Bio-pelette issues

[kb20reefcentral]

Hi,

Jut joined this huge community and this is my first post here with an issue.

I have the following tank with specifications:

Tank specs
Age: Almost 10 months
Dimension: 3x2x2 ft
LR: 60 kg
Sump: 2x1.5x1.5 ft with 3 main chambers
Skimmer: Reef Octopus NWB - 110
Light: Metal Halide 20000K BLV running 8 hours a day along with 1 Dynamic 2 ft blue actinic T5 lamp.
Wave Maker: 1 Sicci Voyager 2 mostly hitting the surface to create surface undulation. 1 BOYU with ceramic shaft, set 1 inch below the surface.
Return Pump: Supreme 2500 lph pulls back water at an height of about 4.5 ft.

Water Parameters:

Temp: 28 degree C stabilized with Hailea Chiller.
Alkalinity: 10 dKH
Specific Gravity: 1.024
pH: 8
PO4: 0.25 mg/L (=ppm)
NO2: Not detectable
NO3: 100 mg/L (=ppm)
Ca: 500 ppm
Iodine: Not measured
Magnesium: Not measured

I feed the tank twice a day with sufficient flakes (everyday in the morning), prawns (twice a week) and frozen artemia (twice a week).

As from the above details, it is obvious that NO3 is alarming, I recently started running Reef Octopus Bio Pellet reactor (Model: BR-70 set with Reef Octopus 100 lph powerhead) with Reef Octopus Bio Pellet Sphere media. After a few days, I observed some fungi type bacteria (maybe) is homing in the neck portion (near water outlet) of the reactor cylinder. Also, after starting the BP, some soft corals like finger leathers do not open, a mandarin has died, a hammer is affected with brown jelly disease, an acropora has suffered slow tissue recession. I have cleaned the fungi part at times, but it recurs. I have at present withdrawn the spheres from the cylinder and have dried them up.

I have enquired about it to many local hobbyists who run bio-pellets and learnt that none have faced such issues. So far I know, dosing vodka, bio-fuel and reacting bio-pellet are synonymous for adding carbon source. But something is really going wrong. Without bio-pellet and with alarming NO3, all the corals are responding. But, when I want to make the water condition better, they crash.

Any solution to this issue will highly be of great help.

I am attaching a current picture of my tank.

 

[azjohnny]

Do you have the water from the bio pellet reactor going to the protein skimmer?....this is critical, the water is very rich in nutrients

If you drop the nitrates too fast and too low your system can crash. Don't lower your nitrates lower than 5

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[kb20reefcentral]

Do you have the water from the bio pellet reactor going to the protein skimmer?....this is critical, the water is very rich in nutrients

Yes I do, although the entire water that comes out of the reactor is not skimmed all at once, but it is done through recycling.

If you drop the nitrates too fast and too low your system can crash. Don't lower your nitrates lower than 5

No trace of NO3 decrease is seen, it is still at 100 mg/L.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[fishyguy7]

I have heard that it takes 5-6 weeks for the pellets to become populated. I have also read that with an existing tank you should start with 1/4 of the recommended amount of pellets then slow and the remaining

 

[kb20reefcentral]

I have heard that it takes 5-6 weeks for the pellets to become populated. I have also read that with an existing tank you should start with 1/4 of the recommended amount of pellets then slow and the remaining

I also found some online clues on such recommendation. I will restart the reactor this time with 1/4th of the recommended media and obviously take care of the skimming. However, I am not sure what causes the fungus on the neck of the reactor.