N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[180+55reef]

I do have brown cyno stuff on the sand like the others
also BLACK BALLS of algae, normally marble size....

I have lost several of them, they look great when they come in (mail order) and then recede QUICKLY, like in less than a week........they are suppose to Austrailian

I sold one to a friend of mine and that one did fine, it was before the dosing
btw I hav emostly LPS and 300 + gallons of water

thank you
Frank
any suggestions are appreciated

also FWIW I have seen very little if any improvement with the pellets, they have been running since March and before that I dosed Vinegar

 

[bluereefs]

Few advice, maybe they can help.
I found that elegance, and in my case most of my lps corals, do not like high kh (can be coincidence or not ) but I prefer to keep kh on lower side even I do not run so called ULNS system, my kh are mostly maxium 9 , I try to keep kh around 7-8 dkh. They love water changes and regular water changes are perfect for my lps corals, actually when I saw that my gonioporas dont have polyp expansion as usual is time to water changes, after WC they always expand much more ( I do neglected water changes last months and that was not so smart from me). Agresiv/aktiv use of high quality activated carbon, preferably in fluid reactor, IMO activated carbon is best for keeping water quality (carbon first, skimmer second) AC remove toxins, organic... mostly everything what have negative impact on corals. It will be good to find under what conditions elegance was living prior to shipping, does he was under strong or low light and put him in new tank acording to position where he was before. Is also good to find, if is posibble, where the elegance live in nature, does he was colected from the reef (rocks) or he was from deep sand position. If the elegance have cone sceleton, clean with the trace or organism who live on the rock like coraline algae, other corals... that can be sign that he was colected from the reef and there is chance that he can tolerate stronger lighting and circulation, if the sceleton are more flat, dirt, and it look like sceleton was buried in the sand that is the sign that he was colected from the sand area, very posiblly from deep or very turbid water and those specimen do not like strong light or strong flow, they are very sensitive and in most cases they can not adapt to strong lighting what we have in our aquarium, even they was located in the shade. Of course is very hard to find where he live before, maybe he live in sand but in shallow clean water.

They do not like phosphate in most cases, high phosphate are very dangerous to elegance, not only anorganic phosphate but organic phosphate as well, all my elegance are keeped in clean water, no cyano, no algae, no water yelowness with agresive use of activated carbon, strong skimmer...clean water as much are posible.


Regarding bio pellets, if there is no nitrates drop, if skimmer do not work much stronger, if there is no sign of bacteria in reactor (around bio pellets ) then in my opinion they do not work at all, just my opinion.

 

[180+55reef]

wow thanks guys,

so from what everyone is saying I should keep the pellets going. I use to be able to keep Elegances before I started carbon dosing. I do have them tumbling agressively, however I do have nucience algae in my refuge..................

Hard to know where they are collected from, although I did email the place I purchased them from to get an idea..............

however if they come in fine, then it must be something lacking? in my tank that makes them go down hill?

also I thought they wanted a higher alk,? so I have raised mine to 11

Frank

 

[bluereefs]

Thank you DJREEF
Your elegance probably come from turbid, deep water so refugium was good place for him (just my gues), personaly I have very hard time to keep alive LPS corals who come from deep water, even in the shadow they start to go downhill, particulary if the light above aquarium are HQI lights, but if I move them completly in dark or in aquarium without lighting (part of aquarium get sunlight from neighbour windows) they recover, but not all.

Can be also that they was keeped for long time in exporter tank/holding facility and they usually dont have lighting above their tanks so they can not adapt to strong aquarium lighting.


180+55 reef, if you think that bp are responsible for bad condition of your elegance you can stop bp for few days, change the water,use activated carbon and start to target feed your elegance and see will he recover. Corals can get afected with carbon dosing if something went wrong, I do have bad expirience with seriatopora/stylophora/pocilopora corals who retract the polips with high dosage of vodka or during some bp bacterial bloom, they are my canary corals now, if something is wrong with the carbon dosing they retract the polyps and then I stop the carbon dosing, change the water, start to feed heavier and change activated carbon. It work in my case.

Regarding kh and elegance/lps corals please keep in mind that was just my expirience with my corals, is that coincidence or not I do not know but all my lps corals are much more expanded and healtier with low kh, is actually natural kh.

Elegance are very big fleshy corals who are very sensibile to bacteria disease (brown jelly or similar) IMO aquarium who have loots of organic, cyano, nusince algae can posibly induce development of patogen/detrimental bacteria on elegance body what will lead to his demise. Same can be hapening with carbon dosing or bp, we try to induce growth of good bacteria but we can get bad bacteria instead of good and bad bacteria can have detrimental efect to corals.

 

[DJREEF]

Thank you DJREEF
Elegance are very big fleshy corals who are very sensibile to bacteria disease (brown jelly or similar) IMO aquarium who have loots of organic, cyano, nusince algae can posibly induce development of patogen/detrimental bacteria on elegance body what will lead to his demise. Same can be hapening with carbon dosing or bp, we try to induce growth of good bacteria but we can get bad bacteria instead of good and bad bacteria can have detrimental efect to corals.

Absolutely true, as is with some of the more sensitive Euphyllia, Heliofungia, and Trachyphillia sp. When LPS come under attack from bacterial infections often times you have 24 hours or less to act or the animal is toast. As it is your swimming upstream concerning treatment options, and success rates. Dosing, as has been stated in previous threads may be tied directly to these pathogenic attacks (even if the bacteria under ordinary circumstances may be non pathogenic). I liken it to the flesh eating bacteria Staphlococcus aureus in humans, which lives quite harmoniously on the surface of each and every one of us, but becomes opportunistically pathogenic (sometimes lethal) when certain environmental conditions are met.

DJ

 

[180+55reef]

Thanks everyone this has been very helpful and informative

So DJreef, and others, it might be possible this type of dosing has let to its demise

again likely 3 other times I have mail ordered good looking elegances and all times they died. This is also the case for one I bought from a local reefer. Great in his tank and died in mine

6 months before this I was able to keep indo elegances.........this was before dosing............

thank you again

 

[DJREEF]

Thanks everyone this has been very helpful and informative

So DJreef, and others, it might be possible this type of dosing has let to its demise

again likely 3 other times I have mail ordered good looking elegances and all times they died. This is also the case for one I bought from a local reefer. Great in his tank and died in mine

6 months before this I was able to keep indo elegances.........this was before dosing............

thank you again

Well, it's difficult to say definitely yes, or definitely no at this point. All we have are correlations. There's way too many variables to point the finger at any one cause, esp given the 'recent' (as in the past 10 years) sensitivity of these organisms in captivity. My theory is that the environment must be as close to ideal for these animals as possible to increase the statistical odds for success. The further we warble outside this narrow window the more difficult it becomes to keep these animals alive. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be close - at the very least, until the animal has built up an adaptive response protocol over time, and is capable of fending off advances toward its well being.

DJ

 

[Toadally]

Anyone else getting a lower PH from using the pellets? My PH has dropped even more since I've added the other 250ml. to the reactor. I usually ran 8.0 - 8.1 before any pellets. Now I'm running as low as 7.8 - 7.9. Anyone else?

 

[Rwpdunne]

Anyone else getting a lower PH from using the pellets? My PH has dropped even more since I've added the other 250ml. to the reactor. I usually ran 8.0 - 8.1 before any pellets. Now I'm running as low as 7.8 - 7.9. Anyone else?

I had the same problem when i first started using the pellets i put a large air stone in my sump and this helped a lot brought it back up to 8.2 from 7.8 in a fiew days

 

[Toadally]

I had the same problem when i first started using the pellets i put a large air stone in my sump and this helped a lot brought it back up to 8.2 from 7.8 in a fiew days

Have you had to keep it there?

 

[cherubfish pair]

Has anyone had success with BPs on nano tanks? Less than 34 gallons?

 

[Rwpdunne]

Have you had to keep it there?

I removed it about a month ago and kept an eye on the ph it seams to be stable now 8.2

 

[MabuyaQ]

The effluent of the BP reactor is acidic (at least at a lower pH than the aquarium water) because the bacteria create CO2 and lots of it. That's why the producers advice to have the effluent exiting at the intake of your skimmer. If that still doesn't work you should extend the air hose of your skimmer to outside the cabinet so it can draw in 'fresher' air (less CO2 than in a closed cabinet).

 

[Toadally]

I removed it about a month ago and kept an eye on the ph it seams to be stable now 8.2

So there is light at the end of the tunnel... How low did it get? Mine was down to 7.81 last night. It never even got close to 8.0 yesterday. It usually runs around 8.1 - 8.2

 

[Toadally]

The effluent of the BP reactor is acidic (at least at a lower pH than the aquarium water) because the bacteria create CO2 and lots of it. That's why the producers advice to have the effluent exiting at the intake of your skimmer. If that still doesn't work you should extend the air hose of your skimmer to outside the cabinet so it can draw in 'fresher' air (less CO2 than in a closed cabinet).

I added some air hose and extended it out. I'm not sure if that will help though. My cabinet is pretty open with air circulating around the stand from a ceiling fan. Plus, I have a fan blowing over the sump to cool things down. Thanks for the help though....

 

[tmz]

You could try a CO2 scrubber for your skimmer intake There are some threads on them in the Chemistry forum. Essentialy, you pass the air going into your skimmer through soda lime which removes the CO2 allowing CO2 free air to enter the skimmer air intake.

 

[SimonSKL]

So there is light at the end of the tunnel... How low did it get? Mine was down to 7.81 last night. It never even got close to 8.0 yesterday. It usually runs around 8.1 - 8.2

I am running 1000ml of BP in a NextReef reactor. Along with my calcium reactor so my Ph have already been on the low side ~7.8 to 8.1. I do supplement with Kalk solution if the ph drops below 7.8 via a controller. There are nights almost a gal of Kalk is needed to keep the Ph above 7.8. I do draw air from outside the sump to my skimmer.

In my earlier post I said I have not seen significant improvement with my BP. Since then I have done the following to see if I can "kickstart" the BP.

1. Discontinued my ATS about a week ago.
2. Discontinued my GFO about 3 days ago.
3. Increased my BP volume from 750ml to 1000ml about 1 week ago
4. Added 300g of aragonite sand to the BP reactor about 1 week ago.
5. Added about 20 lbs of aragonite sand to my main tank about 1 week ago.

So far my PO4 is still zero per Hanna Checker yesterday. My nitrate was about 0.2ppm 2 days ago. The rationale behind adding aragonite sand to the BP reactor is to see if the fluidized sand can house more bacteria. The idea came from a fellow reefer who has been doing this for 3-4 months without ill effects to the tank.

In the first 2-3 days after the sand was added to the BP reactor and DT, my skimmer production was down and now it begins to come back up. Here is a video of my BP reactor and skimmer production after 1 day. I noticed the color of my skimmate is quite a bit lighter than before BP. My BP reactor output is tee'd to the intake of my skimmer. My goal is to see a significant decrease or disappearance of GHA in my tank. So far it is too early to tell the result. A good skimmer production will be a good indicator in the mean time.

 

[DJREEF]

So far my PO4 is still zero per Hanna Checker yesterday. My nitrate was about 0.2ppm 2 days ago. The rationale behind adding aragonite sand to the BP reactor is to see if the fluidized sand can house more bacteria. The idea came from a fellow reefer who has been doing this for 3-4 months without ill effects to the tank.

In the first 2-3 days after the sand was added to the BP reactor and DT, my skimmer production was down and now it begins to come back up. Here is a video of my BP reactor and skimmer production after 1 day. I noticed the color of my skimmate is quite a bit lighter than before BP. My BP reactor output is tee'd to the intake of my skimmer. My goal is to see a significant decrease or disappearance of GHA in my tank. So far it is too early to tell the result. A good skimmer production will be a good indicator in the mean time.

I'm wondering if there might be a sandblasting effect to the pellets - wearing them down prematurely, and if this is the case wouldn't it make more sense to just add more pellets? Maybe the polymer beads that they use in the old school fluid filters might work better. Be a little less hard on the other media, and be a little friendlier where trapping organics might be concerned.

DJ

 

[Toadally]

I have run the air intake to the skimmer from outside to see if this will make a difference. If this dosen't help I'll attach the reactor outlet to the intake of the skimmer.

 

[Rwpdunne]

So there is light at the end of the tunnel... How low did it get? Mine was down to 7.81 last night. It never even got close to 8.0 yesterday. It usually runs around 8.1 - 8.2

It took a fiew days (3-4) of using the airstone to get the ph back up the pump i was using for it was placed at the window to take in fresh air i left it there for six weeks took it of about a month ago and my ph is staying stable 8.2 lights off 8.1

Its what ever works for you but the main thing is get it back up asap imo