moving from nopox to bio pellets: questions?

mandarinfanatic

New member
I have a 550 litre system and am dosing 17 mls nopox daily. If i move over to two little fishies bio pellets in a reactor. Do i still haveto do half dose and build up to full dose? Would i just stop nopox? Would it help to soak biopellets in small volume of water with bacteria source in before puttin in tank? Other than rinse the biopellets is there any other prep i must do to media before putting into reactor?
 
Where would you get bacteria appropriate to digest the pellets if not from the tank water itself?

If you stop the nopox cold turkey, you will likely see a nutrient rise before the pellets kick in. That may not be a problem, but tapering off the nopox over 2 weeks might reduce that concern.
 
Where would you get bacteria appropriate to digest the pellets if not from the tank water itself?

If you stop the nopox cold turkey, you will likely see a nutrient rise before the pellets kick in. That may not be a problem, but tapering off the nopox over 2 weeks might reduce that concern.
bearing in mind that i have been dosing nopox for 9 months would it be necessary to put half recommended bio pellets amount and increase( to prevent bacteria bloom) over time or could i put full amount in and phase nopox down from 17 mls per day down to zero over two week period?
The reason i mentioned soaking pellets in bacteria laden water was to speed up inhabitation by bacteria ( or would this be a waste of time?
 
The bacteria idea is a fine one, but what water would you use that has better bacteria than your tank?

I'd start with the normal biopellet recommendation since it takes time for it to get going, and that is the time you'd use to ramp down the nopox.
 
The bacteria idea is a fine one, but what water would you use that has better bacteria than your tank?

I'd start with the normal biopellet recommendation since it takes time for it to get going, and that is the time you'd use to ramp down the nopox.
Thanks for the feedback. when i was saying bacteria laden water i was thinking of putting bio pellets in jar with some tank water and dosing bacteria into the solution. However i do not know if it would seed the bio pellets or not so i have put the full recommended amount for my size tank into the reactor and started running it in my sump. I also reduced my daily 17ml of nopox down to 8ml. I will run it at 8ml for the first week and reduce dosage in the second week by a ml a day and then phase it out totally over a period of eight days
 
What bacteria would you dose to that water? The species that consume biopellets are not likely to be the same that folks sell for speeding up ammonia cycling.
 
Hi I'm interested in your results as I'm going to switch from biopellet to NoPox because my No3 was always < 1but had no effect on Po4.
 
Hi I'm interested in your results as I'm going to switch from biopellet to NoPox because my No3 was always < 1but had no effect on Po4.
One of the reasons i am moving away from nopox is that in the instructions it recommends not using phosphate removal media concurrently. The nopox on its own did not remove enough phosphate on its own
 
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