update day 7
ok it has now been ONE week running the rice on my system
here is my observation so far
1.algae just seems to immediately die away within a few days. I guess the rice is pulling out the nutrients FASTER than the algae can take them up.
if your going the rice route, watch out for your macro algae, your not going to be too happy with ur macros reaction.
infact I gave my chaetos to a fellow reefer just to save it from dieing.
2.if you have gha or any other kind of algae, this is definitely the way to go, but remember you will have to do a lot of cleaning, like I'm doing now, and this will result in a longer hazy water period.
3.my water is still not 100% clear, its still got that look when you dose purple up. but I'm fine with this becasue I know that I'm pulling out a lot of algae, and i still have not started on the rocks yet. I will be doing a 30% water change in the next few days, and will use this to clean my rocks as well as re-aquascape my tank.
4.the only guys that I really noticed effeted by the rice was my tiny feater dusters. there were practically 40-50 on a rock but that reduced to like 30ish. but I think this is because they got suffocated with algae dieing on them (since i wasnt cleaning the first few days). to elaborate, the dieing algae was covering the little feater dustes and must have killed them. there still are a lot of them on the other side of the rock. so I dont think rice was the problem.
5.skimmer is still pulling out a lot of gunk. this is what my skimmer looked like today, just one day after cleaning it. yes I cleaned it yesterday.
still skimming like a champ.
6.i will be posting up silicate test on the rice later tomorrow.
7.heres a shot of the corner of my tank. this is two days ago.
I didnt take a pic yesterday.
and this is how it looks like today
8.as far as the actual rice is concerned. it seems to be holding up pretty well. you can still see each rice is individually tumbling over and is not stuck together or has not become mush or mulm like the bio-pellets. the rice has got a tint of yellowish color to it now, but that just might be the bacteria covering up the rice. I guess approx 200gph should be enough to tumble the rice in a reactor.
9.all fish are happy as can be and are not showing any signs of stress.
corals are back to normal and are showing normal PE.
infact my bubble coral is starting to show more PE. my bali green slimer which was starting to lose color and turn brown is now holding its color, and I guess it will start to color up soon.
10.I am currently feeding my frozen food without washing it so that I get some more phosphate into the system, I'm dosing extra coral food as well. and this could also explain my water hazyness.
11.my glass is cleeaaannn, the places where I've cleaned is still clean without algae growing. the places where I left the algae growing has now slowly started to clear up.
I hope my and icycorals updates might have gotten others interested in starting their own rice reactors, let me know if u guys need some help.
ok it has now been ONE week running the rice on my system
here is my observation so far
1.algae just seems to immediately die away within a few days. I guess the rice is pulling out the nutrients FASTER than the algae can take them up.
if your going the rice route, watch out for your macro algae, your not going to be too happy with ur macros reaction.
infact I gave my chaetos to a fellow reefer just to save it from dieing.
2.if you have gha or any other kind of algae, this is definitely the way to go, but remember you will have to do a lot of cleaning, like I'm doing now, and this will result in a longer hazy water period.
3.my water is still not 100% clear, its still got that look when you dose purple up. but I'm fine with this becasue I know that I'm pulling out a lot of algae, and i still have not started on the rocks yet. I will be doing a 30% water change in the next few days, and will use this to clean my rocks as well as re-aquascape my tank.
4.the only guys that I really noticed effeted by the rice was my tiny feater dusters. there were practically 40-50 on a rock but that reduced to like 30ish. but I think this is because they got suffocated with algae dieing on them (since i wasnt cleaning the first few days). to elaborate, the dieing algae was covering the little feater dustes and must have killed them. there still are a lot of them on the other side of the rock. so I dont think rice was the problem.
5.skimmer is still pulling out a lot of gunk. this is what my skimmer looked like today, just one day after cleaning it. yes I cleaned it yesterday.
still skimming like a champ.
6.i will be posting up silicate test on the rice later tomorrow.
7.heres a shot of the corner of my tank. this is two days ago.
I didnt take a pic yesterday.
and this is how it looks like today
8.as far as the actual rice is concerned. it seems to be holding up pretty well. you can still see each rice is individually tumbling over and is not stuck together or has not become mush or mulm like the bio-pellets. the rice has got a tint of yellowish color to it now, but that just might be the bacteria covering up the rice. I guess approx 200gph should be enough to tumble the rice in a reactor.
9.all fish are happy as can be and are not showing any signs of stress.
corals are back to normal and are showing normal PE.
infact my bubble coral is starting to show more PE. my bali green slimer which was starting to lose color and turn brown is now holding its color, and I guess it will start to color up soon.
10.I am currently feeding my frozen food without washing it so that I get some more phosphate into the system, I'm dosing extra coral food as well. and this could also explain my water hazyness.
11.my glass is cleeaaannn, the places where I've cleaned is still clean without algae growing. the places where I left the algae growing has now slowly started to clear up.
I hope my and icycorals updates might have gotten others interested in starting their own rice reactors, let me know if u guys need some help.
