N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by euromomtx

I just had a thought on the previously mention in-tank bacterial bloom.

(actually I was being lazy and recreated it in my tank)
I am setting up a new tank. Broke the return pump while setting up the plumbing but wanted to start running it.
So I 'borrowed' the pump that feeds my skimmer to use as a return pump until the replacement comes in.
Figuring it takes 1-2 weeks for the pellets to colonize with bacteria I set up the pellet reactor for the new tank Monday knowing I wouldn't have the skimmer running until Thursday (4 days).
Well it didn't take the pellets that long to get bacteria.
Tank has been cloudy for the last 24 hours but here's my thoughts on this:

I've been watching the pH go down significantly. Couldn't the cloudiness be due to the the buffers struggling to keep pH up?
On the old tank I had the skimmer on all the time but I bet there's still stuff that bypassed it.
Could the cloudy tank some people experience be more of a symptom of pH dropping rather than a real bacterial bloom?

Not in my case, I have very strong skimmer who push loots of air, also strong return pump, even during worse bacterial bloom my pH did not drop bellow 8,1 so in my case pH did not made bacterial bloom. What made issue more weird is that I could not get bp to work in normal reactor at 3 aquariums, but in same time same bp create bacterial bloom almost instantly with DIY reactor so that remove all water chemistry problem and strings that bacterial bloom in my case are related with ph, no phosphates high nitrates, kh,... whatever otherwise I will get bacterial bloom with normal fluid reactor. And what made issue even more weird is that my friends get bacterial bloom with the reactor what was not working for me (same reactor, I sold them after they was not good for me) so that remove the option that wrong reactor design are responsible for non functional bp. I think the person who will figoure out what is going on with the bp will get Nobel prize, for me all that dont have a sense, no logic (talking about my expirience with the bp).

[euromomtx]

Oh that's a bummer. Thought I was on to something... not! LOL

It will be fun to eventually know what's the difference!

Like Dave's not taking off after months of trying and I already have new bacterial slime in my reactor with pellets that are only 4 days in water!

[sirreal63]

I know your tank activates them very well, I made a temporary reactor out of a Black Diamond container with a MJ 1200 and washed your old ones off very well, it took just a few days for them to slime back up and yesterday my skimmer started putting out more than it has in a long time. I never got a bacteria bloom, never have, I have dosed sugar, vodka (in tank and reefkeeper), vinegar and never have I had a bloom. It makes it kind of hard to help people with theirs, but I do know that when people first started with sugar, their were pics of some wild blooms. :-)

As far as aeration and gas exchange, I think as much if not more happens at the water surface than from our skimmers, provided there is good surface agitation. I have no clue why the pellets activate for some and not others, maybe a little sugar to jump start the bacteria is better than MB7?

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by euromomtx

Oh that's a bummer. Thought I was on to something... not! LOL

It will be fun to eventually know what's the difference!

Like Dave's not taking off after months of trying and I already have new bacterial slime in my reactor with pellets that are only 4 days in water!

LOL same issue with my sold reactor, after he was for months in my aquariums without doing anything, person who buy him get bacterial bloom after 2-3 days, with less bp on bigger aquarium (just for the record, I tested various options with the reactor until I sold him, more bp, less bp, more flow, less flow, nothing helped) I still have in use one non functional reactor with 1000 ml of bp who oficially jet do nothing, I dont have a clue why I still use him, maybe looking for miracle LOL ...

[DJREEF]

Originally Posted by euromomtx

Oh that's a bummer. Thought I was on to something... not! LOL

It will be fun to eventually know what's the difference!

Like Dave's not taking off after months of trying and I already have new bacterial slime in my reactor with pellets that are only 4 days in water!

I think what you're referring to is a precipitation event where CaCO3 falls out of solution. This happens when buffers and calcium are too high, kind of the other way around from what you were describing. These blooms are not those. They are actual bacterial blooms. Mine haven't been that severe, but you can still smell them in the room, and you can damn sure smell them when you change the skimmer cup.

DJ

[bertoni]

Oxygen doesn't affect the pH. It's fairly common for a tank to be fully saturated with oxygen, yet have a low pH. Carbon dioxide will lower the pH.

[GPhiAce]

Originally Posted by bertoni

Oxygen doesn't affect the pH. It's fairly common for a tank to be fully saturated with oxygen, yet have a low pH. Carbon dioxide will lower the pH.

Do you mean that Oxygen does not decrease your pH? I thought oxygenating water to increase the pH is the the main purpose of having a 2nd chamber on a calcium reactor. The carbon dioxide is turned into carbonic acid when it enters the water which lowers the pH and by adding oxygen to the water, the carbonic acid is turned back into carbon dioxide and is released into the air. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I also thought the skimmer was important (in vodka dosing) to oxygenate the water and skim the bacteria and other crap. But I may be wrong again.

[daveonbass]

Originally Posted by bluereefs

LOL same issue with my sold reactor, after he was for months in my aquariums without doing anything, person who buy him get bacterial bloom after 2-3 days, with less bp on bigger aquarium (just for the record, I tested various options with the reactor until I sold him, more bp, less bp, more flow, less flow, nothing helped) I still have in use one non functional reactor with 1000 ml of bp who oficially jet do nothing, I dont have a clue why I still use him, maybe looking for miracle LOL ...

I'm with you. I would love to know why some situations "don't" work more than I'd like to know how the other ones do. If I had used them and all worked out great then I wouldn't be as pessimistic about these random non-working sitiuations. But I am cause they don't work for me.
not to hijack...but the rice that I'm now using has yet to give any real results either. Only difference is that the rice is making my skimmer work well at pulling out nasty gunk. BP's never did...

so the question is weather or not ANY of these methods will work in my tank. And if not, then what is wrong with my system that inhibits the use of solid dosing.

what priduct should I try next. :P

[bertoni]

Originally Posted by GPhiAce

Do you mean that Oxygen does not decrease your pH? I thought oxygenating water to increase the pH is the the main purpose of having a 2nd chamber on a calcium reactor.

Oxygen doesn't affect the pH at all. Skimmers are great for adding oxygen, and that's important, since animals need to breathe, but oxygen doesn't change pH.

The second chamber in a calcium reactor can help raise pH, but it doesn't do oxygenation. It allows more carbon dioxide to dissolve and combine with the reactor media, which raises the pH.

[euromomtx]

Okay. Explain this some more then:

Causes of Low pH Problems
...
3. The aquarium has more CO2 in it than the surrounding air due to inadequate aeration. Don't be fooled into thinking that an aquarium must have adequate aeration because its water is very turbulent. Equilibrating carbon dioxide is MUCH harder than simply providing adequate oxygen. There would be NO change in the pH between day and night if equilibration of carbon dioxide were perfect. Since most aquaria have lower pH during the night, they also are demonstrating less than complete aeration.

The Aeration Test

Some of the possibilities listed above require some effort to diagnose. Problems 3 and 4 are quite common, and here is a way to distinguish them. Remove a cup of tank water and measure the pH. Then aerate it for an hour with an airstone using outside air. The pH should rise if the pH is unusually low for the measured alkalinity, as in Figure 3 (if it does not rise, most likely one of the measurements (pH or alkalinity) is in error). Then repeat the same experiment on a new cup of water using inside air. If the pH rises there too, then the aquarium pH will rise with more aeration because it is only the aquarium that contains excess carbon dioxide. If the pH does not rise inside (or rises very little), then the inside air contains excess CO2, and more aeration with that same air will not solve the low pH problem (although aeration with fresher air should).

From here: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.php

[bertoni]

The cause of low pH in systems is due to a high level of carbon dioxide. That can be due to a number of causes. The most common is a high level of carbon dioxide in the room, due to people or pets breathing. Sometimes, tanks have poor aeration, which allows carbon dioxide to build up in the water column. Better aeration, such as a skimmer or better circulation, can improve the pH by outgassing carbon dioxide. Aeration doesn't refer just to oxygen. It includes all the components in the air: nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, etc. We tend to focus on carbon dioxide and oxygen because they're the active components in our tanks, for the most part.

[euromomtx]

Well... skimmer is running now and pH is going slowly up so hopefully my cloud will pass soon...

[bertoni]

Argh! I fixed my post... Mistyped.

[jlinzmaier]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

I'm with you. I would love to know why some situations "don't" work more than I'd like to know how the other ones do. If I had used them and all worked out great then I wouldn't be as pessimistic about these random non-working sitiuations. But I am cause they don't work for me.
not to hijack...but the rice that I'm now using has yet to give any real results either. Only difference is that the rice is making my skimmer work well at pulling out nasty gunk. BP's never did...

so the question is weather or not ANY of these methods will work in my tank. And if not, then what is wrong with my system that inhibits the use of solid dosing.

what priduct should I try next. :P

I find it quite interesting that you cannot get any reaction from the BP's.

My apologies if you stated this info prior, but I've done my best to read this entire thread and don't recall you stating info pertaining to any of my following questions.

Do you use ozone injection??

Do you use UV sterilization??

Have you tried any other carbon source dosing for bacterial proliferation?? If so, was it effective at maintaining nutrient levels??

Were you dosing anything else in the vacinity of the BP reactor intake (kalk, alk supplement, or anything else that would make a significant impact on the water chemistry entering the reactor)????

What are your most recent NO3 and PO4 readings and what test kit/method??

Are you growing any macroalgea??

How much nuisance algea growth do you have in the tank??

Is your tank exhibiting signs of high nitrates (browned corals, lots of nuisance algea, limited polyp ext from your corals, any other coral irritation, etc....)???

I'm sure there's some reason your not getting an effective response, we just need to pin point the issue.

Jeremy

[daveonbass]

ozone...no

uv........no

any other carbon dosing....no, never till the BP

nothing was ever dosed anywhere near the reactor intake.

current levels (levels when I quit) NO3 15ppm PO4 0ppm. NO3 was at 80ppm when I started, but that was brought down to 10-15 through water changes.

not growing macro...

nuisance algae is not high...but that is a matter of opinion. I have a foxface that keeps my rocks clean enough, but he always leaves a littlt grass to eat tomorrow. but the point is that I am not plagued with HA.

he corals look better than ever now that I got my NO3 from 80 to almost 10. Everything looks great. The reason I want to have the pellets work is so that I don't have to do 50% water changes. I'd rather do 10%.

if you need to know more just ask...

[StarF]

did u try to add some bacteria? like zeobak or some of the other products?

how much flow and how much bp do u have?

[Du]

Note that ozone and UV destroys some bioplastics, and possibly NP Biopellts.

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

ozone...no

uv........no

any other carbon dosing....no, never till the BP

nothing was ever dosed anywhere near the reactor intake.

current levels (levels when I quit) NO3 15ppm PO4 0ppm. NO3 was at 80ppm when I started, but that was brought down to 10-15 through water changes.

not growing macro...

nuisance algae is not high...but that is a matter of opinion. I have a foxface that keeps my rocks clean enough, but he always leaves a littlt grass to eat tomorrow. but the point is that I am not plagued with HA.

he corals look better than ever now that I got my NO3 from 80 to almost 10. Everything looks great. The reason I want to have the pellets work is so that I don't have to do 50% water changes. I'd rather do 10%.

if you need to know more just ask...

If you really have the feeling that they don't work , i would try one other trick for 2 or 3 weeks depending on the results.
I did this while using BP's and having still having cyano problems while nitrates and phosphates where zero.

Dose some vinegar every day begining with 2ml/25 g this for 2 days then upping it with 2 ml/25g every 2 days untill you are dosing 10 ml/25 g still with the BP in service and see what happens if they drop (nitrates).
Would go on doing this until they are less then 1 ppm , and then i would gradualy decreasse vinegar back in one or two weeks to zero still checking nitrates offcorse.

-If nitrates go back up , but hold steady to a lower level as they are now (say 5 or 10 ppm's) you could add some extra BP's.

-If nitrates don't drop even after vinegar cure , you have to seek the answer some where else then with the BP's then something else is leeching into the system , i think.

-if nitrates keep getting up after you stoped the vinegar cure , i would start dosing vinegar again , if it's the only way to bring them down in your system
you have to go for that way .

Hopefully this will work for you ...
and keep posting your findings , toghether we will solve this problem...

greetingzz tntneon

[euromomtx]

You're right. Guess it was a bacterial bloom and the dropping pH was the result of all this stuff being metabolized?

It's a new tank, with dry sand and dry rock so I added Fritz Bacteria to get it cycling.
It was just at the tail end of cycling when I added the pellets.
My return pump broke and I borrowed the skimmer's pump to use as return pump (it's an Elos so just uses a regular pump, not needlewheel) thinking that the pellets wouldn't kick in for a week or two and I'd have the pump replaced by then.

Added pellet reactor to the set up on July 26

Took this picture on July 27


Tested on the 28th and Nitrates had already dropped!

Major cloud on the 29th and pH plummeting (down from 7.9)




Added skimmer pump on the 29th and took this picture on the morning of July 30th:

pH rising a little bit:

[jlinzmaier]

Originally Posted by tntneon

If you really have the feeling that they don't work , i would try one other trick for 2 or 3 weeks depending on the results.
I did this while using BP's and having still having cyano problems while nitrates and phosphates where zero.

Dose some vinegar every day begining with 2ml/25 g this for 2 days then upping it with 2 ml/25g every 2 days untill you are dosing 10 ml/25 g still with the BP in service and see what happens if they drop (nitrates).
Would go on doing this until they are less then 1 ppm , and then i would gradualy decreasse vinegar back in one or two weeks to zero still checking nitrates offcorse.

-If nitrates go back up , but hold steady to a lower level as they are now (say 5 or 10 ppm's) you could add some extra BP's.

-If nitrates don't drop even after vinegar cure , you have to seek the answer some where else then with the BP's then something else is leeching into the system , i think.

-if nitrates keep getting up after you stoped the vinegar cure , i would start dosing vinegar again , if it's the only way to bring them down in your system
you have to go for that way .

Hopefully this will work for you ...
and keep posting your findings , toghether we will solve this problem...

greetingzz tntneon

Thanks for the input tntneon. I agree that Dave should experiment with some bacterial proliferation through carbon source dosing. Although I'm not familiar with vinegar dosing in great detail, it seems your dosing recommendations are very high and could be dangerous.

Dave.

Below is a great article about vodka dosing and gives very precise dosing instruction to help limit any uneccesary stress as the process is implemented.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...nftt/index.php

If I were in your situation I would start with some vodka dosing and get a productive regimen established. If you really want to continue trying to manage your nutrients with BP's then I would then try to implement the use of the BP's and slowly wean off the vodka. Just my thoughts on what I would try next if I were in your situation.

How long did you run the BP's Dave??

Although I don't think it's necessary, did you try jump starting the process with any bacterial addative (mb7, zeobak, etc...)??

Are you continuing to need to do significant water changes to keep the nitrates low??

Jeremy

[Tony Romano]

I am on 5th week of 1.25 l of pellets, I ran .25 as a test starting 5/21.

At time of start I was a year into ZEO. I have 2 mixed tanks with 8 big fish, sps, lps, softies and some nonphotos, chilie, Sun, ect. 300 gallons plus, 8 years setup. I've been struggling to keep sps alive consistantly. My current status is all cyno, GHA and Purple fuzzy algae is slowly going away. The real improvement kicked in when I upped the level of pellets.

Currently I am using the following:

NP pellets
ZEOvites 1.5 l ZEO and Brightwell
Microbac7 10 drops every day or two
ZEObac 15 drops on sunday
around 2 liters of carbon
Ozone - in isolated subsystem, carbon filtered on return
A couple of reactors and old sulfur filters with old ZEOrocks and a tad of Sulfur
Micro bags
Orca 250 skimmer
Daily small water changes using PF controller.
AA, AALP, CV 1 or 2 time a week (I use a leather corals and mushrooms as visual of when water is "too" clean)
K+ if Monti caps look faded.
Lowered salinity from 1.026 to 1.024/23. Monti and Stylopora type corals seem to not like high salinity or sudden swings.

I stopped using ZEOstart2 completly 2 weeks ago after slow reduction.
I feed 10 frozen cubes a day, cut way back on powdered coral food (seemed to cause cyno)
I also reduced hours of blue light by 40% and 100% on big and small tank. (cyno seems to like blue light) Carbon dosing also seems to fuel cyno.


This has been a very interesting and frustrating experience. Consistancy is key, I tended to over fix which caused new issues. Additionally I like to have big fish and LPS, they eat alot. I would get tank in line then over feed a week or two later and boom sps crash.

Pictures coming, I purchased a Marco lens yesterday!

Tony

[daveonbass]

I dosed MB7 twice. (thanks DJreef) and had zero change. I also used the BP for 15 weeks without them ever working. After 15 weeks I switched to rice. Finally my skimmer is working great again. No other change in flow and no additional additives. Just rice instead of BP.

if doseing more vsv were required then I wish I had known at the start, that way I would have never bought the BP. It's false advertising to buy the pellets and then have people tell you after the fact that they don't work unless you add MORE STUFF to the tank. There was no mention of needing to do that when I bought them. The product should have worked as advertised. It didn't.

[Tony Romano]

Dave - I am odd man out adding bacteria, most guys don't. Also I believe if your PO4 is zero, pellets won't lower NO3. (That is why I run sulfur reactor) I suspect in the long run PO4 will be higher of 2, GFO will take care of that.

Tell me about the rice, same idea? Bacteria eating NO3 and PO4 in reactor?

[daveonbass]

you're deffinatly NOT the odd man out. Plenty of people have dosed "something" weather it be MB7, vodka, sugar, vinegar, some form of zeo, or whatever...but people have dosed. They have either dosed before using BP, while using BP, or after they started BP. From what I recal reading in this whole thread, people like me that have NEVER dosed are the odd men out. I didn't dose anything till week 1d and 15 and then I stoped using BP.

I too am now starting to believe that it's a PO4 problem. I have none. If I don't get any then I suspect that I will not be able to reduce NO3 in any easy way other than doing more WC.

rice is the same idea...only a lot cheaper than a bag of BP.

[Tony Romano]

Try some seachem de-nitrator, liverock or sulfur reactor. Anything with slow drip will help reduce NO3. Just smell effluient, (spelling?) if it smells like rotting eggs increase drip.

I say I am odd man out because I plan on not stopping bacteria, rocks and Ozone.

I am keeping ZEO rocks for food source and a bit of insurance!

Any old white rice will work?

Thanks