N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[Rwpdunne]

Originally Posted by Moser

Good luck Dave. I hope they work for you.

Mo

So Mo are the pellets working for you? and if so what are your nitrate and p04 readings?

IMO these pellets dont work

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by tmz

Corals closing could be due to a rapid drop in N and P or a reaction to the by porducts and activities related to the breakdown of carbohydrates in the pellets to sugars particulary if there is excess C.
Some Lps, particularly corals like cataphyllia jardinei come from lagoons and such where P and N are higher than on high reefs, so they could have a tough time adjusting to the ultra low N and P levels. My lps ,leathers ,softies and some non photosynthetics and sps do well with PO4 around 0.04ppm and nitrate betwen0.2 and 0.5ppm For me Scolymia, Lobophylia and Entamacea quadricolr reacted badly to sugar dosing.

In my cases PE drop first on sps corals, particulary on stylophora/pocilopora and one hairy acro I have for long time. In the past when I just switched reactor from one aquarium to another (functional bacterial machine reactor who create bacterial bloom in 24 hours) PE drop almost imideatly on those corals. I have same reaction with those corals when I used high dose of vodka, it was actually reason why I stopped vodka dosing, could not get nitrate down with 12 ml on 150 g and those corals do not have PE, stylophora start to lose part of flesh. This time I start slowly with weekly biwekly adition of bp and everything is fine with them.

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by DJREEF

It's showing up as an increase on my carbonate (kH) test kit.

DJ

Originally Posted by tmz

I really don't think it would be a problem in a full blown setup like yours. The consumption rate would easily outstrip the carbonate output from the pellets. It would just mean that you would have to buffer less.

DJ


Hi,
Do we know the alkalinity increase is carbonate alikalinity?

-Hi guys ,

I pm'ed Jp about the Kh issue , he said to me that :

-When bacteria consume the pellets they will release OH- that reacts with co2 , and forms carbonates .
I assume that it will be the carbonate alkinity , don't know for sure .

greetingzz tntneon

[bluereefs]

Thank you for information from Jp tntneon

My diy reactor now produce loots of bacteria but without bacterial bloom, sponge inside the reactor as well as filter sock on reactor outlet are cloged after 24 hours, clean them every day but from yesterday I start to wash them in second aquarium where are non functional bp, hopefully those bacteria will "ignite" them as well.

Nitrate drop from 50 to 5 mg/lit in last week, there are small turf of bryopsis and glass need cleaning every 3-4 days, there was no water changes at all last month or two. Contrary to advice that bp can not be overdosed in my case and only with my diy reactor they can be overdosed and to much of them start bacterial bloom in very short time. Probably is a good advice to start with low dosage and ad more weekly until desired results are get. Functional bio pelets can produce a really loot of bacteria, maybe to much if is started with big quantity.

[Moser]

Originally Posted by Rwpdunne

So Mo are the pellets working for you? and if so what are your nitrate and p04 readings?

IMO these pellets dont work

Hi,

On my smaller tank, nitrates are 0 and phos was 0.04. I added some phos remover and now run at 0.01.

SPS colours are good and I'm adding zeo products as well now.

Polyp extension is very good.



Mo

[daveonbass]

Originally Posted by mano84

Sorry if I understood incorrectly but are you saying that your skimmer never worked as good as usual when you had NP-biopellets in the tank?

yes that is what I'm saying. The original NP Bio Pellets reduced my skimmer nog. I have better/normal skimmate NOW that I am using different pellets. (also when I had no pellets.)

[tntneon]

Originally Posted by bluereefs

...sponge inside the reactor as well as filter sock on reactor outlet are cloged after 24 hours ....

-That is something i would remove IME , bleureefs.
not only it is a hassle to clean them every day , they trap bacteria and detrius , and could become nitrates and phosphates factory's.
-I too had some overflow pads in the past , but when i removed them , water clarity was the same and i never had to clean them again .
Also your corals will get more feeding particles , suspended in the water , to eat .

greetingzz tntneon

[Gromert]

Using NP (500 ml in a 500 L reeftank) since may 2010. First a bloom then a decrease of N and P (zero) and after that an increased N up to 25-50. Now problems with cyano. I have removed the Deltec reactor (using a MJ1200 pump) till I have some reasonable explanations for what´s going on. Have also lost a couple of acros and there are softcorals that are severe bleached. The reactor and pump is set up properly with the BP tumbling moderately and the out put of the reactor is going to the inlet of the BM200 skimmer. Any suggestions what to do??

Regards
Nils

[drummereef]

What is with all the bacterial blooms with the NP Pellets? I haven't noticed this with other brand pellets. Seems like something is funky here.

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by tntneon

-That is something i would remove IME , bleureefs.
not only it is a hassle to clean them every day , they trap bacteria and detrius , and could become nitrates and phosphates factory's.
-I too had some overflow pads in the past , but when i removed them , water clarity was the same and i never had to clean them again .
Also your corals will get more feeding particles , suspended in the water , to eat .

greetingzz tntneon

Thank you for advice tntneon, I know for troubles with sponge and filter socks, actually I writed in the middle of this thread about trouble with them, but this time I start different and sponge/filtersock are used mostly for visual examination of bacterial production. IIRC I start again month ago with new aproach and until week sponge/filtersock was very clean what was telling me that bp do not produce too much bacteria, last days I need to clean them daily and that show me that bacteria production are on maximum, particulary filtersock are full of bacterial slime/gelationous film. I have open reactor, taking out sponge located at the top of reactor are very easy as well as cleaning the filtersock, those bacteria from sponge/filtersock I use now for testing purpose trying to seed my second non functional reactor, also removing so much bacteria can IMO help removing the nutrients asociated with bacteria. Many bacteria pass the sponge/filter socks because my skimmer work much more stronger now. I beleive that some will pass the skimmer also and finished as a food for corals.

Sponges, filtersock and skimmer production are IMO best sign of working bio pellets, or not working.

Using NP (500 ml in a 500 L reeftank) since may 2010. First a bloom then a decrease of N and P (zero) and after that an increased N up to 25-50. Now problems with cyano. I have removed the Deltec reactor (using a MJ1200 pump) till I have some reasonable explanations for what´s going on. Have also lost a couple of acros and there are softcorals that are severe bleached. The reactor and pump is set up properly with the BP tumbling moderately and the out put of the reactor is going to the inlet of the BM200 skimmer. Any suggestions what to do??

Regards
Nils

I dont have expirience with your exact situation but I remember when I move my diy reactor after he created bacterial bloom and wiped out all algae/organic from aquarium that nitrate and algae come back very fast, much faster then I expected, litteraly after few days algae start to grow again even they was completly destroyed days before, what is unusual they start to grow again in the same place, same species of algae. Maybe your bp stop working, no bacteria production and nitrate/algae come back. Do you use sponge in reactor or filtersock/prefilter system so you can check are they loaded/contain bacteria strings/slime?

What is with all the bacterial blooms with the NP Pellets? I haven't noticed this with other brand pellets. Seems like something is funky here.

I think I readed in every bio pellets threads about bacterial bloom (not only NP bio pellets) personally I think they are all the same and have same issue. So many bloom or not working bp or any kind of trouble with bio pellets in this thread is IMO because they was first and much more people use them, also is obviously that after this thread manufactures now advice smaller quantity with the slow adition of more bio pellets, some advice/recomend bacterial aditives.... and there will be probably more advice/recomendation from the RC threads. Is a quite simple explanation, all those companies dont have hundreds of differents reef aquariums where they can test bio pellets in various situation so they can write exact instruction for use, they just read threads here and in other forums and then made "advanced" bio pellets. I beleive they are all the same or with very litlle diference. Dont see any kind of diferent expirience in other bp threads, some have bacterial bloom, some not, some can not get bp to work and reduce nitrate, some can, some have issue with soft corals other not.... for me that all look the same as here.

[larryfl1]

what should i be adding to the tank now that the np pellets are removing everything?

some stony, some lps and some clams...

[Gromert]

Blureefs

No sponge, no prefilter just a BM 200 skimmer and a fluidized Carbon/GFO filter, nothing else. As I wrote the pellets was tumbling moderately.
params : Kh 7, ca 400, Mg 1260, Po4 0, Ph 8,2.

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by Gromert

Blureefs

No sponge, no prefilter just a BM 200 skimmer and a fluidized Carbon/GFO filter, nothing else. As I wrote the pellets was tumbling moderately.
params : Kh 7, ca 400, Mg 1260, Po4 0, Ph 8,2.

Sorry Gromert, really dont know, I am not the bp expert, just sharing my expirience with them in this thread. I think nobody actually know what is going on with bio pellets, this new media probably open completly new dimension in reef keping and many more answer we will get in the future as more study/work will be done with this matter. So far we have carbon dosing (vodka, sugar, vinegar, vitamin C...) but all those system avoided bacterial bloom and have slow start with small weekly adjustement until the results are get, mostly after months and months. With bp most of us get straight to bacterial bloom (serious bacterial bloom) in few days, even without bacterial bloom working bio pellets produce (IMO) much more bacteria then liquid carbon dosing, and I think we simply dont know what is going on within our aquariums with so much bacteria. In your example maybe they (bacteria) after they consume all nutrients simply shut off and your bp do not worked anymore, then nutrients come back fast what was negatively efect your corals, something like high jump and fall in ph or kh...in short period of time, probably big diference in nutrient concetration in short period of time have very severe efects on corals, particulary on soft corals who feed with disolved organic.

[Gromert]

Assume that I restart with half the amount of pellets and and some more circulation (NJ1700 pump) through the filter in combination with heavy wet skimming.

Is the amount of pellets used related to how much you are feeding?

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by Gromert

Assume that I restart with half the amount of pellets and and some more circulation (NJ1700 pump) through the filter in combination with heavy wet skimming.

Is the amount of pellets used related to how much you are feeding?

IIRC acording to manufacter advice yes, more you feed more bp you need but is hard to say exact amount of bp because heavy feeding in non photosintetc tank and heavy feeding in sps/lps tanks are very diferent.

Right now I use 500 ml in 600 lit tank and bp produce loots of bacteria, flow measured at the outlet of my reactor are aprox 550/600 litters/hour (somewhere in this thread I post exact flow measure). IMO your 500 ml are just fine for your tank if they work. Do you see bacterial strings/film anywhere in your aquarium? White film on glass panel? Do you have some filtersock, for ROWAphos for example? ROWAphos filter sock are usually easy to get in EU and they are cheap, so you can put filtersock at the outlet of the reactor and see will he clog in 24-48 hours? I use ROWAphos filtersock on my reactor outlet and he get cloged and full of bacteria after 24 hours. Can take picture tomorow so you can see what I mean. Reason for using filter sock is to see does your bp produce bacteria at all right now.

[mano84]

Originally Posted by daveonbass

yes that is what I'm saying. The original NP Bio Pellets reduced my skimmer nog. I have better/normal skimmate NOW that I am using different pellets. (also when I had no pellets.)

Well, wasn't the result from the bad batch low skimmate production?

[trunks1622]

Originally Posted by drummereef

It will help yes, but I presume you just added too many pellets at once. A lot of times if you add too many from the start it will cause a bloom. Slowly adding a little over a few weeks is advisable. No worries, from my research, most tanks get through bacteria blooms just fine. The airstone and/or more flow is just a precautionary measure.

So I came home Friday and to my surprise, my tank was super clear. The cloudiness disappeared. I tested for phosphate and it was almost undetectable. Although, I've never really had a big issue with phosphates. I've used both the Hagen and salifert phosphate test kit. Now for nitrates. I usually test my tank every 2-3 weeks and the last several test I did for nitrates had always been 80+ ppm. Now, it was almost undetectable. I've used both API and Hagen test kit and both gave me the same result. Now, I highly doubt that my 4-5g wc every week could have lowered it this much but I'm happy with my results. I don't know if the biopellets works this fast but I like what I see.

[trunks1622]

I forgot to mention that withthe good result I got, it also came with some bad news. I didn't lose any corals but I see some was affected. My brain coral isn't as bright and big like it used to be. The bubble coral isn't fully open. My duncans have never opened since I have added the biopellets. The zoas aren't fuly openning as well. I'm sure they will recover but it will take some time. Also, my skimmer is still working very hard but I haven't had to empty it as much as last time.

[Gromert]

No sign of white films or strings of bacteria. I have a filter sock so I can try this.

Is it possible that the pellets have the potential to increase NO3 when it´s not "working"?

I must be doing something wrong here but I can`t figur out what.

What sort of pump are you using to create the best flow?

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by Gromert

No sign of white films or strings of bacteria. I have a filter sock so I can try this.

Is it possible that the pellets have the potential to increase NO3 when it´s not "working"?

I must be doing something wrong here but I can`t figur out what.

What sort of pump are you using to create the best flow?

Here is filtersock on my diy working reactor, after the cleaning, no bacteria


24 hours latter, full of bacteria slime


If I dont clean sock after 24 hours in 48 hours is like ballon.

here is my skimmer production in 24 hours


Every morning I clean skimmer cup, sponge and filtersock. IMO those a sign of working bio pellets and bacteria production.

I dont know how I can test posibillity that bp increase NO3 when they are not working, I personally doubt that bp contribute to NO3 increase, they not adsorb nitrate so can not leach them. My experiment with jar show that they can completly neutralize nitrate, I still have those jar on my table so I can measure nitrate again to see if they arise, they was 0. What was suprise me is the coming back of algae and nitrate after they was removed (bp) they come back very fast, I dont think that is related with bp but with carbon nitrate removal.

I use old hagen 404 powerhead, flow declared on pump are 1400 lit/hour but pump is old, at the outlet of reactor flow are around 550 lit/hours. Every pump what can tumble the bp are good, IMO.

I suspect, could be wrong also, that your bp somehow stop working, what is the cause I dont know. Put the filtersock at the outlet and if there was no bacteria for few days bp probably dont produce them.

I didn't lose any corals but I see some was affected. My brain coral isn't as bright and big like it used to be. The bubble coral isn't fully open. My duncans have never opened since I have added the biopellets. The zoas aren't fuly openning as well. I'm sure they will recover but it will take some time. Also, my skimmer is still working very hard but I haven't had to empty it as much as last time.

Change the water and start to feed them (target feeding) in case of bleaching move them in shade and feed, I would also use some kind of reef food (frozen/blenderized) with small particles what can trigger the feeding response in afected corals. If the situation do not improve I would remove the bp and start to feed aloot. Something like that was happening to me during one bacterial bloom, some corals get afected and bleached, move them in shadow (trachyphyllia) and target feed, as well I dump toons of blenderized diy food to rise the nutrients again. I think bp and bacterial bloom remove to fast everything organic from the tank including food for those corals what afected them.

[Gromert]

I will try this. Today I have cleaned the pellets and they smelled bad. Assume it´s a good sign. Will see what´s happening this coming week. Will also increase feeding regime to see if it´s affect the bleaching situation.

Thanx for your support ;o)

[bluereefs]

Originally Posted by Gromert

I will try this. Today I have cleaned the pellets and they smelled bad. Assume it´s a good sign. Will see what´s happening this coming week. Will also increase feeding regime to see if it´s affect the bleaching situation.

Thanx for your support ;o)

No problem, hoepfully you will fix the issue with your aquarium.

One more thing if they smell bad, like rotten eggs, that is not a good sign, that is hidrogen sulfid, here is good post about hidrogen sulfid posted by tmz

The pellets are a source of organic carbon .There is no reason, I can fathom, bacteria won't consume them for the C along with N and P.Wether or not using polymers as an organic carbon source is the best alternative for carbon dosing is an open question but the pellets are certainly not a "scam".

Personally,I have concerns about using polysaccharide sources such as starches and or the sucrose/glucose/fructose they can produce . I am also a bit skeptical that the organics from the pellets remain in the reactor sufficiently to prevent surges in organic carbon in the tank.

There are measures of CNP ratios for various bacterial biomass which vary somewhat from the Redfield ratio. But we don't know which bacteria we have in a given system. Generally, I am skeptical abut dosing bacteria since there are plenty in a reef tank.

Wether or not a particular type of polymer is better than the other(which pellet or other carbohydrate source is best) or wether using polysacharides as opposed to ethanol or acetic acid is the best way to provide organic carbon at all is, I think, an open question.

I'm alarmed to see folks allowing reactors to stagnate.
When you allow water to stagnate(in an open or closed container)
with organics in it, O2 and NO3 will deplete to 0 as faculative heterotrophic bacteria use them up. Then obligate anaerobic bacteria that reduce sulfate take over drawing O2 from sulfate (SO4) . This happens anywhere there is sulfate for respiration and C for food.Seawater has plenty of sulfate(2700ppm). The odor some are experiencing when opening a stagnant reactor is hydrogen sulfide(sewer gas) , a toxic gas by product of the SO4 reducing bacterial activity.
You do not want to introduce stagnant water into your aquarium or breathe much of it either.

Hidrogen sulfid should not finished in aquarium, he is very toxic. If your bp produce hidrogen sulfid during working then your problem are not shortage of bacteria, but not proper tumbling/agitation/flow throu the reactor. Is your reactor still conected/working on aquarium or you disconent him but with the seawater inside? Hopefully you just leave the reactor off inside the sump and then he produce hidrogen sulfid in stagnant water but those water are not drained in aquarium.

[HighlandReefer]

It would be interesting if someone devised an anaerobic reactor using the BP which allowed the gases to escape through proper ventilation. Perhaps anaerobic bacteria would be more effective for reducing nitrate.

[tmz]

Might be too much organic carbon in one place with low flow to prevent anoxia and consequent sulfate reduction with hydrogen sulfide issues.. If someone want's to try though , something like a sulfur denitrator with pellets in it instead of sulfur could create the hypoxic environment at least intially. but I think it would go to sulfate reduction quickly.

[DJREEF]

Originally Posted by larryfl1

what should i be adding to the tank now that the np pellets are removing everything?

some stony, some lps and some clams...

How old is the setup?

DJ