused and not sure what else to blame.

i'm thinking about trying a bit of Rowaphos to see if i can get rid of the algae.

anyone got any ideas or also get the snotty algea stuff.

thanks

Aaron

here is a bad pic of my back wall.

Hi Snaza - perhaps I would try reducing the quantity of pellets if your params are reliably at zero. Perhaps you just have too much organics in your water column making it past your skimmer...

With regard to the RTN; I would keep an eye on your pH and other parameters. The carbon dosing strategy does tend to lower pH, and if you hover below 8 for too long your sps are effected in my experience. It would be a good idea to list all of your params while you're at it.

Regards,

Sheldon

[snaza]

did a full range of parameters checks today.

N03 0.1
P04 0.02 Hanna
PH 8.2
Alk 8
Calc 420

weird thing ive noticed with my cyano is it flares up around 9am and is completly gone my 3pm. my lights run from 10am - 8pm so its not because of the lighting.

[Scej12]

Are you running a reverse lit refugium..? I'm always tending toward raising the pH if all else is in check... btw; what type of pH test are you using, and have you cross referenced it. Only reason I'm asking is because I've noticed that there is a definite drop in pH with these pellets. When I have a full reactor of pellets, my pH drops from above 8.1 to about 7.9. Some colour test kits are a little tricky to read with any kind of accuracy. I like the pH monitors, but they can be deviant due to calibration accuracies. Perhaps it would be best to cross-reference certain tests (pH is one for sure) with a second [test] opinion. Also, do you use carbon?

Sheldon

[snaza]

Originally Posted by Scej12

Are you running a reverse lit refugium..? I'm always tending toward raising the pH if all else is in check... btw; what type of pH test are you using, and have you cross referenced it. Only reason I'm asking is because I've noticed that there is a definite drop in pH with these pellets. When I have a full reactor of pellets, my pH drops from above 8.1 to about 7.9. Some colour test kits are a little tricky to read with any kind of accuracy. I like the pH monitors, but they can be deviant due to calibration accuracies. Perhaps it would be best to cross-reference certain tests (pH is one for sure) with a second [test] opinion. Also, do you use carbon?

Sheldon

ok i'll double check. Yes i run carbon 24/7 in a reactor

[pecan2phat]

Wow, All I can say is that switching over to a Reef Octopus BP Reactor can make all the difference. I ran BPs for 13 months with a lot of ups and downs with a slightly modified MRC media reactor previously. No more clumping which means more stable results

[thebanker]

Originally Posted by coltrref

this is my report with the biopellets with only two months in use



for the increase of the NO3 for the feeding of the azoox corals, I have changed partially the water only two times.

Colt, did you also start feeding your tank more? That seems strange.

Did you remove other filter media when you put the pellets online?

[coltrref]

Originally Posted by thebanker

Colt, did you also start feeding your tank more? That seems strange.

Did you remove other filter media when you put the pellets online?

Hi the banker,

if, it continued with the feeding, to avoid the rapid descent of nutrientes.

only I use GAC and GAF

the PO4 is still high

[rogergolf66]

just started bio pellets today 100 ml in my 65 will add another 150ml in a week

roger

[Alitoo_81]

Hi i had a problem with the biopellets i have 2 reactors in a 400 galons system. The corals started to die when i started tu feed less the fish. I think that we mas feed 3 times daily to avoid to have a "too clean water" corals need nutrients too. We must feed the corals too 2 times per week especialy when we start to clean less offen the glass. I startes to feed more with mysis 3 times a day and every thing is ok now. I also started to feed the corals too.

[Eric The Red]

I have a question. I've heard with zeovit, the alk should be around a 7. Does the same apply if running bp's?

[bertoni]

Maybe. Some people seem to have issues with alkalinity at higher levels when running with carbon dosing. I'd watch the corals carefully, in any case.