Warner Marine Now Has A Pellet Product

[poolkeeper1]

Well here's my take on the Tumbling as of a recent stopping of mine doing just that.
After i added some new Marco Rock (Dry) my pellets stopped tumbling for several weeks.
At first i was not concerned and talked to Jon Warner and he verified they were going through a Bacterial Bloom. This stayed like this longer than I liked and I started to see an outbreak of Cyano Bacteria, In many spots in my tank. I then decided to take the pellets out to rinse them in clean salt water to get them tumbling again. What i saw was they were flaking into the water column as each time i rinsed them more of the pellets just kept flaking off and i thought they were disintegrating to nothing and stopped. After talking to Jon Warner I was advised to fully rinse them until all this Bio Mass was removed from them and then top off the reactor with new pellets to get back to the original amount I started with. Well I have since rinsed them clean of all the Bio Mass that had accumulated on the pellets and returned them to the reactor and they are working as normal again and the Cyano is now gone once they were tumbling again, I did add a little Vinegar to help rid the tank of the Cyano and removed by syphon as much as i could at a water change. Long story short after almost a year of use this is normal for the pellets to become clogged with this bacterial coating and they will need to be serviced and topped off. FYI
Bill

[drummereef]

Very interesting Bill. Good info! Did you dose vinegar with or without the pellets running?

[johnnyb05]

Update - this is day 60 of pellet use. when i started using pellets i said to my self that i wouldnt change much , so i would know what the pellets where doing. The bad, my phos. has gone from 0 -.02 range to .05 on hanna checker. before i started the pellets my phos. was in the 0 -.02 range for months. so thats weird. i did start increasing my feedings of oysterfeast and rods food so that my have something to do with it. i also have some red algae pop up recently on my sandbed and a few rocks. so for now i have stopped adding aminos, oysterfeast, rods foods, till my phos. comes back down. i started to cut back a little on phos. reducing media, ( thinking the pellets would work better) but now just put a new full load in my reactor. also i lost a couple of beautiful sps frags that where growing for 3 months before pellet use. but overall the rest of my sps look real good. so at this point the jury is still out. if i lose one sps colony that has been growing in my system for a long time i may pull the plug. when i started pellets my phos. 0-.02 and my nitrate was .02 on a salifert test. the only thing i did since start of pellets was increase feeding and cut back a little on phos. media ( i mean very little). i never did see any white bacteria outbreak. but now have some red bac. on my sandbed. so nothing positive to report after 2 months.

[poolkeeper1]

Brett, I did the Vinigar while the pellets were back in service, It only took 3 day's to get it gone from the tank.
jonnyb05, IME you have not even given the pellets enough time to properly become colonised with bacteria, It took at least 4-5 months before I saw positive results and removed any other means of Phosphate removal. If you are not patience this will not work by going too fast. JMHO
Bill

[Rotknee]

There was a point where my pellets clumped together. Why...don't know? I did notice some cyano growing on some parts of the rocks and this prompted me to check my reactor to see how they were tumbling. I am using a variable speed pump and I, ever so slightly, turned up the flow to the point that I have a very soft tumble in the reactor. Bill, to your post above, I wonder if the cyano is a sign that i should add more pellets?

This is on my 120 where I have been running 1L of pellets since August of 2010.

edit: My tank has never looked better since adding the WM Tablets. On my SPS dominated tank my PE is the best it has ever been.


Rodney

[poolkeeper1]

Originally Posted by Rotknee

There was a point where my pellets clumped together. Why...don't know? I did notice some cyano growing on some parts of the rocks and this prompted me to check my reactor to see how they were tumbling. I am using a variable speed pump and I, ever so slightly, turned up the flow to the point that I have a very soft tumble in the reactor. Bill, to your post above, I wonder if the cyano is a sign that i should add more pellets?

Possible, But i would increase the Flow through the reactor before you do that. Per Jon Warner! And to get rid of the Cyano Vinegar has alway's worked for me.
Bill










This is on my 120 where I have been running 1L of pellets since August of 2010.

edit: My tank has never looked better since adding the WM Tablets. On my SPS dominated tank my PE is the best it has ever been.


Rodney

[drummereef]

Hey Bill, what's your vinegar dosing regimen? How much, how frequent?

[Rotknee]

Originally Posted by drummereef

Hey Bill, what's your vinegar dosing regimen? How much, how frequent?

+1...Brett you beat me to it. I was going to ask the same question.

[poolkeeper1]

Originally Posted by Rotknee

+1...Brett you beat me to it. I was going to ask the same question.

Your going to laugh but I just kinda put a couple of 5ml doses in the tank and the same in the sump 2x a day and watch to see if it comes back and keep this up until it goes away. But i do syphon out as much as possible first with a turkey baster and water change. so maybe as much as 40-50 ml a day until it's gone and that's on a 105 gal /65gal sump.
Bill

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by poolkeeper1

Your going to laugh but I just kinda put a couple of 5ml doses in the tank and the same in the sump 2x a day and watch to see if it comes back and keep this up until it goes away. But i do syphon out as much as possible first with a turkey baster and water change. so maybe as much as 40-50 ml a day until it's gone and that's on a 105 gal /65gal sump.
Bill

As scientific as you are I did find it kind of funny. Haha. But I'm glad it works!!

[poolkeeper1]

Jon Warner, What happened?? Our last talk you said to send you a Payment and you would send me the replacment Pellets. After 2 PM's I still have not heard back from you, The Money was sent the Same day! Help???
Bill

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by poolkeeper1

Jon Warner, What happened?? Our last talk you said to send you a Payment and you would send me the replacment Pellets. After 2 PM's I still have not heard back from you, The Money was sent the Same day! Help???
Bill

Hey Bill, have you tried contacting Jon through the WM website? I don't see him around here much...

[poolkeeper1]

Originally Posted by drummereef

Hey Bill, have you tried contacting Jon through the WM website? I don't see him around here much...

No But i will, Thanks
Bill

[MedicBMC]

Hey everyone, First off thanks for all the information and reviews!

I finished reading this whole thread a couple days ago. After much research I decided to give ecobak a try. I currently have a 75g mixed reef which has been running for just under a year. I'm starting with 125mL's in a TLF reactor and over the next 8 weeks I'll bump it up to the suggested 375mL's.

I'm currently running GFO/GAC in a BRS dual reactor. My PO4 is 0ppm via Hanna checker and my NO3 is in the range of 10-25 (salifert)...I can't really differentiate the color but it is registering a slight pink.

Anyways I'll be keeping a photo journal and in the next couple weeks I'll update with my progess. Hopefully all goes well!
-Brice

[Kenfuzed]

I've been running EcoBAK for 9 months now. Soon after starting the pellets stopped moving but I just left it like this until a week ago. I decided to improve the flow and reactor since I noticed little to none of the original pellets had been depleted. I've now moved the pellets from a BRS style reactor to a DIY reactor I made from an old HOB D&D skimmer. I glued a piece of plastic mesh to the bottom of the inner cylinder and reversed the flow so water moves from the bottom up. Now the pellets are constantly in motion or in a slow boil. I'm wondering if anyone knows if this is too fast or too much flow? I believe the quantity of pellets is ~800 ml. Feed pump is a MJ1200.

Here is a video of the pellets in my reactor. The area filled by pellets is approx 14" tall for reference.

Click on image to view video.

[poolkeeper1]

Originally Posted by Kenfuzed

I've been running EcoBAK for 9 months now. Soon after starting the pellets stopped moving but I just left it like this until a week ago. I've now moved the pellets from a BRS style reactor to a DIY reactor I made from an old HOB D&D skimmer. I glued a piece of plastic mesh to the bottom of the inner cylinder and reversed the flow so water moves from the bottom up. Now the pellets are constantly in motion or in a slow boil. I'm wondering if anyone knows if this is too fast or too much flow? I believe the quantity of pellets is ~800 ml. Feed pump is a MJ1200.

Here is a video of the pellets in my reactor. The area filled by pellets is approx 14" tall for reference.

Click on image to view video.

Nice flow, But IMO just a little bit too much. I would try and cut that in 1/2 of what you have now and bring it to a slow tumble. You may just be washing all the Bacteria out of the reactor at that high speed, But nice tumble for sure.JMO
Bill

[gary faulkner]

Originally Posted by poolkeeper1

Nice flow, But IMO just a little bit too much. I would try and cut that in 1/2 of what you have now and bring it to a slow tumble. You may just be washing all the Bacteria out of the reactor at that high speed, But nice tumble for sure.JMO
Bill

Way too fast.

[Kenfuzed]

Originally Posted by poolkeeper1

Nice flow, But IMO just a little bit too much. I would try and cut that in 1/2 of what you have now and bring it to a slow tumble. You may just be washing all the Bacteria out of the reactor at that high speed, But nice tumble for sure.JMO
Bill

Thanks for the input, I'll try to slow it down a bit and see how it goes.

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by Kenfuzed

Thanks for the input, I'll try to slow it down a bit and see how it goes.

Don't know if it will help you much but here's the flow in my "modded" SMR1 Pellet Reactor. Gentle, even tumbling is what you are looking for.

[Kenfuzed]

Thanks for that Bret. I also took a look at your other videos since I too have a 180 in-wall. When I got to the tour of your sump room, OMG! That is where our set ups vary as much as night and day. If I were to video my back room I would be affraid of being asked to be on an episode of Hoarders.

Very impressive Bret, you inspire me to get my equipment room better organized.

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by Kenfuzed

Thanks for that Bret. I also took a look at your other videos since I too have a 180 in-wall. When I got to the tour of your sump room, OMG! That is where our set ups vary as much as night and day. If I were to video my back room I would be affraid of being asked to be on an episode of Hoarders.

Very impressive Bret, you inspire me to get my equipment room better organized.

Too funny. Thanks for the kind words..

[solitude127]

I've been running Ecobak since August and was wondering if I'm running enough. My tank is about 150g of total water volume and I started with about 750ml but I'm still getting algae and even some cyano. Do you think I should add more pellets?

[drummereef]

Originally Posted by solitude127

I've been running Ecobak since August and was wondering if I'm running enough. My tank is about 150g of total water volume and I started with about 750ml but I'm still getting algae and even some cyano. Do you think I should add more pellets?

Have the pellets reduced significantly in volume since startup? Also what and how much do you feed the system?

[Buganddoug]

Also how fast are they tumbling?

[solitude127]

Originally Posted by drummereef

Have the pellets reduced significantly in volume since startup? Also what and how much do you feed the system?

It seems to have reduced. I feed my system twice a day. First, a few pinches of NLS pellets and second, a cube of Hikari Misys and a pinch of Ocean Nutrition formula 2 flakes.

Originally Posted by Buganddoug

Also how fast are they tumbling?

I currently have them in a Two Little Fishies 550 reactor with a Mag5 pump dialed down a little. It's a pretty decent tumble but I don't think it's too much.