Bio-pellet reactor in FOWLR?

[dwanner]

I have been running a bio-pellet reactor in my 210 gallon FOWLR tank and i keep experiencing bacterial blooms that cloud my water for 2-3 days at a time. The reactor has been setup for about 7 weeks and it has done its job in regards to keeping my nitrates low (< 10 Elos test kit). I don't test for PO4 as I have 2 large tangs that take care of any algae that grows, so after recently reading that most fish are generally not sensitive to high Nitrate levels, I wondering is there any reason to put up with the bacterial blooms or should i pull the plug on the reactor?

 

[rachenbrazil]

I qm doing the same but when I noticed the recurrent bacterial blooms I reduced the amount of biopellets a little bit and blooms were gone and nitrate and phos leveis are near zero.

 

[dwanner]

Sounds good, I thought I was running a conservative amount as I'm only running about 1L of pellets, but I am open to suggestions and will remove some of the pellets as we have similiar systems size wise and it worked for you. Thanks for the input!

 

[1stcar86z]

Try running the out put of the reactor into or a close to the input of your skimmer as possible. Most of the pellets recommend this. Also they seem to need phosphates in the water to remove nitrates effectively.

 

[rachenbrazil]

In fowlr phos and nitrate are plenty need to suplement potassium to keep reactor working well.

 

[dwanner]

How do I go about adding potassium and what are the target levels and how do I measure it?

 

[rachenbrazil]

There are some tests for potassium , elos is a reliable one.
380 ppm are the recomended level. May not be too critical , just monitor to sustain an over 300 ppm level.
Intense biopellet use due higher bioload in FOWLR is very common. Volume may reduce very fast due high metabolic rates (but should not put more biopellets at same time due this. Better and wiser, put less and recharge more times than put too much and have bacterial bloom) .
Potassium is used in bacterial metabolics, so need to have some supplement. Usually with frequent water changes, levels will be ok. But if you don´t change the water offen , using some supplement (I use brightwell) will be necessary to keep the reactor working properly.

With inverts, lower potassium level will make animals to lose color, easier to spot. In FOWLR, nitrate level could rise up due reduction in bacteria metabolism and tests will indicate it, even with reactor working properly.

I would recomend you to buy a test and suplement the potassium weekly for better performance of your reactor.