my rice experiment

[philbo32]

Just found this from wiki; 'There are many varieties of rice; for many purposes the main distinction is between long- and medium-grain rice. The grains of long-grain rice (high amylose) tend to remain intact after cooking; medium-grain rice (high amylopectin) becomes more sticky.'
I know we aren't cooking the rice here but the make up of the rice is important, it will be interesting to see what happens between the different types in the reef over long periods of time. Rice high in amylose (long grain) should be more stable and resist breaking down so quickly due to less amylopectin (medium grain).

Short grain rice might have more of an impact short term if it is more accessible to bacteria and breaks down slightly quicker (due to higher amount of amylopectin) releasing nutrients. This might explain the bacterial bloom seen by the OP (using short grain) and the lack of bacterial bloom seen by icycoral (using long grain). Just a thought...

Heres what it says on wiki about amylose;
'Because of its tightly packed structure, amylose is more resistant to digestion than other starch molecules and is therefore an important form of resistant starch which has been found to be an effective prebiotic.'

Rice; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice
Amylose; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylose

 

[coltrref]

Will it be possible that in two weeks time to restart again, using half the dose, with low NO3?

Or just replace only half?

:hmm2:

 

[daveonbass]

DJREEF:

I feed flake and pellets. Mysis is a treat every now and then. I used to just do flakes, but while usingthe BP I read tha pellets tend to have high PO4. So I got some. There hasn't been any change in my readings...nor has the algae started to grow. So who knows...

 

[philbo32]

DJREEF:

I feed flake and pellets. Mysis is a treat every now and then. I used to just do flakes, but while usingthe BP I read tha pellets tend to have high PO4. So I got some. There hasn't been any change in my readings...nor has the algae started to grow. So who knows...

I used to use tetramin tropical fish food flakes and they have added L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate 265mg/kg added, I guess as a preservative. When I was using them once or twice a day I constantly had a phosphate reading of 2-3mg/L after I stopped using them a few weeks later I was down to 0.25mg/L. If you want to increase PO4 I'd try feeding your fisha pinch of Tetramin freshwater tropical fish food once a day.

 

[icycoral]

Has anyone tested the effluent out of their reactor? Cause mine isnt good, trates are on the rise in the tank and what coming out of the reactor is somewhere between 50-100 ppm nitrates. Also the rice has what appears to be cyano bacteria all over it. I have been running the reactor for 6 days now and my skimmer is pulling alot of crud out but so far it appears something is wrong.

I will test my effluent water tonight when I test my tank. Do you have enough flow through the reactor? If not it can cause problems from what I've heard.

 

[Du]

I don't know about a factory but the rice adds fixed nitrogen just like fish food via proteins, vitamins and vegetable matter as well as fat and carbohaydrates. At some point in the nitrifiction/denitrifiction processes that nitrogen that isn't consumed by animals ,bacteria and algae and converted to tissue mass should go to ammonia/nitirte and nitrate.It is an organic carbon source but not a very pure one, imo.

Yes, but rice contain up to 85% of starch. Starch - is pure source of carbon. So i don't think, that other 15% can significantly rise a N P levels in tank.

 

[tmz]

15% is a lot in my opinion particularly when you are using large volumes of the rice. Why add more fixed nitrogen at all when other sources such as vinegar and vodka are purer?Also dissolved and/or undissolved waste material from the water fed through it could easily gather on the rice and contribute to NO3 production via aerobic bacterial activity as would occur in media reactors with high enough oxygenation. Conversely if flow is too low anoxia could easily occur leading to SO4 reduction and toxic hydrogen sulfide production.
Further the starch breaks down to glucose and then ethanol and then acetate in the acetogensis process. With ethanol and acetic acid much of the fermentation process is avoided .

 

[Du]

15% is a lot in my opinion particularly when you are using large volumes of the rice. Why add more fixed nitrogen at all when other sources such as vinegar and vodka are purer?

It is lot and not simultaneously. Because N and P from rice protein will be convert into plankton with starch from rice. We just simply decrease content of "free" starch in rice by 15%. So we will have ~60-70% amount of starch as !pure carbon source.

Yes vodka is purer, but you can't add it in much quantity. With rice or pellets you can do it. You will have a "system" that will limited by N and P by itself.
Because you will have a much more Carbon versus N or P.

Also dissolved and/or undissolved waste material from the water fed through it could easily gather on the rice and contribute to NO3 production via aerobic bacterial activity as would occur in media reactors with high enough oxygenation. Conversely if flow is too low anoxia could easily occur leading to SO4 reduction and toxic hydrogen sulfide production.

Yes, agreed. It is important to avoid clogging organics matter in rice machine.
Imho this have a technical sollution.

Further the starch breaks down to glucose and then ethanol and then acetate in the acetogensis process. With ethanol and acetic acid much of the fermentation process is avoided

On this reason the "rice machine" will works slowly in compare of vodka-vinegar. Is this bad? Imo no.

 

[icycoral]

Update

Update

Day 16
Orp 288mV
Sg 1.026
Ph 8.2
No3 2.5 inside tank
No3 2.5 reactor effluent
Po4 The lowest my test kit reads is .1 ppm although I didn't get a full reading of .1 it was darker than 0 so I'm going to say detectable but not measurable.

Last night I repacked my reactor with fresh rice. Within a couple hours my skimmer pulled out 400ml of skimmate. Today I noticed a bit of red velvet like algae poling up in my tank. It's not cyno I'm not sure what type it is I've seen it before in my tank but not in a while. My guess is it's because when I first started the experiment I had a good chunk of cheato to take out nutrients while the rice took a culture. Currently I have aprox 1/6 of the amount of cheato. I think the new batch of rice needs time to take a culture and in the mean time I don't have as much macro to absorb the n/p until the rice reactor starts to keep it in check. Other than that not much going on everything looks good. My Ora "Joe the coral" looks quite a bit paler than before the experiment. I did test my reactor effluant and it had the same NO3 level as my tank water.

 

[thebanker]

15% is a lot in my opinion particularly when you are using large volumes of the rice. Why add more fixed nitrogen at all when other sources such as vinegar and vodka are purer?Also dissolved and/or undissolved waste material from the water fed through it could easily gather on the rice and contribute to NO3 production via aerobic bacterial activity as would occur in media reactors with high enough oxygenation. Conversely if flow is too low anoxia could easily occur leading to SO4 reduction and toxic hydrogen sulfide production.
Further the starch breaks down to glucose and then ethanol and then acetate in the acetogensis process. With ethanol and acetic acid much of the fermentation process is avoided .

That's a good point. Would you buy a filtration media if it was known to be comprised of 15% fish poop? (Meaning it's effectively fish poop in your system, if that 15% were to break down into N/P)

 

[daveonbass]

the main drawback of rice is that it needs to be dumped for more rice and the process starts over for repopulating the rice with bacteria. With plastic pellets you just add nore...the bacteria level stays where it was or grows instead of starting over. Hmmm....score one for biopellets.

 

[kkil4life]

just incase u guys think I disappeared.....I haven't

just dont have the time that I would like to so that I can reply to everyone.
hopefully I will have my sump setup again later today and have the skimmer and rice reactor back online.

BUUUUTTTTTTTTTTT.............heres a question for all of you to help me out on......

Also dissolved and/or undissolved waste material from the water fed through it could easily gather on the rice and contribute to NO3 production via aerobic bacterial activity as would occur in media reactors with high enough oxygenation. Conversely if flow is too low anoxia could easily occur leading to SO4 reduction and toxic hydrogen sulfide production.
Further the starch breaks down to glucose and then ethanol and then acetate in the acetogensis process. With ethanol and acetic acid much of the fermentation process is avoided .

this is a very interesting quote. now please dont be alarmed by reading this because I dont know the true what could have made this happen, but it happened and I want to assure you that there were live pods n shrimp on worms in the sump.

all of you know that I had loss of power for a whole day. but heres the thing.
1.my rice never seemed to deplete during my experimentation, BUT in the one day without power it seemed to have depleted atleast 10-20% (cant say how much exactly for sure). this shows that the rice is a very potent source for bacteria. this is actually a good thing.
2.having no power and 2 fish deaths and lots of pods, worms, shirmp dead etc, means a mini-cycle again. now heres the thing, I had the reactor back online when the power came on and everything was fine, no fish or corals showed any signs of stress.

so again, this is a good thing about rice that it helpd reduce the mini cycle.

now heres the disturbing part with which I need help.
a day or so after my power came back up, my overflow stopped working due to losing siphon. to maintain the siphon I run a powerhead in the fuge (cpr stlye overflow). now the thing is that my overflow always had algae growing in it and since it started dying, it clogged up the overflow, so I decided it was time to clean it out. so did a whole day of freshwater bath with 2-3hours of vinegar bath, couple hours of drying etc. now about a day a half later I'm about to connect it back, and I notice that my water in the sump is unusually dark and it really smelt bad.

looking at the sump with a flashflight, the water looked black, and I thought that my carbon bag broke and released all the carbon around. but that was not the case.
so the water was BLACK, with a really bad stench, and smelled like it had some content of sulphur or somethin in it.

all my equipment was coated with a thin layer of blackish dirt (even the insides of the pipes were coated with blackish dirt or bacteria or something). the reason I quoted TMZ is because I know thats what happens in a dsb, and this kinda did look like that.

remember, that my sump was completely switched off, without any circulation or aereation or any other kind of movement.
but I still did see live pods and worms and shrimp inside.

so can anyone tell me what happened?

 

[Du]

did you have a rice reactor working in sump?

 

[DJREEF]

I used to use tetramin tropical fish food flakes and they have added L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate 265mg/kg added, I guess as a preservative. When I was using them once or twice a day I constantly had a phosphate reading of 2-3mg/L after I stopped using them a few weeks later I was down to 0.25mg/L. If you want to increase PO4 I'd try feeding your fisha pinch of Tetramin freshwater tropical fish food once a day.

I've noticed a few manufacturers are using this in their FW preparations. I feed the large Omega cichlid pellets because I like the ingredient profile (nearly identical to their SW version), and the pellets are big enough for my monsters to actually see. Their preservative is Ascorbyl-2-phosphate, also. I'm not too wild about that ingredient, but it's pretty far down on the list, so I tolerate it for the convenience.

DJ

 

[DJREEF]

the main drawback of rice is that it needs to be dumped for more rice and the process starts over for repopulating the rice with bacteria. With plastic pellets you just add nore...the bacteria level stays where it was or grows instead of starting over. Hmmm....score one for biopellets.

Yes, but dumping the old rice can be an efficient export mechanism. Plus the recolonization of the new rice pull a great deal of organic energy out of the system. That's a win/win in my book.

DJ

 

[DJREEF]

just incase u guys think I disappeared.....I haven't

just dont have the time that I would like to so that I can reply to everyone.
hopefully I will have my sump setup again later today and have the skimmer and rice reactor back online.

BUUUUTTTTTTTTTTT.............heres a question for all of you to help me out on......


this is a very interesting quote. now please dont be alarmed by reading this because I dont know the true what could have made this happen, but it happened and I want to assure you that there were live pods n shrimp on worms in the sump.

all of you know that I had loss of power for a whole day. but heres the thing.
1.my rice never seemed to deplete during my experimentation, BUT in the one day without power it seemed to have depleted atleast 10-20% (cant say how much exactly for sure). this shows that the rice is a very potent source for bacteria. this is actually a good thing.
2.having no power and 2 fish deaths and lots of pods, worms, shirmp dead etc, means a mini-cycle again. now heres the thing, I had the reactor back online when the power came on and everything was fine, no fish or corals showed any signs of stress.

so again, this is a good thing about rice that it helpd reduce the mini cycle.

now heres the disturbing part with which I need help.
a day or so after my power came back up, my overflow stopped working due to losing siphon. to maintain the siphon I run a powerhead in the fuge (cpr stlye overflow). now the thing is that my overflow always had algae growing in it and since it started dying, it clogged up the overflow, so I decided it was time to clean it out. so did a whole day of freshwater bath with 2-3hours of vinegar bath, couple hours of drying etc. now about a day a half later I'm about to connect it back, and I notice that my water in the sump is unusually dark and it really smelt bad.

looking at the sump with a flashflight, the water looked black, and I thought that my carbon bag broke and released all the carbon around. but that was not the case.
so the water was BLACK, with a really bad stench, and smelled like it had some content of sulphur or somethin in it.

all my equipment was coated with a thin layer of blackish dirt (even the insides of the pipes were coated with blackish dirt or bacteria or something). the reason I quoted TMZ is because I know thats what happens in a dsb, and this kinda did look like that.

remember, that my sump was completely switched off, without any circulation or aereation or any other kind of movement.
but I still did see live pods and worms and shrimp inside.

so can anyone tell me what happened?

Perhaps a mold? Cyano? Do you have a university nearby that could get a sample under a microscope?

DJ

 

[tmz]

It sounds like H2S( hydrogen sulfide gas ) formed as the rice decayed in stagnant water.The stench was likely H2S ,commonly called sewer gas and the black deposits are likely metal sulfides which occur as the H2S oxidizes. H2S is toxic to living things inlcuding you, as it is neutral (ie caries no negative or positive charge) and readily passes through cell membranes.

Here's how it happens. Faculative heterotrophic bacteria colonize the rice .

As heterotrophs they can not produce organic carbon ,as autotrophs can via photosynthesis, which is why we dose it to culture them.
Faculative means they respire free oxygen during the nitrification process ( ammonia > nitrite > nitrate. When the free oxygen is used up , as in a hypoxic area they respire the oxygen from NO3.
When the NO3( nitrate )is gone,the water is anoxic( no oxygen and no nitrate) . At this point sulfate(SO4) reducing bacteria will start taking the oxygen from SO4. Seawater and your tank water contains about 2.700ppm of sulfate. The sulfate reduction results in several by products including H2S( hydrogen sulfide) which is the one to be concerned about. The H2s diffuses throughout the water . As it hits oxic areas some of it combines with metals leaving sulfite deposits( probably the black stuff in your sump). It also forms elemental sulfur and some sulfite and sulfate.H2s will last a few a hours to a day before it is completely oxidized. The process can be quickened with some gfo as the iron can catalyze the oxidation process.

 

[thebanker]

Yes, but dumping the old rice can be an efficient export mechanism. Plus the recolonization of the new rice pull a great deal of organic energy out of the system. That's a win/win in my book.

DJ

DJ are you sure that it's an efficient export mechanism? All you're exporting is whatever bio-slime is on the rice. Plus, with the ramp-up time involved, what happens to the N/P levels within the tank as the new rice is developing the bacterial culture?

 

[tmz]

Yes vodka is purer, but you can't add it in much quantity. With rice or pellets you can do it. You will have a "system" that will limited by N and P by itself.
Because you will have a much more Carbon versus N or P

Hello Du

You can add as much ethanol (vodka) or vinegar( acetic acid) as you choose either in bulk doses or via a dosing pump or with limewater. The amount you dose is easily measured and controlled whereas rice presents significant challenges since the rate of degradation and release of organics is at best difficult to manage given variables in bacterial activity, flow,age of the rice.etc.
Having more C (organic carbon) hanging around waiting for NO3 and PO4 is a bad thing; more harmful than high nitrate ,in my opinion.. High total organic carbon(TOC) levels are harmful to corals. High TOC is thought to upset the corals symbiont bacterial balances. Further, a tank with high TOC is likely to have some of it saturate into anoxic areas with H2 S( hydrogen sulfide) production as an unwanted outcome. The trick is to get the right amount of organic carbon to encourage heterotrophic bacteria to proliferate and take up N and P along the way. They need all 3(C,N, P) for food. For perspective the Redfield ratio shows the ratio of C: N: P taken up by marine organisms at 116 C:16 N;1P. This ratio was tested for phytoplankton and varies to a degree from organism to organism but the general relationship of C:N is worht noting.

 

[Du]

Yes vodka is purer, but you can't add it in much quantity. With rice or pellets you can do it. You will have a "system" that will limited by N and P by itself.
Because you will have a much more Carbon versus N or P

Hello Du

You can add as much ethanol (vodka) or vinegar( acetic acid) as you choose either in bulk doses or via a dosing pump or with limewater. The amount you dose is easily measured and controlled whereas rice presents significant challenges since the rate of degradation and release of organics is at best difficult to manage given variables in bacterial activity, flow,age of the rice.etc.
Having more C (organic carbon) hanging around waiting for NO3 and PO4 is a bad thing; more harmful than high nitrate ,in my opinion.. High total organic carbon(TOC) levels are harmful to corals. High TOC is thought to upset the corals symbiont bacterial balances. Further, a tank with high TOC is likely to have some of it saturate into anoxic areas with H2 S( hydrogen sulfide) production as an unwanted outcome. The trick is to get the right amount of organic carbon to encourage heterotrophic bacteria to proliferate and take up N and P along the way. They need all 3(C,N, P) for food. For perspective the Redfield ratio shows the ratio of C: N: P taken up by marine organisms at 116 C:16 N;1P. This ratio was tested for phytoplankton and varies to a degree from organism to organism but the general relationship of C:N is worht noting.

Hello Tmz!

Yes i know. A few years ago i dosed a vinegar with lime. Then i overdosed, i has a tank with white film. Nothing negative, but so we can overdose a vodka or vinegar also. I don't see a big difference with rice.

And here an old piece Randy's reply to me

"
Here are some values for surface ocean water from the book "Biogeochemistry of Marine Dissolved Organic Matter"

DOC 60-90 uM
DON 3.7-7.5 uM
DOP 0.1-0.4 uM
DOC : DON 9-18
DOC : DOP 180-570
C:N (in DOM) 300:22:1

The ratio of DIP to DOP varies with the season in many locations. In the English channel, inorganic forms predominate in the winter,and organic forms in the summer.

The DOP as a percent of TDP (total dissolved P): 0 - 100%
Open ocean 0-100%
Sargasso sea: 95-100%
North Pacific subtropical gyre 1%
Mediterranean 0-95%
Southern NW shelf Australia 33-86%
etc.

In sediment pore water:

C/N 2-30
I did not find C/Por N/P data for pore waters.
"

So in NSW we have a 300 C instead of theoretical 116. So we have much more space to manipulate with carbon. Also, carbon in rice, or pellets is in indissolved forms, so it can't be comsumed before we will have enough P and N. May be a rice less effective than pellets, but there is no BIG difference.
You can have an SO4 and H2S source with a pellets also. NOW we have another source of carbon instead of vodka or vinegar. And imho, it is have more perspective.
I am sure 99% of all problems we can resolve just technicaly