my rice experiment
- Thread starter kkil4life
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icycoral
I glue animals to rocks
Hey bud thanks for the welcome aboard :wave:
It was time to repack my reactor this weekend and after reading your thread and the other persons on rice reactors I decided to give it a try curiosity got the best of me. I have a 45 gal heavily stocked tank with 15 or so gal in sump. I have a makeshift fuge in the sump (which has done a fairly good job of maintaining my nutrients so far) but figured I would experiment a bit. I'm running a Tunze 9005 skimmer which doesn't skim very much until I prune my macro. I decided to start with 1/2 cup of long grain rice in a via aqua media reactor with a 200 gph pump and is running at a rapid tumble. upon introducing the rice all skimming action stopped even though I rinsed the rice very well. One thing I'm concerned about is my skimmer being large enough to remove the excess bacteria and bacterial waste that is produced. I am also a little nervous about the enrichment of the rice with vitamins but it can't be worse than the over dosing of essential elements I did when I setup my first tank lol. Besides if you don't try anything new how do you learn. I will not be testing for low range PO4 or NO3 I don't have photometers and don't think my liquid test kits are going to accurate enough to report to the forum. I will be keeping a close eye on my tank and a journal of any observations I make as far as algae growth both on the glass and in the fuge, condition of the rice, my orp levels(ozone is turned off for now), and coral response and coloration. I was wondering what type of skimmer are you running? Just curious. Thank you for your inspiration in trying somthing new. Looking forward to comparing our results.
It was time to repack my reactor this weekend and after reading your thread and the other persons on rice reactors I decided to give it a try curiosity got the best of me. I have a 45 gal heavily stocked tank with 15 or so gal in sump. I have a makeshift fuge in the sump (which has done a fairly good job of maintaining my nutrients so far) but figured I would experiment a bit. I'm running a Tunze 9005 skimmer which doesn't skim very much until I prune my macro. I decided to start with 1/2 cup of long grain rice in a via aqua media reactor with a 200 gph pump and is running at a rapid tumble. upon introducing the rice all skimming action stopped even though I rinsed the rice very well. One thing I'm concerned about is my skimmer being large enough to remove the excess bacteria and bacterial waste that is produced. I am also a little nervous about the enrichment of the rice with vitamins but it can't be worse than the over dosing of essential elements I did when I setup my first tank lol. Besides if you don't try anything new how do you learn. I will not be testing for low range PO4 or NO3 I don't have photometers and don't think my liquid test kits are going to accurate enough to report to the forum. I will be keeping a close eye on my tank and a journal of any observations I make as far as algae growth both on the glass and in the fuge, condition of the rice, my orp levels(ozone is turned off for now), and coral response and coloration. I was wondering what type of skimmer are you running? Just curious. Thank you for your inspiration in trying somthing new. Looking forward to comparing our results.
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firstly its very important to wash the rice properly and I have a feeling that I didn't was all of it fully and thats why the skimmer started going nuts in 5 mins
the output of the reactor is also just right next to the skimmer.....that could be another reason for it to react so fast
glad ur trying this as well icycoral.
about large grain rice, I dont really know but it would be nice if u could report ur success with it.
I decided to go with japanese rice as its short and is generally harder than the long rice.
did u get ur rice to tumble? I think I have way too much rice for it to tumble.
but either way, since ur rice is long grain vs my short grain, and ur tumbling the rice vs me not tumbling, I think its going to be interesting to see who is doing it right.
I meant both of us are roughly trying it out at the same time, so I guess we can compare our results directly.
I suggest u post ur results and experiences here as well so that we can keep all the information in on thread.
for PO4, I have a seachem kit, but I'm waiting on my hanna checker and will post my results with that once I have it.
for No3, I'm using a sailfert kit.
my skimmer is a reef octopus extreme 160
about large grain rice, I dont really know but it would be nice if u could report ur success with it.
I decided to go with japanese rice as its short and is generally harder than the long rice.
did u get ur rice to tumble? I think I have way too much rice for it to tumble.
but either way, since ur rice is long grain vs my short grain, and ur tumbling the rice vs me not tumbling, I think its going to be interesting to see who is doing it right.
I meant both of us are roughly trying it out at the same time, so I guess we can compare our results directly.
I suggest u post ur results and experiences here as well so that we can keep all the information in on thread.
for PO4, I have a seachem kit, but I'm waiting on my hanna checker and will post my results with that once I have it.
for No3, I'm using a sailfert kit.
my skimmer is a reef octopus extreme 160
just decided to post up some more photos
some cyno around my zoas.....I dont remember it yesterday, but looks like its there
heres a pic of my front glass looking at it thru the side glass, just to photodocument how many days it takes for algae to grow on the glass
todays skimmer pic....gonna clean this out in a bit
now heres the shocker......
thats the same pic as on the first page.....I took that picture cuz I wanted to document the diatoms in the corner......
look at the same pic today
if you look closely you will see the diatoms around the corner of the tank have cleared out, also just right above the mushrooms the diatoms have started to fade away....results too soon??
letws wait a few more days before we rejoice shall we.....
some cyno around my zoas.....I dont remember it yesterday, but looks like its there
heres a pic of my front glass looking at it thru the side glass, just to photodocument how many days it takes for algae to grow on the glass
todays skimmer pic....gonna clean this out in a bit
now heres the shocker......
thats the same pic as on the first page.....I took that picture cuz I wanted to document the diatoms in the corner......
look at the same pic today
if you look closely you will see the diatoms around the corner of the tank have cleared out, also just right above the mushrooms the diatoms have started to fade away....results too soon??
letws wait a few more days before we rejoice shall we.....
I really dont know the difference in short and long grain, but the reason I chose short grain was I thought I will be tumbling the rice and with longer grain its easier to break when its tumbling.....thats all
sounds good.....let us know when u start as well
just cleaned my skimmer cup about 5 mins ago, it seems to have calmed down a bit, but is still running on wet mode, I think it should be back to norma by tomorrow or maybe even day after
24h update
1.so far everything is looking ok, water is crystal clear, maybe a lil clearer than when I started.....no haze, no milky water
2.dino is starting to cut back
3.skimmer is still a lil nuts but better than yesterday, my valve is open only half now, compared to yesterdays close to full.
4.I've noticed cyno on 2 spots, but not sure if thats new or I just missed it
5.all tank inhabitants are doing fine and good
6.I forgot to look at my ph monitor, but just checked and everything looks stable, ph at exactly 8.0 (right for me at this time of day).
is there any other information that anyone would like me to record?
24h update
1.so far everything is looking ok, water is crystal clear, maybe a lil clearer than when I started.....no haze, no milky water
2.dino is starting to cut back
3.skimmer is still a lil nuts but better than yesterday, my valve is open only half now, compared to yesterdays close to full.
4.I've noticed cyno on 2 spots, but not sure if thats new or I just missed it
5.all tank inhabitants are doing fine and good
6.I forgot to look at my ph monitor, but just checked and everything looks stable, ph at exactly 8.0 (right for me at this time of day).
is there any other information that anyone would like me to record?
aurora
New member
I suspect that people are getting an uptick in their skimmer activity immediately after the rice addition from the fact that your rice is DRY-milled and you have a fine coat of rice powder coating each grain. You can wash the rice to remove most of this powder but it also remove the vitamins also. Since rice has a small amount of protein in it, your protein does what it's supposed to and removed it.
Fishamatank
New member
I hope this works out for you, but I can't see this going well. Look forward to more results...
icycoral
I glue animals to rocks
That's what I thought was going to happen but my Tunze skimmer lost it's foam head when I put the rice in. Last night after twelve hours the skimmer had foam and today at 20 hrs after rice I'm getting wet skim. I rinsed the heck out of the rice before adding it.
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