Biopellets

[ReefChef27]

Hello, I'm still fairly new to the world of sps, primarily acros. I have a degree in biology so the chemistries and concepts of sps come pretty easily to me. I've been keeping sps in my tank now for about 4 months. I didn't think that my nutrient levels were ever that high since I redid my sump and put an oversized skimmer with a natural refugium online. Polyp extension has never been that great and acros started to lose color. In a nutshell, my nitrates were astronomically high and I decided to hook up a biopellet reactor. I've been using the reactor now for about 3 weeks but only recently have I been able to get the pellets churning properly. My nitrates are still sitting at around 25 ppm (salifert) and I was wondering if there was anything I could do differently to speed up the process, besides water changes and dosing microbacter7 everyday. The outlet from the reactor is right near the skimmer. I was wondering if anyone has tried to mod the intake on the BM Curve 5 skimmer and if there were any other tips or tricks. Please comment and feel free to share your experiences with BP reactors

 

[fishyguy7]

It can take up too 5-8 weeks for bio pellets to start working. What are you current phosphate and nitrate levels. For pellets to work most efficiently you need both phosphate and nitrate.

 

[ReefKeeper64]

What are your phosphates at? They may be low (<=0.05) and if they are, then your tank is phosphate limited. Your tank will eventually come into balance on its own. If you want to help move it along, you can buy a nine dollar bottle of brightwell neophos or similar phosphate additive (even just add more food), and then you can safely add enough phosphate to your system get your levels up to 0.10 while the PO4 is high. This in turn allows bacteria to thrive more because they will have all three components required (carbon, nitrate, and phosphate). With that much nitrate, your PO4 will tend to get consumed rather quickly since you are running bio-pellets and have high nitrate; I know this from personal experience.

Note that if you limit any two of the three components, then your system gets gets out of balance and adding more of the other two doesn't provide any value.

You probably learned about the redfield ratio back in college and this is the same principle at work. There is a lot of debate about whether or not the exact ratio is correct for aquaria but there is no doubt that the three components work together to increase you bacteria population.

Once you get your tank back in balance, your system will typically be nitrate limited with bio pellets. To counter act that, dose calcium nitrate or sodium nitrate then use some GFO to finish off the remaining PO4. Keep PO4 <= 0.03 long term. That should do the trick.

Now all that said, 25ppm nitrate isn't really that bad and your system will come down on its own over time.

 

[ReefChef27]

My nitrates are at 25 ppm but my phosphates are at or close to zero. Salifert says zero but a more accurate Hanna test would probably say a little more than that. I'm guessing ReefKeeper prognosis is probably the cause for slow bacteria culturing. If I was going to dose some form of phosphate or just feed more coral foods, dumb question, but would I need to turn of my GFO reactor? It currently contains about 4 week old Rowaphos. Or would turning of the GFO cause phosphates to go up to quick. I'm assuming though that the biopellets would keep both levels in check then?

 

[ReefKeeper64]

I didn't ask earlier if you were running GFO. Since you are, stop the GFO for the time being. Add more food and you should notice your skimmer start to pull more gunk over the next few days. That increase in gunk are the increased bacteria that are consuming your nitrates. When the nitrates drop to <2ppm, your PO4 will start to rise and then its time to put the GFO back online. Ifs a balancing act but once you figure out how it works, it gets easy.

 

[scarface70706]

I didn't ask earlier if you were running GFO. Since you are, stop the GFO for the time being. Add more food and you should notice your skimmer start to pull more gunk over the next few days. That increase in gunk are the increased bacteria that are consuming your nitrates. When the nitrates drop to <2ppm, your PO4 will start to rise and then its time to put the GFO back online. Ifs a balancing act but once you figure out how it works, it gets easy.

damn took the words right out of my mouth. lol. ive been running BP for a long time now and i couldn't be happier. just make sure the pellets are in a medium to low tumble once your tank is use to the bio pellets (took my tank about a month and a half to 2 months) once the tank stabled i slowed down the tumble. if you don't do this you "might" strip too much from your tank and possibly have a huge problem with either algae blooms, cyano blooms, pale corals, and dieing lps's. Just my experience. every tank is different so your best bet is to monitor your tank as much as you can. good luck. Bio Pellets pay off if you are "Patient" and fine tune it in.

 

[Dapg8gt]

All good info in here glad I stopped in as I'm transferring to a new larger tank and I'm going to put pellets online for the first time.. Great info off to find some more =)..

 

[ReefChef27]

Thanks for the info ill update in a few days

 

[ReefChef27]

Finally!! I am a true believer in BP. It took almost 2 months but my nitrates are finally below 5 ppm. Thanks for all the help and info. I had turned off my GFO reactor and about 3 days later I had a huge bacterial bloom so ended up turning them back on. After changing my Rowaphos and a 20% water change mysps has the best polyp extension I've seen in the 6 months the tank has been running. The only other issues had is that my alkalinity dropped dramatically. Probably because things started actually growing. All the way to 6.5 dKH! All is well now. Next thing will be to post some pics...

 

[hedgedrew]

Fresh gfo also drops the kh. We usuallybadd additional 2 part the 24 to 48 hr period after gfo change

 

[Adrnalnrsh]

Good post - confirmed my suspicions. My nitrates were high 25-40ppm, phosphates constantly at 0.00, SPS is ****ed. Fortunately I understand how I got into this situation. Bad nitrate kit led me to believe I was UNLS for Nitrates. So I raised them over the course of a month or so (adding fish and adding Pro-Coral Organic) and then stuff went downhill. I bought a new kit and sure enough my trates were way too high.

My biopellets have been running for a few months now and can't bring trates down since I am phosphate limited. I started NeoPhos yesterday and a little more feeding (don't want to introduce too much more organics) and am trying to get to 0.02ppm recommended (per Neophos) Phosphate level. I expect my phosphates will be down to 0.00ppm this evening when I test. So we'll see.


I also noticed my Monti's (Cap and encrusting) get ****ed if theres not enough phosphates - my xfactor cap goes pale grayish color and won't turn green until phosphate are high enough to cause a little algae. I thought it was related to Nitrates but not the case, might be a combo of the two (proper ratio)