N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

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none of this answered my question.

chuck: when you eat a sandwich, and go back to work, no one tells you that you are sneaking a sandwich to the office, (in your belly?) so how is this the case with bacteria? Why do we not say that "bacteria" is leaching into the tank? Cause it is. If it carries carbon with it then so what? In that case we would have to argue that a bacteria bloom is adding (leaching) N and P back into the display tank. But we don't, so why do we assume that carbon is entering and that the bloom is not just the "smoke" from the reactors "fire?"

but I'm just curious, I am probably completly wrong. :P


Well for starters the carbon source likely wouldn't be visible in a cloud like presentation perfectly representing a well known and documnted occurrance known as a bacterial bloom unless the reactor was shredding the pellets to 10-100 micron size or they were dissolving enough to create enough tiny buoyant material which would stay suspended in the water column. Since I have yet to hear of any instances in which the pellets were significantly reduced in size and the cloudiness was seen immediately thereafter I'm going to stick with the theory that the cloud is a cloud of bacterial overgrowth generated by the release of carbon from the pellets.

The bacteria certainly can release N, P, and C back into the water column if/when they die. This is why the manufacturers of the pellets and articles on liquid carbon source dosing indicate strong skimming to remove the bacteria from the water column.

But we don't, so why do we assume that carbon is entering and that the bloom is not just the "smoke" from the reactors "fire?"

You've baffled me with this one. This odd description could mean a lot of things but what I think you're trying to say is "Why are we assuming that the pellets are releasing a carbon source causing the cloudiness and that the cloudiness isn't just bacteria being sloughed from the pellets"? Please clarify if my interpretation is wrong.

As I said earlier, there is potential for bacterial sloughing but the formation of bacterial strings and masses is what gets sloughed off into the DT. Many people aren't even able to see the tiny bits and pieces of bacterioplankton that are continually generated and sent to the tank. A bacterial bloom is very common and easily identified by a white uniform cloud throughout the entire water column and usually doesn't appear as strings or masses. It presents just like it sounds - like a white cloud that takes several days (or more) to dissipate (duration of resolution is dependant on many variables).

Jeremy
 
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none of this answered my question.

chuck: when you eat a sandwich, and go back to work, no one tells you that you are sneaking a sandwich to the office, (in your belly?) so how is this the case with bacteria? Why do we not say that "bacteria" is leaching into the tank? Cause it is. If it carries carbon with it then so what? In that case we would have to argue that a bacteria bloom is adding (leaching) N and P back into the display tank. But we don't, so why do we assume that carbon is entering and that the bloom is not just the "smoke" from the reactors "fire?"

but I'm just curious, I am probably completly wrong. :P

lol.. yes I'm with you. The thing is I typically do not flop over dead at my desk and decay right there for some scavanger/cleanup organism to consume. Somebody will typically cart me off and stuff me 6 ft under ground before I can pollute up the office up with all organic compounds that make up my body mass (deli sandwich included).

This is what the skimmer is supposed to do, export that bacterial carcasses (alive and dead) out of the closed system which it does do to some degree.

I think problems arise though when there is a high bio-load and bacteria start to accumulate past the ability to be removed by efficient skimming. Once they are in the tank they can then break down and release their accumulated C, N, and P for scavengers to consume.

It's sort of like having 2000 Chucks keel over in the office every day after lunch when the coroner's office, (protein skimmer), only has enough resources to remove 10 of me from the office per day.
 
FWIW, the edit is for those hobbyists (usually very advanced hobbyists) who criticize me for taking part in these threads and encouraging you all along.

I'm after the same hobbyists' dream you all are after, so I don't care. Fire Away. Hopefully I will learn something from the critiques. :D
 
jlinzmaier.. I had the opportunity to tear down a fully functional and active pellet reactor. There was not a single bacterial slime string, strands, slime etc.. inside. The pellets had a coating to them which I took and dropped into a glass of RO/DI water for closer inspection. All I saw were little flecks of material suspended in the water which I assume where bacteria clumped in mass. There were a lot of flecks of various sizes but no slime. Most of them smaller than a pin point.
 
Very interesting discusion

When you add the pellets slowly all you're doing is using the carbon as the limiting growth factor for the bacteria. As you add the pellets slowly they consume a large amount of N and P but the C is limited by the small amount of pellets thus preventing a major population explosion. Until you add more C (pellets), the bacteria will continue to reduce N and P at the restrictive level of the source of C. When you then add more pellets, the N and P may have been significantly reduced which will in turn become a limiting factor thus preventing the bacterial population explosion.

jlinzmaier, thank you for explanation, but please check my nitrate droping when I aded bp slowly:
22.08.2010
500 ml of bp already in reactor for IIRC a week, reactor started aprox 4 week before with 100 ml of bp. Nitrate same as in begining of bp usage- 50 mg/lit

Nitrate drop:
25.08.2010 - 5-10 mg/lit
27.08.2010 - 5 mg/lit
30.08.2010 - 5 mg/lit
31.08.2010 - 2,5 mg/lit

N and P in my aquarium in my case was not droping gradually with the adition of bp each week, nitrate was the same: 50 mg/lit and 4 weeks latter when my reactor was holding 500 ml of bp nitrate was still 50 mg/lit. Then in next few days they start to drop fast. No bacterial bloom. There was no graduall reducing of nitrate.
 
I have been using these bio-pellets for about 5 weeks now. My nitrates have now finally dropped to zero. I'm really happy with their performance.

I have a question however. Over the last week the pellets do not tumble in the reactor anymore (TLF 150 with sponges removed and mesh on bottom). There is 300gph pump pushing water through the reactor, and the water output seems to be fine, but the pellets will not move. I can stir them up and they will tumble for about 5 mins, but will then settle back down.

Do the pellets really need to tumble, or do they just need sufficient flow? According to the directions from the manufacturer, they need flow, but no mention of tumbling.

Microwave.. the concern is not to let any anaerobic areas develop inside the reactor. If the pellets are tumbling then you know there are no oxygen deprived areas throughout the media. If there is sufficient flow to prevent dead spots, yet the media does not tumble then it is probably OK, just very hard to determine overall flow around the media.

In my experience, I found that the tumbling rate would slow significantly down for a few days when the the bio-load increased after adding a new fish or repetitive heavy feeding. You may find that the pellets start tumbling again after things stabilize a bit.
 
Microwave.. the concern is not to let any anaerobic areas develop inside the reactor. If the pellets are tumbling then you know there are no oxygen deprived areas throughout the media. If there is sufficient flow to prevent dead spots, yet the media does not tumble then it is probably OK, just very hard to determine overall flow around the media.

In my experience, I found that the tumbling rate would slow significantly down for a few days when the the bio-load increased after adding a new fish or repetitive heavy feeding. You may find that the pellets start tumbling again after things stabilize a bit.

Thanks, I am able to verify that the output hose has quite a bit of flow coming out of it. Doesnt seem hindered in any way.
 
jlinzmaier.. I had the opportunity to tear down a fully functional and active pellet reactor. There was not a single bacterial slime string, strands, slime etc.. inside. The pellets had a coating to them which I took and dropped into a glass of RO/DI water for closer inspection. All I saw were little flecks of material suspended in the water which I assume where bacteria clumped in mass. There were a lot of flecks of various sizes but no slime. Most of them smaller than a pin point.

Yes I agree that many would find the very same findings if they tore down their reactor. The continual friction of the flow pushing the pellets against each other continually removes tiny portions of bacterioplankton that build up on the surfaces. I was trying to tyring to indicate that even in the most significant cases (if a reactor is left with very low flow and bacterioplankton is allowed to accumulate and is then released all at once) that the observation would still be very different from what a typical bacterial bloom would look like. In the first page of this thread Tatu posted a pic of his reactor generating a large amount of mulm. I'm assuming to generate that much mulm he must have stirred up the reactor or caused some increased agitation so there was a cloud of bacterioplankton for him to show the potential food amount it can provide for the filter feeders. In extreme cases a person might see larger particulate (bacterioplankton/mulm) exiting their reactor and entering their tank or sump (if not properly skimmed or filtered out), but again, that's not the same as a bacterial bloom - which is what I was trying to indicate. I was indicating this with the intent that the bacterial bloom is very different from sloughing of bacterioplankton as some had alluded to that being the cause of the white cloudiness people see at the start up of using pellets.

Jeremy
 
Hopefully I will learn something from the critiques
Just for the record, I do not critiques anyone, personaly I enjoy in this disusion and posts from you, Jeremmy and all others, I learn a loot here.

BTW if anyone is interested in post nitrate behavior of bio pellets without bacterial blom, here are mine.
As I already posted, my nitrate drop down to aprox 2,00 mg/lit (measured this morning) from 50 mg/lit. Interesting is that with bacterial bloom my nitrate drop to 0,2 mg/lit but this time without bacterial bloom they come only to 2,00, maybe I need to ad more pellets to get them down even lower or I will whait another week or two to see will they drop with time.

Interesting is also that last few days my reactor produce much less bacteria, filter socks located at the reactor outlet needed washing and clearance every 24 hours because she get loaded with bacteria when my nitrate was high, now she barelly have bacteria at all, I also saw dirt on her what I was not see before, sponge at the reactor top also dont have visible bacteria and today is removed. Sponge and filter sock I was using for visual inspection of bacteria producing.

Skimmer also act weird now, in the past during nitrate removal and maximum bacterial production skimming was much stronger and steady. Now he act weird, without reason sudenly he start to fill the cup and I need to open the valve to put him down, then he work normal for few hours or a day and then again without aparent reason fill the cup in minutes (no epoxy, aditives or whatever is used what can cause overskimming).

Some of my corals who do not like to much bacteria in the tank water (hairy acropora and stylophora/pocilopora) and which PE was smaller during nitrate removal now have more PE what telling me that there must be very litlle bacteria present in the tank. No single corals are lost, bleached or seriously afected this time. Every few days glass need clearance, there are present few small patches of green and brown algae what are sign that nutrients are not completly in balance and more of them need to be removed.

That is, finally after who know how many months I finally put down nitrate in this aquarium, hopefully this time for good.

No water changes are made during all proces. Now is time for him, if weather will be OK ( I use natural sea water)
 
Very interesting discusion



jlinzmaier, thank you for explanation, but please check my nitrate droping when I aded bp slowly:
22.08.2010
500 ml of bp already in reactor for IIRC a week, reactor started aprox 4 week before with 100 ml of bp. Nitrate same as in begining of bp usage- 50 mg/lit

Nitrate drop:
25.08.2010 - 5-10 mg/lit
27.08.2010 - 5 mg/lit
30.08.2010 - 5 mg/lit
31.08.2010 - 2,5 mg/lit

N and P in my aquarium in my case was not droping gradually with the adition of bp each week, nitrate was the same: 50 mg/lit and 4 weeks latter when my reactor was holding 500 ml of bp nitrate was still 50 mg/lit. Then in next few days they start to drop fast. No bacterial bloom. There was no graduall reducing of nitrate.

Gosh I wish I knew what is occurring in each situation but some instances simply leave us wondering. I do think that gradually adding pellets will help limit a bacterial bloom. I suspect in your case there may have been some unknown factor preventing a major generation of initial bacteria. May have been the brand of pellets, rinsing of your pellets, prior use of the pellets, or some other factor unknown factor. I am surprised to hear you didn't get a bacterial bloom when the nitrates suddenly dropped quickly. That is evidence to support that the pellets "you used in that scenario" didn't release a carbon source to the water column (at least not enough to create a bacterial bloom) but with all the other cases of bacterial blooms I'm confident in my theory that they do. One scenario without a bacterial bloom doesn't make me feel confident that they don't release the carbon source when there are so many other stories of significant blooms.

Very much appreciate your input and explanation of your observations!

Jeremy
 
FWIW I experienced in my aquariums during few bacterial bloom "white water" as well as white bacterial film, strings, pieces on glasses, aquascapes, pipes, pumps, particulary last bacterial bloom I had was more represented as a fat strings of bacteria in a a back glass then white water, that time my corals was much more afected then in case when most of bacterial bloom was white water.

EDITing myself, lol
Some of my corals who do not like to much bacteria in the tank water (hairy acropora and stylophora/pocilopora) and which PE was smaller during nitrate removal now have more PE what telling me that there must be very litlle bacteria present in the tank.
I only asumme that bacteria was that was iritate those corals, that is just my speculation, can be something else, I dont know.
 
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Skimmer also act weird now, in the past during nitrate removal and maximum bacterial production skimming was much stronger and steady. Now he act weird, without reason sudenly he start to fill the cup and I need to open the valve to put him down, then he work normal for few hours or a day and then again without aparent reason fill the cup in minutes (no epoxy, aditives or whatever is used what can cause overskimming).
This sounds like the troubles that are caused by the bad batch of biopellets that was cirkulating a while ago. I got the same problems with my skimmer but they ended when I removed the bad pellets from my system. Read more at this link:
http://npbiopellets.dvh-import.com/index.php/Replacement-BioPellets.html
 
Pny thank you for your advice, is not a bad batch of bio pellets, I used those bp last few months, they create bacterial bloom, reduce nutrients and skimmer was skimming like machine during those proces, last days after they remove the nitrate skimmer start to act weird,probably water tension are now completly different without bacteria so skimmer need time to stabilize again.
 
In my own system it seems that the bacteria have slowed way down, pellets are white again and skimming is less. My conclusion, (and thanks to Cliff for presenting a different viewpoint that helped with my conclusion), is that the bacteria are self limiting, once the available N&P have been consumed the bacteria will lessen to the match the available supply. I think I have reached a stasis and as long as the input of N&P remains unchanged then there will not be an additional mass of bacteria. My system has not registered N&P since before the addition of the pellets, but the VSV did not eliminate algae, all forms of algae have either disappeared or diminished greatly since the pellets came online, the coraline is still growing but that is it. It may be a coincidence but I think not.

Cliff, for the record, your input is always highly beneficial and I hope you always continue to provide it.
 
I have had the pellets twice and witnessed the same thing Jack saw:
at first there's more bacteria slime, then as the values come down, slime diminishes. (actually kind of a good thing since for me the slime sort of clogged them up and I had to stir them/clean them to keep them moving).
Now that slime production is way down they just keep moving and doing their thing.
The only draw back for me is that I actually do like ornamental macro and it's just not doing well in the pellet tank for me.
 
A few thoughts:

Cliff, I'm guilty . I love corals and fish and stuffed my system and dose vodka and vinegar to keep it healthy.

Chuck, Why would dinoflagellates need more organic carbon? They are photosynthetic/autotrophic. If there is a reference to to a need for more C perhaps it relates to high CO2/low ph. Do you have a cite on this? Higher ph is frequently noted as an approach to controlling dinos.

Do pellets leach organic carbon directly, via dead bacteria or not at all?

The blooms are triggered by something.

I suppose live bacteria from the pellets en masse could bloom using the organic C in the tank along with N and P but that seems unlikely.Why would the heterotrophic bacteria in the tank leave enough organic carbon to feed the newcomers?

Dead bacteria could certainly contribute ,so could by products of their enzyme activity in breaking down the pellets and so could the pellets themselves if the polysacharrides are miscible and break loose from the plastic.

Whatever the source it seems likely extra organic C is getting into the tank. Since the C in the pellets is a polysacharride it may be of greater cause for concern than other sources such as ethanol or acetic acid.

There may be another explaination entirely but I don't know what it would be.
 
The only RC member that has a large facility that I know who is experimenting with PHA's (which is what is believed to be in the BP Biopellets) is Mesocosm (Gary White). He is holding off on releasing his verdict until ample time is given to derive some sort of form of scientific data. I just PM'ed Gary regarding possible updates and he has not had a chance to get back. He is a busy man. ;)

Thank you Cliff! I would love to hear what he has to say about bacterial blooms and general effectivity in larger commercial type systems vs home aquaria. Great!
 
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A few thoughts:

Chuck, Why would dinoflagellates need more organic carbon? They are photosynthetic/autotrophic. If there is a reference to to a need for more C perhaps it relates to high CO2/low ph. Do you have a cite on this? Higher ph is frequently noted as an approach to controlling dinos.


Hi TMZ.. There is a longer thread regarding Dinos that a member posted some interesting ideas in. He states the molectular C,N,P ratio of dinoflagellates is 3000/19/1. I see no references in this particular post but it they may be in other posts of his in the same thread.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15102749&postcount=64

What he says make sense when compared to my experience. I could never detect any phosphate or nitrates in my aquarium and never had any problems with nuisance algae. The pellets worked, almost too good and I feel that short of experimenting with the number of pellets in the reactor, I had no real control over the bacterial engine once it got started due to all the fish I fed. I ran 500ml of pellets on 80G system volume and skimmed heavy and wet using an ATB840 with large pinwheel. The tank ran great for some time, the acros colored up, but eventually started to pale probably due to a lack or N and P.

Then one day the dinoflagellates surfaced, I'm guessing rode in on the poop of a newly added fish or through the air. Once they were in they could never gain a complete foot hold due to what I assume was N and or P limitation while competing with the beneficial bacteria engine. Yet they, the dinos, persisted through several weeks of lights out/low light treatments plus PH 24hrs in the 4.3-4.5 range.

I had to wonder what they persisted on so well.. and after reading JK5s posts it seemed apparent that it was carbon but from where? I tried just about everything to include running a CO2 scrubber to try and disrupt the dino's life cycle and tip the scales in favor of the beneficial bacteria. When all that failed, I went ahead and pulled the plug on the pellet reactor and relocated what remainder of my fish. The dino's still persisted although in much lower density for several weeks more. Most likely due to residual carbon still in the tank and/or it's own dying mass.

Ultimately I re-booted the aquariums balance via a final 3 weeks low light period plus simultaneous algaecide. After all that and over the course of the next several weeks I left the tank alone to cook and let the nitrifying bacteria sort things out.

I like the idea of the pellets, my lessons learned from the experience are that it might be possible to have too many and run the tank too clean. Plus all the carbon they introduce has to go somewhere, in my experience heavy wet skimming does not get it all out, and that is where having a large filter feeding bio mass might help balance things a bit. Feeding filter feeders is/was one of the main promotional selling points of this particular product.
 
Hi TMZ.. There is a longer thread regarding Dinos that a member posted some interesting ideas in. He states the molectular C,N,P ratio of dinoflagellates is 3000/19/1. I see no references in this particular post but it they may be in other posts of his in the same thread.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15102749&postcount=64

What he says make sense when compared to my experience. I could never detect any phosphate or nitrates in my aquarium and never had any problems with nuisance algae. The pellets worked, almost too good and I feel that short of experimenting with the number of pellets in the reactor, I had no real control over the bacterial engine once it got started due to all the fish I fed. I ran 500ml of pellets on 80G system volume and skimmed heavy and wet using an ATB840 with large pinwheel. The tank ran great for some time, the acros colored up, but eventually started to pale probably due to a lack or N and P.

Then one day the dinoflagellates surfaced, I'm guessing rode in on the poop of a newly added fish or through the air. Once they were in they could never gain a complete foot hold due to what I assume was N and or P limitation while competing with the beneficial bacteria engine. Yet they, the dinos, persisted through several weeks of lights out/low light treatments plus PH 24hrs in the 4.3-4.5 range.

I had to wonder what they persisted on so well.. and after reading JK5s posts it seemed apparent that it was carbon but from where? I tried just about everything to include running a CO2 scrubber to try and disrupt the dino's life cycle and tip the scales in favor of the beneficial bacteria. When all that failed, I went ahead and pulled the plug on the pellet reactor and relocated what remainder of my fish. The dino's still persisted although in much lower density for several weeks more. Most likely due to residual carbon still in the tank and/or it's own dying mass.

Ultimately I re-booted the aquariums balance via a final 3 weeks low light period plus simultaneous algaecide. After all that and over the course of the next several weeks I left the tank alone to cook and let the nitrifying bacteria sort things out.

I like the idea of the pellets, my lessons learned from the experience are that it might be possible to have too many and run the tank too clean. Plus all the carbon they introduce has to go somewhere, in my experience heavy wet skimming does not get it all out, and that is where having a large filter feeding bio mass might help balance things a bit. Feeding filter feeders is/was one of the main promotional selling points of this particular product.


I certainly can attest that my sponges have never looked better. I need to find someone around here with some different types. I really dig that blue stuff.

DJ
 
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