Help nitrates plus bio pellet reactor

Titobattilocchi

New member
So I have 20ppm nitrates and phosphates read 0 but I beleave that's because the algea is eating it up as fast as it's going in the tank. Will the bio pellet reactor help or am I going to have to add more phosphates to get the bio pellet reactor to work. If phosphates are 0 will the bactiria still colonize on the pellets and start dropping nitrates. I'm also running a algea turff scrubber should I turn it off or is it fine to run both. Bio pellet reactor is oversized for my tank and its a reefdynamics, rated for a 500gallon my system is a 320gallon. Also have a oversized Reefdynamics recirculating skimmer rated for a 500 gallon tank:debi:
 
The biopellets should work fine. I doubt you actually have zero phosphates. More likely is that the level falls below the resolution of the test, or low enough that zero is within the margin of error of the test.

A nitrate level of 20 is no biggie, either.
 
I have 20 but my rocks in my DT are starting to get covered in algea almost every rock has some algea on it now. Just can't seem to get nitrates down.
 
The bio-pellets might help, but they might become phosphate-limited. That's hard to predict. You could try it. I don't know what the total cost is. Another option would be to try vodka or vinegar for a while. If that works, there's a very good chance that the pellets would, too. You might avoid getting stuck with a bunch of bio-pellets that way.
 
Already have reactor and pellets might just have to dose sodium phosphates to help drop the nitrate level. If I don't see anything here in a few weeks
 
The problem was I was running bio pellet reactor that was small for my tank and it keeped it at 10ppm but when I upgraded reactors for my size of tank I lost the bactiria in the reactor and know it's starting all over and it's only been about a week running in the new reactor. Skim is darker now with only running for a week but don't know if it's running a 100 percent right now or not. How long should I wait to add phosphates you think or should I just add them now. Not sure if they are leaching from rocks or sand bed or not
 
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