imisky's 30G custom system
- Thread starter imisky
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imisky
New member
thanks!
When i first started using the biopellets i was a little skeptical about it as it didnt do much for me, But i had kept in mind that prior to the biopellets i was dosing vodka so it might just be that reason why i didnt see much change. Its been 3 weeks now and all my corals looked as good as ever, some i would say have better color then when i was dosing vodka straight into my tank. 1 thing is for sure though my skimmate production has gone up at least 2-3x and the stuff stinks even when its not dark like coffee
imisky
New member
bumping my own thread a little as well as giving it an update.
It has now been roughly 2 and 1/2 month since i started biopellets and they are working wonderfully. I had put a full 500ml bag into the TLF reactor of mine and cant be happier with switching from vodka to biopellets. The bubble algae that i had previously is now starting to slowly detach themselves from the rocks and sticking to the side of my pumps. I am not sure if this is from me changing out 2 tunze 6055 and adding a vortech mp40w es to the system or from the biopellets alone, none the less its good to see them slowly disappearing.
Unfortunately with the addition of the mp40w es i had to remove the little sand bed that i had. Not that its a bad thing, but with the vortech on reefcrest at 90% i was unable to keep the sand in one place. But the trade off is, i have never seen more PE on my sps before the switch. So im willing to trade sand for the health of my SPS whether PE actually means they are happy or not im not positive (i dont think anyone is:spin2
but i can say they liking the flow pattern better.
The last change to the system is ive switched from calcium reactors to auto dosing. The calcium reactor was doing a great job, but being in the same room where i sleep it was driving me crazy. The sound of the bubbles being ripped apart into little bits by the pump was just too much at night (louder than the skimmer and it was in my stand) So the thing had to go, im only in day 2 of dialing in my auto doser so hopefully it'll get it dialed in soon.
Just a question for those that automate there dosing, do you dose when the lights are off? i tried that yesterday night, and found that my Alk in the morning was 13dkh from 9.5 when the lights were on.
I think thats it, heres some photos i took tonight of the corals, enjoy it guys.
It has now been roughly 2 and 1/2 month since i started biopellets and they are working wonderfully. I had put a full 500ml bag into the TLF reactor of mine and cant be happier with switching from vodka to biopellets. The bubble algae that i had previously is now starting to slowly detach themselves from the rocks and sticking to the side of my pumps. I am not sure if this is from me changing out 2 tunze 6055 and adding a vortech mp40w es to the system or from the biopellets alone, none the less its good to see them slowly disappearing.
Unfortunately with the addition of the mp40w es i had to remove the little sand bed that i had. Not that its a bad thing, but with the vortech on reefcrest at 90% i was unable to keep the sand in one place. But the trade off is, i have never seen more PE on my sps before the switch. So im willing to trade sand for the health of my SPS whether PE actually means they are happy or not im not positive (i dont think anyone is:spin2
but i can say they liking the flow pattern better.The last change to the system is ive switched from calcium reactors to auto dosing. The calcium reactor was doing a great job, but being in the same room where i sleep it was driving me crazy. The sound of the bubbles being ripped apart into little bits by the pump was just too much at night (louder than the skimmer and it was in my stand) So the thing had to go, im only in day 2 of dialing in my auto doser so hopefully it'll get it dialed in soon.
Just a question for those that automate there dosing, do you dose when the lights are off? i tried that yesterday night, and found that my Alk in the morning was 13dkh from 9.5 when the lights were on.
I think thats it, heres some photos i took tonight of the corals, enjoy it guys.
imisky
New member
heres an update guys:fun2:...its been a while, having the tank in my room at home is where i prefer it to be so that i can relax once i get off work or from school..but its not all that fun when the tank creates more noise then a truck driving by (exaggerated) Originally having the BM C120 calcium reactor running in my system was great, i loved it all except for hearing the bubbles get churned up while i sleep...and thats the only thing i hear..the constant *tss tss tss sound sure wasnt very good for trying to get a good nights sleep. So i started to source out dosing pumps to use over my system as i heard they run nearly silent.
So the switch over began around June when i finally got my auto dosers (ACCU-Doser). Like i was expecting they ran silent, no rattling noises during operation, except for the intial *click that you would hear on startup. Tried testing the dosage rate they were almost always dead on 1ml with excess in the container which would probably equate to the .1ml remaining. The unit was paired up with just regular bottles however i had a company do Vinyl Stickers for Alk, Ca, and Mg for me for a reasonable cost and it makes it easy to read. After the switch to 2 part dosers i had the initial learning curve which wasnt fun, gave me spikes in alk to 12 then down to 6 then 4 and now its steady at 8.5 where i want it the corals did go through quite a bit of shock and it can be seen in some of the corals as they have browned out a little but should come back in no time. The hot pink birdsnets seems to have liked the change and decided that it wants to spawn in my system, never occurred before but its sure cool to see.
I dont update for so long that i usually have a million things to say but ill shush up and let you guys enjoy the rest of the thread via photos and let them do the talking! enjoy guys.
Edit: forgot to mention that i had gotten some new fish, Chrysiptera Talboti, awesome little damsels with stunning color, so far they havent shown too much aggression towards each other but time will tell.
Dosing Units:
FTS:
New fish: 8x Chrysiptera Talboti (Tracys Damsels)
Macros:
Spawning Birdsnest
literally white tenius, but look at the PE
Can anyone guess what this is?
my weird orgeon tort turned baby blue...but i like the change!
So the switch over began around June when i finally got my auto dosers (ACCU-Doser). Like i was expecting they ran silent, no rattling noises during operation, except for the intial *click that you would hear on startup. Tried testing the dosage rate they were almost always dead on 1ml with excess in the container which would probably equate to the .1ml remaining. The unit was paired up with just regular bottles however i had a company do Vinyl Stickers for Alk, Ca, and Mg for me for a reasonable cost and it makes it easy to read. After the switch to 2 part dosers i had the initial learning curve which wasnt fun, gave me spikes in alk to 12 then down to 6 then 4 and now its steady at 8.5 where i want it the corals did go through quite a bit of shock and it can be seen in some of the corals as they have browned out a little but should come back in no time. The hot pink birdsnets seems to have liked the change and decided that it wants to spawn in my system, never occurred before but its sure cool to see.
I dont update for so long that i usually have a million things to say but ill shush up and let you guys enjoy the rest of the thread via photos and let them do the talking! enjoy guys.
Edit: forgot to mention that i had gotten some new fish, Chrysiptera Talboti, awesome little damsels with stunning color, so far they havent shown too much aggression towards each other but time will tell.
Dosing Units:
FTS:
New fish: 8x Chrysiptera Talboti (Tracys Damsels)
Macros:
Spawning Birdsnest
literally white tenius, but look at the PE
Can anyone guess what this is?
my weird orgeon tort turned baby blue...but i like the change!
Last edited:
imisky
New member
thanks,
i do not run any phosphate absorber with the biopellets, the pellets alone does the job quite well.
Canadian
Premium Member
Oh man those damsels look great, and I know a lot of literature says they are some of the least aggressive damsels, but if they behave like mine did it will be a month or two before you're down to 1 or 2. At first my 6 or 7 looked like they were behaving and then they started picking each other off. The last remaining one was so aggressive it was going after my sixline wrasse even. I ended up removing it from the tank.
Hopefully your situation turns out differently than mine though.
Your corals are looking great BTW even with a few being browned out with the growing pains of figuring out the automated dosing.
Hopefully your situation turns out differently than mine though.
Your corals are looking great BTW even with a few being browned out with the growing pains of figuring out the automated dosing.
imisky
New member
Ya the damsels do look really nice, their yellow faces actually glow a little under actinics as well, but with that said i do expect aggression to pick up as they settle in. Having kept dominos before in a school of 5 these guys are a little less aggressive towards each other but still the aggression is there, but time will tell i guess as to how they'll behave
imisky
New member
Definitely something for me to strive for.
Great tank.
thanks
Thanks
For those that are considering a carbon method, i say give the bio pellest (any brand) a try its a cheaper alternative that doesnt require daily dosage or weekly and it works well. If Zeo, FM, Prodibio was as maintenance free i'd jump on board, i do use some zeo products and some FM products as well, but more for the colors and not so much for the NP reduction.
Canadian
Premium Member
Holy schmeebies! Look who's back 
Definitely something for me to strive for.
Great tank.
DJ88©
Premium Member
thanks
Thanks
Well seeing your thread has me interested. Seeing two tanks of similar size using biopellets has me digging out my old phosban reactor to use it with this product. Seems quite simple and straight forward as to use.
Any suggestions as to starting out? I have read a bit, but right now Randy's chemistry forums are making my head hurt. Not intending to hijack your thread but it seems a great place to start.
DJ88©
Premium Member
imisky
New member
For starting out biopellets i would probably suggest to use it for the first week along with some strain of bacteria dosing. It could be zeo bak, microbacter7, probidio, etc. From my experience and a friend who i passed the same info to, this shortened the amount of time it took for the biopellets to kick in which was 4 days for me and about 6 days for the friend. After that the reactor becomes pretty self sustaining in terms of bacteria production.
The tumbling speed of the pellets doesnt really matter all that much from what i can tell, some people will tell you that ideally it should be a gentle tumble...well I've tried both aggressive and gentle and didnt see a difference at all and now have the pellets tumbling aggressively for the last month or so.
The pellets at first will clump up (the new finer version does not do that as much) this is fine and dont worry about it, let it tumble itself out, after a day majority of the pellets would have sunk and the rest thats clumped and floating in the reactor can be purged by simply closing the water feed, let all the pellets sink then turn it on repeatedly and eventually it'll all tumble without clumping at all.
Other then that i dont think theres much to it, i am a little on the paranoid side of things and like to keep things as diverse as possible so after every weekly water change i will add a small dose of bacteria into the system just to make sure that no monoculture occurs. But i think that about sums it up
imisky
New member
np good luck with it, cant go wrong with BPs imo
and always good to get the right things the first time then to upgrade later on and waste more $$
imisky
New member
Yup im u still using MJ1200s to feed the pellet reactors. i have 2 reactors running with different pellets on different systems and the MJ1200 is more then enough in getting them to tumble. In a phosban150 you can put 500mls of the bigger pellets and get it to tumble slowly with a MJ1200 on full blast. The newer versions of the pellets coming out now thats much smaller is easier to tumble and you'll get a nice tumble from a full 500ml in the phosban.
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