Carbon/GFO with Biopellets

[Clams55]

Hi,

I have a 90G reef setup with a WM Research AS150 Skimmer, and I am looking into a new biopellet system. I was looking at bulk reef supply's Dual Reactor, and wondering if I could put a Biopellet cartridge in the one side, and a GFO/Carbon mix in the other. Thinking of bleeding the water pressure off of my return pump with a tee and valve setup. Flow wise, I am worried the slow flow required by the biopellets would be too slow for the carbon/GFO. Thoughts?
Also, I have heard a cup of biopellets per 50 gallons (obviously starting with less) and the BRS reactor holds 1.5 cups of biopellets, leaving room for them to move. Would that be enough? Or should I just use both sides for biopellets and figure something else out for carbon/gfo?

 

[reefbegood]

My bulk reef supply dual cartridge has been a pain. Always clogs within a week no matter whats in it.

 

[Clams55]

Hmm. Good to know. Anybody have recommendations on better reactors? I saw that Reef Octo makes one.

 

[Clams55]

The Reef Octopus BR110 and the AquaMaxx XL both look nice. Any thoughts?

 

[Dholmblad]

I would get individual brs reactors

 

[mathusala]

I have been researching hardcore bio pellets their use and pros/cons. A lot of people report that the bio pellets do too good of a job at stripping nutrients from your tank.

So while this does a great job at removing no3 and po4 from your tank it can sometimes do too good of a job and there are other issues as well i will cover in a min.

Con:
Bio pellets dont know when to stop working and will remove all no3 and po4 from your tank. This is a mixed blessing it seems to me that you want to lower it without removing it. Removing it seems to cause cyano issues according to a lot of posts I've read.

Con 2:
It adds another form of nutrient to the tank as a byproduct of the bacteria breaking down your no3 and po4. This needs to be skimmed out or you are gonna be in the same boat with lots of algae blooms from what i understand.

All of that was to get to a point. The reef dynamics skimmer seems is the one I am going with.

It has a unique approach to recirculating the water in the reactor so you can keep the media suspended without pulling and pushing tons of water through it. Meaning you can dial it in to lower and not completely remove your no3 and po4.

The next part to me seems to be getting that byproduct of the biopellets out of your system. To do that I plan on putting a T fitting on the end of my input to the skimmer with the bottom side down so that the output of my bioreactor goes through the skimmer before getting back into my tank.

I dunno if I am just drinking the coolaid but to me this seems to be the best option I have seen for bio pellets and solve most of the issues with using them.

Here is a link that has some videos that can probably explain it better than I am:
http://www.reefdynamics.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BPR250&CartID=1

 

[Clams55]

I was planning on plumbing it right into the Sedra pump for my skimmer. Actually hoping that the sedra can pull water through the system, so I don't have to use a 2nd pump. I do have a Maxijet 1200 that I could use though. Anybody used a Avast Marine reactor?

 

[tkeracer619]

I was planning on plumbing it right into the Sedra pump for my skimmer. Actually hoping that the sedra can pull water through the system, so I don't have to use a 2nd pump. I do have a Maxijet 1200 that I could use though. Anybody used a Avast Marine reactor?

Connecting directly to the input of a needle wheel pump is a bad idea. It will disrupt the way the venturi works. It will also not pull the water through a reactor.

I use a nextreef reactor for biopellets. You will probably need more then a maxijet for proper flow depending on the size reactor and amount of media you use.


I dose vodka and bacteria on top of my biopellets. Po4 is at .03 and nitrates at 5. This is with the largest NextReef reactor and 2000ml of biopellets. Its a great concept but not the end all filtration system. It does what its supposed to.