my rice experiment

[kkil4life]

a couple of days ago, while doing some routine maintenance I accidently turned off the flow to my fuge.
so basically what happened was my fuge was completely cut off from the rest of my system.
suddenly I noticed GHA growing everywhere, the glass all dirty with stringy algae, the water a lil dirty and diatoms everywhere. testing No3 and Po4 showed close to zero in both instances, now understandlbly the algae was consuming all the nutrients, this is when I found out that my fuge was cut off.

reading the thread on RC about the rice made me want to try it out.
I will be using this thread to document whats happening.

alrighty then....here we go

I decided to use Japanese plain rice

I ended up using 1 and a half cups

in the reactor

I hooked up the reactor to my system, but I just couldn't get the rice to tumble, so I left it in the highest flow possible
but look what my skimmer was upto within 5 mins

yup, this is withing 5 mins

to show you what I will be up against......

this is around my powerhead, the part that I usually clean once a week.....look at all the algage thats formed in just 2-3 days that fuge was disconnected

this spot of GHA has always been there, but not as thick as now

my back glass is never this bad, as I usually clean it every week and it would look like this if I dont clean it for a whole month, but here it is after 2-3 days of no fuge

see the diatoms on the sandbed as well.....this has actually become real bad during the no fuge period

from all these pics, I'm forced to believe that I have way too much nutrients bound up within the rocks and I need to do something about it rather than the normal water changes and cleaning the rocks.
thus the experiment with the rice.......
will test no3 and po4 numbers every couple of days to see what happens.....

 

[kkil4life]

oh and here is the skimmer after about 45-60mins after installing the rice reactor

 

[HighlandReefer]

It would be interesting if you placed the rice in a container with rodi water for a few days and then take nitrate and phosphate readings on it. Just curious to see if any leaches out into rodi water. If it does leach out, then perhaps changing the rodi water and repeat to see what happens.

 

[kcooley]

what size powerhead are you using? any other ideas how to check how much and how fast nitrate and phos are released? would it be possible to use prime to denitrify the rice while soaking it? ive been following auroras rice thread and he was just kind of being sloppy about it. just using the rice to say he was more or less. without a reactor and optimized flow rates that is what i am getting out of his experiment.

 

[sterling18]

tagging a long to follow your progress

 

[icycoral]

looking forward to following your progress.

 

[artur]

This is the first time I hear about rice! What does it supoused tomdo? Reduce nitrats and phosphates? How come?

 

[rireuter]

it is being used as a carbon source like the bio-pellets, however the other "rice" thread states that rice obviously has a lot of other stuff in it that has raised some concern, this idea is still in the experimental stages but i envy all who are testing for us, thank you!!!

 

[jcolletteiii]

What are your initial NO3 and PO4 readings and what kits are you using?

EDIT: ...also, what are your 'normal' background NO3 and PO4 numbers when your fuge is operating and all is well?

 

[Reverend Reefer]

i hope this works! maybe in a couple months we'll start seeing RICE ROCKETS for sale at LFS. haha!

500$ will get u a RICE ROCKET reactor and a free bag of our patented German-made REEF RICE!!! i'm gunna buy the patent and the website now!

seriously though, i wonder how easily someone can get their hands on the "rice husks" or whatever they're called, might be more efficient...

 

[aurora]

This is awsome and looking forward to your progress. Your tank looks like it could benefit from some nutrient reduction. On the flip side, if the rice works too well and your nutrient drops down too quickly, you may see stress in your corals in the short term especially your nutrient-loving corals like ricordia and some brains. If that happens, I recommend turning off the rice cooker for a couple of days to give your livestock some time to adjust before proceeding.

 

[kkil4life]

It would be interesting if you placed the rice in a container with rodi water for a few days and then take nitrate and phosphate readings on it. Just curious to see if any leaches out into rodi water. If it does leach out, then perhaps changing the rodi water and repeat to see what happens.

interesting......will get on this asap

 

[kkil4life]

what size powerhead are you using? any other ideas how to check how much and how fast nitrate and phos are released? would it be possible to use prime to denitrify the rice while soaking it? ive been following auroras rice thread and he was just kind of being sloppy about it. just using the rice to say he was more or less. without a reactor and optimized flow rates that is what i am getting out of his experiment.

kcooley, I'm not using a separate powerhead, the flow is provided via a "T" in my return. I just realized I didn't post my tank details......

my tank is a 75g display with approx 30g in the fuge and sump. the fuge is close to 20g.
the return from my sump to tank is powered by a quietone 5000, which is approx 1200gph (too much for my tank) but I have it a T on it to the fuge and then T again back into the return chamber (so 2 Ts with 3 total outputs). now the output going back into the return section was just soft plumbed into the reactor and I can adjust the flow to reactor. I presume I'm getting at least 200gph into the reactor cuz even on max the rice does not tumble, it just sits there.

for nitrates and phos leaching from the rice, I will put some in RO water as well as some salt water and post up the results

 

[kkil4life]

tagging a long to follow your progress

looking forward to following your progress.

welcome aboard the rice train.....lol

 

[kkil4life]

it is being used as a carbon source like the bio-pellets, however the other "rice" thread states that rice obviously has a lot of other stuff in it that has raised some concern, this idea is still in the experimental stages but i envy all who are testing for us, thank you!!!

I envy the guys who get to use this if it all works out well......either way, RC has helped me so much, just thought I'd give back what I can......thanks everyone at RC

 

[kkil4life]

What are your initial NO3 and PO4 readings and what kits are you using?

EDIT: ...also, what are your 'normal' background NO3 and PO4 numbers when your fuge is operating and all is well?

my Po4 was always low (atleast thats what the test kits say), but I've been struggling with NO3.
about a few months ago I got some chaeto and put it in my fuge, upgraded my skimmer and got better lights. all these changes together brought my no3 below 10, always between 2 and 5. Since I changed my lights, I used to get a little algae, but not as bad as these pics on my glass which I used to scrape off. so I think the algae helped bring the no3 down as well......

so as far as getting real numbers, I cant do much since my algae is consuming all the nutrients, thats why I've posted the algae pics. those areas will not be cleaned during the rice testing time. this will show me how much of the algae dies off cuz of the rice.

 

[kkil4life]

This is awsome and looking forward to your progress. Your tank looks like it could benefit from some nutrient reduction. On the flip side, if the rice works too well and your nutrient drops down too quickly, you may see stress in your corals in the short term especially your nutrient-loving corals like ricordia and some brains. If that happens, I recommend turning off the rice cooker for a couple of days to give your livestock some time to adjust before proceeding.

aurora......since my levels are already pretty low, I dont see that being a problem.
will update this thread anyways......

 

[Haksar]

Good going kkil..keep us posted.

 

[elijaher]

Tagged alone give us a daily news on it whether it small or big I like to know.

 

[kkil4life]

Tagged alone give us a daily news on it whether it small or big I like to know.

ok a quick update.....skimmer has been going nuts since I put the rice in
I've emptied about 1 cup of skimate (light but a weird combination of green and yellow color)
I opened up the skimmer valve almost fully and its still producing skimmate
its half cup done since the last cleaning about 10 hours ago

I think u really need to watch the skimmer for the first couple of days, luckily no cloudiness or milkyness in the tank

btw, incase I didn't mention this before, I throughly washed the rice till it almost ran clear, so dont forget to do that