Confused with Pellets

[apuhl20]

Ok, so I started using biopellets about 6 months ago. Everything was saying they would lower Phosphates and Nitrates. Well now I am getting some nuisance algae growing. I look around and everything I see now says pellets are good for lowing nitrates but says nothing about phosphates. So what is correct??

 

[bertoni]

The pellets encourage bacterial growth. The bacteria will consume fixed nitrogen and phosphorus from the water column in order to grow. In tanks with large levels of nitrate and phosphate, they seem to be able to reduce both levels in many cases. Some tanks don't seem to benefit, and it's possible that the bacteria might consume other forms of nutrients besides nitrate and phosphate.

 

[reeftivo]

with my personal experience, if nitrates and phosphates are both relatively high (>10 ppm no3/> . 05 po4), the pellets will bring down no3 much quicker than po4. I would suggest running gfo for a while with the pellets until the po4 gets below .05. Once there, the pellets should maintain the levels. That was the case for me when I ran them.

Tivo