N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by chercm

same here and that is the reason i sold my pellets away and i changed to Zeovit

I have been running ZEO for darn near a year, Cyno never stopped!

Personally I see no reason the pellets and ZEO can't both be used. I am just about to a point I believe Cyno is more of a light thing. Also run GFO heavy, be careful not to reduce PO4 too fast or corals may bleach, RTN or STN.

[Tony Romano]

Originally Posted by Randy Holmes-Farley

I really want to know the answer to the need for lowered Alk while using pellets like for carbon dosing. (liquid)

Nobody has ever really explained the mechanism behind burnt tips with high alk and carbon dosing.

I've never heard any convincing (or even remotely plausible) discussion of why systems like zeovit seem to have more problems with "burnt tips" at higher alkalinity than do other systems.

I'm not sure it has anything to do with carbon dosing per se. I've always thought it had more to do with lower nutrients that accompany such systems, rather than the organic carbon, but I really have no idea what causes it.

One way to answer this is to see whether folks initiating such systems see burnt tips before nutrients get low. But I've not seen any such data.

Randy I think it happens when PO4 is lowered too fast.

[PowermanKW]

Does anyone have a link hady for some good reading on cyano??? I have only just recently had it and don't really know much about it.

[tntneon]

Sad to here that some reefers experiencing bad results , beforez you stop the system of all i would try to dose some vingar (2 weeks) and decreasing the dosage back to zero in the following week.

I had some cyano too but in went away after the vinegar dosing (now i don't dose vinegaranymore ) and my waterchanges weekly.

greetingzz tntneon

[chippypah]

Originally Posted by tntneon

Sad to here that some reefers experiencing bad results , beforez you stop the system of all i would try to dose some vingar (2 weeks) and decreasing the dosage back to zero in the following week.

I had some cyano too but in went away after the vinegar dosing (now i don't dose vinegaranymore ) and my waterchanges weekly.

greetingzz tntneon

How much vinegar do you suggest to dose ?.
Cheers
Pete

[bluereefs]

Personally I dont think cyano and bio pellets are to much related, cyano shows up because in aquarium are conditions what start cyano and cyano will start to grow with or without bio pellets.
In my main aquarium there are no cyano at all (maybe few mm in few spots but that is normal IMO) second had small trace (2-3 inchec) of cyano close to glass where was weak circulation but when I put the parameters back in line and made water changes cyano disapear,third aquarium have cyano on the back glass (7-10 inches) but that was more neglected aquarium and after few water changes cyano start to disapear there too. Third aquarium use very litlle bp. 300-400 ml on 500 liters of aquarium, and not in the fluid reactor. Other aquariums use 1500-1000 ml of bp in fluid reactors.
In my expirience with those three aquarium cyano shows up the most in aquarium with smalest amount of bp and is more related to neglected practice then with bp itself.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy I think it happens when PO4 is lowered too fast.


That's possible. Any hypothesis about how it is related to the alkalinity?

[180+55reef]

so I have a LPS dominated tank, recently my gonis and aussie elegances dont look as good as they should , As this like nutrient rich waters is it possible that the pellets are hurting these corals?

I am finally getting some gunk in my skimmer

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by bluereefs

....In my expirience with those three aquarium cyano shows up the most in aquarium with smalest amount of bp and is more related to neglected practice then with bp itself.....

+1 , this i quoted earlyer , doing more frequently WC and vacuuming the brown spots of is the best pratice against cyano IMO
Once water gets real clear , you have the tendency to wait longer to do a WC ... and then cyano comes back with me .

greetingzz tntneon

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by chippypah

How much vinegar do you suggest to dose ?.
Cheers
Pete

I pushed it in a week up to 10 ml / 25 G (starting with 2-->4-->6-->...-->10 ml)
and try to decrease gradualy in a week back to zero.
Try to vacuum those spots as you do a WC.

greetingzz tntneon

[180+55reef]

bump on my LPS question

[rutz81]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

bump on my LPS question

No direct experience, just a hypothesis. If the Biopellets have stripped the water(just as vodka, or any other carbon source can), maybe adding more food/aminos/nutrients might help out. How are your nitrate/phosphate levels?

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

so I have a LPS dominated tank, recently my gonis and aussie elegances dont look as good as they should , As this like nutrient rich waters is it possible that the pellets are hurting these corals?

I am finally getting some gunk in my skimmer

Not IME if bp are used corectly without side efect, my livestock in all 3 aquarium are mostly lps corals, they do not showed any sign of stress with the bp.

[bluereefs]

Just measured nitrate, with Salifert test, and they are 0,2 mg/lit, phosphate was and are still 0 acording to Salifert test kit. My nitrate was 100 mg/lit + , that is very drastic nitrate reduction, my skimmer still foaming all the time, even few minutes after cup cleaning he get full of foam.

[Rwpdunne]

Anyone noticing there sump sock getting blocked quicker?

[thejuggernaut]

Originally Posted by Rwpdunne

Anyone noticing there sump sock getting blocked quicker?

Yes....My 4 inch 200 micron clog in hours use to be around 36...and my 7 inch 200 micron clog in a day...use to take 3 days

[goochesfish]

Without having to go through 60+ pages, where does one buy these pellets?

[daveonbass]

I don't wanna get too excited but I MAY finally be seeing some results. I'll check again tomorrow and hopefully the nitrates will have gone down more.

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by Rwpdunne

Anyone noticing there sump sock getting blocked quicker?

I wouldn't use any socks , because the bacteria needs to be skimmed of , when they cloug the socks , the N/P that the bacteria have consumed stays also in that sock making it easy for cyano to start to do his ugly tricks again...

greetingzz tntneon

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

I don't wanna get too excited but I MAY finally be seeing some results. I'll check again tomorrow and hopefully the nitrates will have gone down more.

I hope they keep going down !
One thing i also experienced with my skimmer couple of days ago :

In the morning i was checking foam/skimmate production of the previous night , i saw that he didn't produced anything.
So i waited till the evening and there where no signs of production , it was quite a while since i've cleaned the skimmercup so did so ,what i saw was unseen the neck section was completly plugged with thick brown dry gunk.
It looked a bit like you know what in the toilet , and it sure smelled liked that !!!
After i cleaned the cup and neck , my skimmer immediatly began to produce tons of foam.


lesson that i learned -----> clean your skimmer regulary else the gunk will plug it !

greetingzz tntneon

[daveonbass]

I've never gotten that much gunk in my skimmer. Like I said I'm having to do wet skimming just to get some stuff out. I wish I could afford a better skimmer but it's the best one I have, a DAS EX1.

hopefully once I start to feed more, if my nitrates ever go down, then I will hopefully see more skimmate.

[Rwpdunne]

Originally Posted by tntneon

I wouldn't use any socks , because the bacteria needs to be skimmed of , when they cloug the socks , the N/P that the bacteria have consumed stays also in that sock making it easy for cyano to start to do his ugly tricks again...

greetingzz tntneon

So you wouldnt use a sump sock? wouldnt the sump get very dirty if i removed it?

[daveonbass]

ok it's late...but I'm always up late at night. It's 4:00am and I did these tests at 3:30am.

Salinity - 1.026
PH - 7.76 (a bit low for sure, but I don't have a reverse lighting schedule and this is a normal drop, usually 7.9 at night and 8.2 durring day)
CA - 360ppm (gonna either add a little, or wait to see if it's back up after a WC)
Alk - 8
Mag - didn't test (sorry)
PO4 - 0 (again, undetectable from my API test kit, so it's low)
NO3 - 80-160 (It's hard to read the different shades of orange/red, bright red, and a slightly darker red...but it's up there)

I'd guess that my Nitrates are up around 100 or so...again it's hard to read those kits...they are really only good to know high, med, or low (red, orange, yellow). All the shades in between are difficult to discern.
This is even more distressing because around 12 hours earlier in the day it really did look like the test was reading 40-80...and I was getting excited that the Nitrates might be coming down. But then tonight, they are back up. I was hopeing that the biopellets were starting to work more...but it seems they are phosphate limited and so might not be able to work properly.

I'm planning to do a large WC on the tank as soon as I can get that much Salt mixed up. I may do one LARGE WC, around 85-90%, or if that takes too much time (and stress) then I may space it out and do two or three partial water changes over the course of two to three days. I know it's stressful to the livestock...BUT...I want to do the one BIG WC to see how long it takes to get the nitrates back up to the current level. If it's a short period of time...like a week...then there is obviously a bigger issue for me to deal with.



Again, any ideas are welcome...

dave

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

ok it's late...but I'm always up late at night. It's 4:00am and I did these tests at 3:30am.

Salinity - 1.026
PH - 7.76 (a bit low for sure, but I don't have a reverse lighting schedule and this is a normal drop, usually 7.9 at night and 8.2 durring day)
CA - 360ppm (gonna either add a little, or wait to see if it's back up after a WC)
Alk - 8
Mag - didn't test (sorry)
PO4 - 0 (again, undetectable from my API test kit, so it's low)
NO3 - 80-160 (It's hard to read the different shades of orange/red, bright red, and a slightly darker red...but it's up there)

I'd guess that my Nitrates are up around 100 or so...again it's hard to read those kits...they are really only good to know high, med, or low (red, orange, yellow). All the shades in between are difficult to discern.
This is even more distressing because around 12 hours earlier in the day it really did look like the test was reading 40-80...and I was getting excited that the Nitrates might be coming down. But then tonight, they are back up. I was hopeing that the biopellets were starting to work more...but it seems they are phosphate limited and so might not be able to work properly.

I'm planning to do a large WC on the tank as soon as I can get that much Salt mixed up. I may do one LARGE WC, around 85-90%, or if that takes too much time (and stress) then I may space it out and do two or three partial water changes over the course of two to three days. I know it's stressful to the livestock...BUT...I want to do the one BIG WC to see how long it takes to get the nitrates back up to the current level. If it's a short period of time...like a week...then there is obviously a bigger issue for me to deal with.



Again, any ideas are welcome...

dave

I don't get it , that your nitrates can doubble in a few hours ???
Either something big is decaing in your system or your nitrate tester is out of date .
Did you tested your water with another testkit ?
I've seen the pics of your tank on previous page , i can't imaging a tank so clean and having 80-100 ppm nitrates in there .
I had all sorts of algea (before carbon dosing liq or sol.) and then i had like max. 5 - 10 ppm nitrates and 0.05 ppm po4 .

greetingzz tntneon

[daveonbass]

dude I know...it's crazy. I DO freely admit that the test earlier that day may have had a little more or less water than the night test...but to see such a change...that was disturbing for me. But again that may just be human error...the testor is obviously flawed (me).

BUT...the test kit is NEW...and I mean it new...I got it right when I got the pellets put in. I wanted this to be an accurate set of tests. Accurate in the fact that I would see MOVEMENT either up or down...not the literal use of the term accurate. And so far they just keep rising. And I'm not going to blame it on an old test kit...it's new.

I only have the one test kit...but i'm getting to the point of wanting to buy one of those expensive Nitrate Monitors from Pinpoint. But man they are pricey.

I thank you for the comments on my tank...and yes there is a tiny bit of algae...but the foxface keeps that all mowed down so it's not long and stringy, but most of the rock is BARE. Also there is no algae in any kind of refuge...I dont' run a lit fuge...you can see it in my videos. It's dark and benthic/criptic. There are lots of pods EVERYWHERE, they are almost plague like at night. I want to get a mandarin simply cause I know he'll be fat and happy. (but i'm not) The corals that are there...are growing and seem happy. they include. Green polyps, hammer coral, RBTA, ricordia yuma (2 big violet/grey ones), 8-9 orange florida rics, and a strange type of brain coral that was a hitch hiker that seems to like where it's at...and is growing from about a centimeter when I first noticed it, to about 3-4 cm now.

I'm weirded out that I can grow such strange things...and yet others that are new and healthy seem to bleach and die in a week...MAINLY SPS! I just can't keep them in those waters. And I believe it's mainly due to the nitrates being too high.

All othre parameters seems to stay just fine without drastic fluctuations.

I'm stumped....