N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[RegalAngel]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

Hi
So I have 300 gallons of water and run 2000 ml with a good amount of tumbling
the output goes into my sump with my skimmer, this has been running for 5 months.
I have seen no real improvement, and my skimate is clear..... I do feed a fair amount,,, my ph is 8 flat.......

anyone have any ideas how to make this work?
Thanks Frank

And your Nitrate level is (was)...........

[180+55reef]

Always zero, 5-6 inch deep sand bed

[ari5736]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

Hi
So I have 300 gallons of water and run 2000 ml with a good amount of tumbling
the output goes into my sump with my skimmer, this has been running for 5 months.
I have seen no real improvement, and my skimate is clear..... I do feed a fair amount,,, my ph is 8 flat.......

anyone have any ideas how to make this work?
Thanks Frank

no improvement in what, these reduce nitrate, if your nitrate is 0 what is your measure of improvement, phosphate?

[jlinzmaier]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

anyone have any ideas how to make this work?
Thanks Frank

Yes, I have to agree with the post above. What are you trying to accomplish with the BP's if your nitrates are already 0?? What sort of reaction are you looking for??

Jeremy

[180+55reef]

algae

it seems I have lots of cyno and not much skimate or what I have is clear

[ari5736]

Are there people out there that can conclusively say the pellets have worked for them?

As for me, I started with 1.5 liter in March on my 180 gallons of water. Added 1 liter more in June, and I am only seeing my Nitrates increase. My flow through the reactor is high and the pellets are all fluidized. My NO3 gradually increased from about 10-30ppm over the past few months. I definitely don't have any nitrate sinks, and got the NP reactor's output flowing a skimmer oversize by anyone's standards. I started cutting back feeding which I rather not do.

Looks like its back to the sulphur denitrator for me. That works for sure, just more of a pain. I will keep the NP reactor online with the hope it does something eventually.

[ari5736]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

algae

it seems I have lots of cyno and not much skimate or what I have is clear

You know cyno is not an algae, but rather a bacteria, and the pellets are a bacteria feed for your system.

[180+55reef]

thanks for everyone help,

I guess I have heard people talk about the "miracles" that these things perform... black skimate no algae ect.... clear water....

I didnt know cyno was bacteria.. thanks!
so I am feeding this with the Pellets?

I also run cheato and calerpa for what it is worth

thanks Frank

[ari5736]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

so I am feeding this with the Pellets?

I believe this is a subject of debate.

[jlinzmaier]

Originally Posted by 180+55reef

thanks for everyone help,

I guess I have heard people talk about the "miracles" that these things perform... black skimate no algae ect.... clear water....

I didnt know cyno was bacteria.. thanks!
so I am feeding this with the Pellets?

I also run cheato and calerpa for what it is worth

thanks Frank

There are no silver bullets in the world of reefkeeping!! NONE!!

IMO, the only "miracle" is that such delicate animals can even survive in our aquarium settings which have a significant lack of biodiversity, limited food supply, limited food diversity, excessive organic nutrient pollution, and abnormal means of filtration/nutrient management - in comparison to a natural reef.

My impression is that the pellets were developed as a means of bacterial proliferation through a means of a solid form of carbon source dosing. This limits the need for daily doses of a carbon source like vodka, vinegar, sugar etc.... When we dose liquid carbon sources to our tank it seems this will often fuel the growth of organisms like cyanobacteria which are often limited in growth (as are many other reef organisms) by an available carbon source within the water column. The idea is that the pellets would limit the growth of nuisance cyano becuase the manufacturers claim they are a solid form and "leach no carbon into the water column". Many people observe bacterial blooms and increased growth of cyano when using the pellets indicating these growths are likely being fueled by an available carbon source entering the water column. The common signs of bacterial proliferation outside the BP reactor seems to indicate a carbon source is very likely leaching from the pellets - contrary to what the manufacturers may claim.

A common debate that can be said for carbon source dosing (liquid source or solid "BP" source) and the correlated cyano growth, is that when the carbon source is dosed it increases bacterial proliferation which significantly lowers organic nutrients like NO3 and PO4 (the common organics required for algae and cyano growth). Even when people initially see increased growth of cyano when a form of carbon source dosing is implemented, it's thought that if you stick it out for a while, the proliferation of the nitrifying bacteria will eventually outcompete the cyano and other algea for available nutrients thus limiting the growth of these nuisances.

If your getting increased cyano with the use of these pellets you may want to focus on other nutrient management methods in addition to the BP's. By decreasing po4 levels with the use of GFO and increasing water flow you will be taking another step to decrease available nutrients and helping alleviate the problem from several vital aspects. Managing nutrients with various methods of filtration and nutrient export is often the best means of approach.

The BP's are unfortunately no silver bullet. They are merely an adjunctive means of nutrient management available to us. Unfortunately, some people seem to get little to no decreases in nutrients from the use of the BP's; however, the product is relatively new to the US market and I suspect many alterations and improvements are yet to come as time passes and more experimentation is done.

A great benfit that the BP's can provide (if you can get them to do induce some bacterial proliferation) is the additional food souce of bacterioplankton. Some may implement the use of BP's not for nutrient management, but more so for the release of bacterioplankton to feed the reefs delicate invertebrates which require these food sources to live/thrive. To those who are doubting the functionality of the BP's, I would suggest a simple test. Turn the flow off of your reactor for 2-3 hours (keeping it full of water the entire time) then shake it vigorously for a bit. If the water gets milky white then the BP's are inducing some bacterial growth (the white cloud is bacterial mass being released into the water). Even if you get some bacterial proliferation, it may not be enough to serve the purpose your intending or it maynot able to provide the amount of nutrient reduction you're hoping to see. Getting a white "mulm" release from the shaken BPs indicates there is bacterial proliferation occuring; however, if your not seeing a significant decrease in nutrients you may need to use more BP's or use them in addition to other means of filtration.

Jeremy

[daveonbass]

Originally Posted by tntneon

I thought that you had 160 ppm no3 ?
Doesn't matter 20 ppm is much better

Your sytem is about 2X bigger than mine and i started dosing natural white (transparent) vinegar of 5° , at 2 ml a day and upping it by 2ml / 2days.

So in your case i would start with 4 ml .

greetingzz tntneon

Just as a recap. I started with 80 to 160 ppm NO3 in the display tank, whish I then ruduced down to 10ppm through three 50% water changes. The BP nor the rice ever did anything to reduce the NO3, and now the level is back up to 20ppm.

My QT is still way up there with 160ppm NO3. IT neve came down even a little durring the short attempt at running BP in the sump.

Both tanks STILL have 0ppm PO4. (undetectable)

HOWEVER:

I have been given a chance to be part of a "test" to see just how phosphate limited tanks respond to BPs. Saltwaterconnection.com has offered to let me try out their new product of BP, which according to them is the same ones that NP are now using, and that they are 98% pure. (plh or something like that)

So I'm excited to be using a product that they claim has WORKED for all that have used it. BUT, I did have to make some changes.

1. remove the current BP (no problem there, been gone since monday)
2. feed as much nori as I can, in an atempt to raise the PO4 levels.
3. disconnect the reactor from the skimmer, and instead give the skimmer a seperate pump, then having the effluent from the reactor near the skimmers intake, thus allowing some effluent/bacteria to enter the tank.

My impression...

1. no biggie...
2. I thought the point was to see what happens with their pellets in a po4 "limited" tank...yet I'm to try to raise the po4 levels. Sadly I've been throwing a whole sheet in there a day, and my foxface is either eating it or pulling it off to drift in the water. But either way it's not raising the po4.
3. This is something that I did like a little. I wouldn't have had a problem doing this before, but the manufacturer never really gave a good explaination as to the BEST way to use these NPBP. IF it should not go DIRECTLY tot he skimmer then that should be said, and made very clear. If some bacteria is supposed to get to the main display tank, then again, it should be stated to do so...yet the original manufacturer did no such thing. Just vague recommendations like "put the BP in your tank". That's not good enough for meticulious reefers like some of us can be. I'm upset that I have to change my set up and use yet another pump, cause this will never show if the BP would ork in my original set up or not. But I'm happy casue at least someone has STATED how to best use the product. So I have made the pump addition an changed my set up.



So when they get here on Monday I will be starting a new chapter in my BP attempt. Hopefully all goes well and these work out for me this time.

[jlinzmaier]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

Just as a recap. I started with 80 to 160 ppm NO3 in the display tank, whish I then ruduced down to 10ppm through three 50% water changes. The BP nor the rice ever did anything to reduce the NO3, and now the level is back up to 20ppm.

My QT is still way up there with 160ppm NO3. IT neve came down even a little durring the short attempt at running BP in the sump.

Both tanks STILL have 0ppm PO4. (undetectable)

HOWEVER:

I have been given a chance to be part of a "test" to see just how phosphate limited tanks respond to BPs. Saltwaterconnection.com has offered to let me try out their new product of BP, which according to them is the same ones that NP are now using, and that they are 98% pure. (plh or something like that)

So I'm excited to be using a product that they claim has WORKED for all that have used it. BUT, I did have to make some changes.

1. remove the current BP (no problem there, been gone since monday)
2. feed as much nori as I can, in an atempt to raise the PO4 levels.
3. disconnect the reactor from the skimmer, and instead give the skimmer a seperate pump, then having the effluent from the reactor near the skimmers intake, thus allowing some effluent/bacteria to enter the tank.

My impression...

1. no biggie...
2. I thought the point was to see what happens with their pellets in a po4 "limited" tank...yet I'm to try to raise the po4 levels. Sadly I've been throwing a whole sheet in there a day, and my foxface is either eating it or pulling it off to drift in the water. But either way it's not raising the po4.
3. This is something that I did like a little. I wouldn't have had a problem doing this before, but the manufacturer never really gave a good explaination as to the BEST way to use these NPBP. IF it should not go DIRECTLY tot he skimmer then that should be said, and made very clear. If some bacteria is supposed to get to the main display tank, then again, it should be stated to do so...yet the original manufacturer did no such thing. Just vague recommendations like "put the BP in your tank". That's not good enough for meticulious reefers like some of us can be. I'm upset that I have to change my set up and use yet another pump, cause this will never show if the BP would ork in my original set up or not. But I'm happy casue at least someone has STATED how to best use the product. So I have made the pump addition an changed my set up.



So when they get here on Monday I will be starting a new chapter in my BP attempt. Hopefully all goes well and these work out for me this time.

I highly suspect they are indicating to have some BP reactor effluent enter the tank because it will further induce bacterial proliferation due to the fact that the pellets likely leach the carbon source. I'd love to hear their explanation though!!

Gosh, in order to get the BP's to work you need to dump a boatload of organics (nori) into the system. Sounds pretty contradictory to me. I would be concerned about what other organics you're adding with the intentional significant increase in nori feeding (all in an attempt to boost po4). There's far more to nori than po4 and adding anything out of proportion is likely to cause more bad than good. Too bad there's no way to measure the levels of the thousands of types of organics that can build up and become harmful in a reef tank.

I wonder if it would be less risky and have less potential for disaster if you would add something like sodium phosphate as opposed to the nori sheets. I'd need a chemistry guru to indicate the best pure phosphate additive, but sodium phosphate comes to mind because that's what we give people with low serum po4 levels. Randy's the po4 expert. He creates medicine to remove po4 from a persons body. I'm sure he'd have a better suggestion for raising po4 other than adding large amounts of nori.

Not to mention, if they are having you do this experiment to test the effects of BP's in low po4 situations then they are completely contradicting themselves by asking you to try to boost your po4.

Sounds to me like regular water changes would be a whole let less difficult.

Please keep us posted with your results.

What are you using to test po4 with again??

Jeremy

[ari5736]

Very interesting Dave, thanks for sharing. Please let us know how it goes.

[daveonbass]

first paragraph response: yes.

second: what? I'm just feeding my fish. Are you saying that feeding nori is any more pollutant than feeding any fishfood?. For me it's just another fish food. I put a sheet in for my foxface. When he's done (about a day) I put in another piece. Don't most people feed their herbavores nori from time to time?

third: I've already asked what I could safely add to get my PO4 up safely. No one had a "easily" safe method. So that was scratched.

fourth: yeah...that was my thoughts exactly. But at least they "seem" to know what will work better. The original manufacturer did nothing to help those of us with no success.

the rest: yes WC's would do the trick, BUT, I would also like to find a way to feed more (both more food and more fish) and still have a secondary nutrient export other than just the WC's.

my test kits are API...not expired. (i checked) ((and double checked))

[tozzi]

Starting a reactor tonight with the bio pellets. Can i dose some zeo start 2 to jump start it? Or some zeo food 7? Just wondering cause i have it layin around

[Tony Romano]

No ZS2 is same thing as pellets. (In theory you can run the ZS2 to save pellets) I don't due to cyno seems to love ZS2. If you are dosing ZS2 keep it the same for a week, the cut back to nothing over next week.

ZF may help a little, for me ZEOfood7 = CYNO! ZF7 seems to help my nonphotos or I think it does!

Do you have any ZEObac? That will jump it fast! MB7 also works very well, much cheaper than ZEO.

Are you running ZEOvites? (rocks)

Last - I strongly suggest running micron bags and going after detritus with vigor.

[larryfl1]

i just started mine about 2 weeks ago... nothing added and it seems to have really kicked in as my water is the clearest it has ever been....

i did have a bacteria bloom about 5-6 days after i started the system...

but it looks really good now...!!!!

[JeremyGelber]

Hi all, I've finally caught up on this entire thread (2 days intermittent reading, wow!) and got a fluidising reactor with about 850g of biopellets in it. I'm not sure if I've put too much in though, because I'm not getting any tumbling. I did initially but the pellets have all clumped together.

Initially I thought it was the pump, a small 800l/h but I just stuck on an Eheim 2000l/h pump and it's the same issue.

There is loads of room in the reactor when the pump is off so it's not overfilled (I think). And I got the bacterial bloom this morning so it's likely to be doing something. My pH is down a fair bit (7.95 from usual 8.4) which from the forum literature suggests an aerobic rather than anaerobic reaction which is good, sort of, but without the tumbling I'm not sure how much flow is getting to all the pellets.

Any ideas?

Oops, forgot to mention: tank is 2,000 litres mixed reef with a secondary tank connected to the same sump holding 4 hungry predators (so same water flowing through all, but enforced separation as the predators are very much non-reef-safe!).

[Moser]

Sometimes they clump when you first start. It tends to settle if the flow is good.
You can separate them by shaking the reactors or stopping the pump and letting htem fall and then restarting the pump.... eventually they clump less and less until they fluidise nicely. This may take several days!....

Mo

[tozzi]

I do have some zeo bac too, maybe i'll try that to jump start it.

My next ? All the talk about the reactors output pointed at the skimmers intake. Then people saaying that only some of the reactor water should go to skimmer and some to tank. This thread will really make your head spin! Well my skimmer is a deltec 902ap. I feed it right from my tanks overflow as deltec recommends, and its also nice this way cause its one less pump i need to run. So i have 2 choices. 1: i can run the reactor in the sump and point the output to my return pumps intake, then it will go directly to dt and then to skimmer. wich i dont see anyone doing. 2: I can plumb the output of reactor into my skimmer and have all the reactor water going directly into the skimmer then into tank.

If i go with #2, should i put a t in my skimmer supply line and hook up the reactor output to that. Or can i just run the output of reactor right through the head of my skimmer and down to the water level inside my skimmer neck? I dont know how bad or if it would effect performance like this?

Thanks-Nick

Oh 1 more ? The pellets i got today were npx bio beads. The guy gave me the new version? They're way smaller than the old ones for more surface area exposure. He said eventually this brand wont have the bigger ones anymore, they switched everything to the smaller ones. Anyone have any experience with these?

[tozzi]

Anyone?

[Moser]

I think there were issues with fluidisation with the larger pelllets in some settings, so the smaller ones should work for more people without having large pumps...

I think you should start slowly, which means say half your final volume of pellets to start and after a few days (if all well and no bloom) add another quarter and then the final after a further few days....

Adding zeobak may put you at risk of a bloom... I would go without for a few days and if ok, then add if you need to.

If you can't run a skimmer pump then add the T.... you will get some bacteria passing through the skimmer on first pass anyway.

I think the difference with Zeovit and these pellets (in terms of directing the flow into the tank or into the skimmer) is because the flow is much less in Zeovit, so less bacterioplankton get into the tank than with the massive flow with pellets. Therefore, you need to skim out most with teh pellets, but enough still get through.

Hope this helps..

Mo

[daveonbass]

I think if you have to add a suppliment to "kick start" the pellets, then the pellets are trash. They should just work. The manufacturers don't ever say they need to be seeded, so why should we have to try that to get them to work?

try running them without anything first...and go from there.

[tozzi]

Ok ill add the "T" to plumb the reactor in , and just the pellets. - Thanks

[jlinzmaier]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

second: what? I'm just feeding my fish. Are you saying that feeding nori is any more pollutant than feeding any fishfood?. For me it's just another fish food. I put a sheet in for my foxface. When he's done (about a day) I put in another piece. Don't most people feed their herbavores nori from time to time?

There's a huge difference between occasionally feeding some nori to the herbivorous animals and keeping a sheet of nori continually floating in the tank and replacing it when it disappears.

Are you saying that feeding nori is any more pollutant than feeding any fishfood?.

Feeding any sort of fish food constantly and allowing it to continually float throughout the tank to be eaten or decompose will contribute to total organic load. I didn't indicate nori was better or worse than any other fish food, but if you think the increase in nori feeding won't contribute to your already high nitrates then your mistaken. Nitrates and phosphates are easy to test for in a tank. The point I was trying to make is that there should be some concern for other organic compounds (that we cannot easily test for) that can build up from excessive feeding of "any" fish food.

It will be interseting to hear your results. I'm not trying to shoot your hopes down, just merely offering a bit of caution. For your sake, I sure hope this works. I'm sure the foxface is happy.

Jeremy