Few Thoughts on Bio Pellets

[Wingman6]

Did you happen to seed the system with some bacterial strains prior to starting up the BP's?

Nope. Just ran water through it and let it do its thing.

 

[hypnoj]

I run biopellets on both my tanks and have been for a little over 2 years now. I noticed that I had problems any time my alk went above 8.0 ppm. I was told to start lowering it while running biopellets and as soon as I did, things improved. I now keep my alk around 7.4 - 7.8 and things look good; pH stays stable.

 

[Wingman6]

I run biopellets on both my tanks and have been for a little over 2 years now. I noticed that I had problems any time my alk went above 8.0 ppm. I was told to start lowering it while running biopellets and as soon as I did, things improved. I now keep my alk around 7.4 - 7.8 and things look good; pH stays stable.

What improved when your all was kept lower, the pH? What's the rationale behind this?

 

[hypnoj]

I can't tell you that my pH was more stable. Mostly because at the time I wasn't testing it much. I now have a pH probe and I get very little fluctuation with my current set up. Once again, I can't relate it to low alk and BP's. I can tell you though, that my SPS colors would bleach out and if really high (ie 10 or 11 ppm alk) I would get STN. Once lowered to below 8 ppm alk, my STN would resolve and my color would come back. No other parameters were changed. I know this was just anecdotal. I don't know why it happens, but I know I'm not the only one that has experienced this after reading pages and pages of threads.