N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[MammothReefer]

Hmm interesting thread, read threw alot of it in chunks.

My scenario.
I've started using ecobak pellets on my 34g setup. In the past I've done Vodka dosing with my older system (500g), and it worked really well but I also supplemented, ZeoBac, ZeoAA, and Phols. Which I intended to do with these biopellets in the future. As of right now I'm just testing them out in a filter sock, when I added them I received the "white bloom" everybody is talking about, I then removed a week later to redesign how I had things placed in filter socks by sandwiching them between sheets of egg crate the size of the chamber I have them into force water threw the bags. This again caused another "bloom" or..basically washed off whatever crud was on the pellets. I've only been running them for a week or two

But as of my last test (last week) I do have around 5ppm of Nitrates (hate the API kit), and .52 phos according to my hanna checker. Now, I knew this was my own fault do to me rushing things, and a huge amount of detritus building up on my tank. I've since cleaned that out, and did a large (for me) 10 gallon water change. Today I will check my parameters again and update but at this point I don't know if I can attribute any changes to water changes, cleaning up the tank or the biopellets, as well as reducing the amount I fed the corals.

I do however have a BRS dual reactor on order and will be moving my GFO & Biopellets into the reactor.

With that I plan on dosing ZeoBac, ZeoAA, and Phols, or maybe MB7 (although the others have worked for me in the past). Another thing to note is I do sometimes mix up my water changes with NSW. Which in theory should add lots of bac.


In terms of some of you guys having trouble, I noticed davenbass stated at one point he did a water change and the nitrates went up, with that I suggest you go back and look over the basic stuff as to why you may be having nitrate issues in your tank. As somebody who battled nitrates in a 500g system that were off the test charts, and managed to get them down to nothing.


There are some basic things you need to address .
Such as the age of your sandbed, the saturation of your sandbed, and the same with you rock if you severly abused your tank (as I had) it's going to take a lot of work to get all that stuff to leach out even if you did 100% water changes you are still going to have nitrates/phosphates creeping in. Which means, maybe you should start thinking about figuring out where the nitrates are coming from in the first place.

Have you tested your water change water lately?
What about your top off water?
How much are you feeding? It's easy to over feed a tank when you start mixing foods and not realize how much you are putting in.
Again, how old is the sandbed/rock.
Do you have filters or sponges, or anything that might be collecting to detritus that isn't being regularly cleaned.

Adding VSV, or V+, N/P Pellets. Is going to help keep things in check and allow you some lenience if you want feed a bit heavily, but it's going to be an uphill battle if there is still a large source of N/P being added to the tank, or leaching back in from an unknown source.

 

[bluereefs]

I open the thread, is here : http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17713717#post17713717 , just basic info are there for now.

My wife says the same thing about me.

they just dont understend how important is nitrate reduction in our life LOL

 

[HighlandReefer]

:lol:

 

[holdyourlight]

That is a whole lot of skimmer for the bio-load! Given the age of the tank, I would run carbon to help clear up the water and put back about half of the pellets. The skimmer will not clear the water up, and you are probably not getting much production out of it because it has very little to skim out. That skimmer would be better suited to a tank twice that size. A 5" neck needs some DOC's to keep a stable foam head.

sirreal63: I'll work on getting some more fish

anyway when the SRO's came out people were recommending the 3000 for heavily stocked 150g ish.
It would seem that the changed the recommendations after they had been out for a while.
Either way it is odd that i would be getting a great foam head and black gunk and then all of a sudden..nothing.
I am not getting anything now except for rapid bubbling at the top.

i''ll try putting some pellets back, but another skimmer is not an option.
btw what are "doc's"?

any other suggestions please let me know!

 

[holdyourlight]

holdyourlight, you have very unusual situation, never come acros similar issue, everytime after the bp are removed cloudines alse disapear in next day or two. I do have serious cloudines in the past during bacterial bloom but after I remove the bp cloudines disapear. Also my skimmers working very strong during all bacterial bloom and they stabilize/back to normal after cloudines disapear. Dont get it why your skimmer do not wont to work and even less I understend how you get bacterial bloom 4 days after you remove the bio pellets??? BTW I use reef octopus super skimmers as well, big 5000/6000 internal model in all aquariums.

Do you maybe use garlic with fish food as a parasite prevention?

I am totally perplexed. I tried doing a big water change this morning and it looks even cloudier now. No i dont use garlic either.......
this is getting very frustrating!!

 

[sirreal63]

DOC's...dissolved organic compounds...what the skimmer is trying to remove. It is normal for an oversized skimmer to remove enough doc's that you no longer develop a stable foam head. This is my case as well, I still get smimmate, but not in large quantities, it improved a little with a change to a smaller pump on the skimmer. You can skim more than the input of things that can be skimmed out. This isn't bad, you just have to understand what is happening, and why. Carbon will help with the clarity, but until the bioload is appropriate for the skimmer, expect poor skimmate.

 

[MammothReefer]

So if the tank is cloudy it can be a couple things, if it's a bac bloom you can leave your lights out for a day or two, make sure your skimmer going all your pumps and you have good aeration in the tank. Don't keep doing water changes you will just prolong the bacteria bloom. You also mentioned your running cheato, are there any other vegetation in there that could have gone sexual, or could a coral be spawning? I'd pull you algie out and place it in a bucket if you want to keep it. I'd also swap your carbon with new carbon if you haven't done so, replace your filter sock or anything that may causing issues. In terms of your skimmer it's self, I'd check the pump check the lines make sure it's all working correctly treat it like you did when you first got it, "re-set" it up for the tank. No need to re-add the pellets until you have the immediate problems fixed.

 

[Alex_GT]

Well just to share my experience with this NP biopellets, i have a good knowledge in fresh water tanks but this is my first salt water tank, I started it around 6 months ago, at first everything was great!! I filled it with regular drinking water (1 mistake) and I started to place corals really soon (2 mistake) anyway I exchange to RODI water and everything was fine.
But suddenly the Cyano made its first appearance!! It took all my tank I used some chemicals to kill it and I did, but the GHA made its way to grow all over my tank now I had cyano and GHA.

Then I started to think what to do, well I increased my water changes and increase my sand bed to 4 inches in half of my tank and left in 2 inches the sand under the rocks and caves.

Well I had 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate but of course the GHA started to grow over my corales It took the life of my frogspawn and one acanthastrea and almost kill my candy cane.

At that point I was running chemipure elite, purigen, phosphate e, matrix and my skimmer.

After that I started dosing wodka+MB7 since I know it's a must when you dose wodka to know your initial parameters but my nitrate and phosphate was at 0 (because the GHA and cyano) I did it very conservative.
But again nothing happened, I started to dose algae fix (and I am dosing it) and I had an impact in the GHA a real impact but the problem was there, the GHA die and re grow and die and re grow, I knew I was on the right track to kill it but I needed to take out the nitrate and phosphate and improve my nutrient exporting system.

So at that point it was chemipure elite, puregin, matrix, skimmer, wodka, mb7, phosphate e and algae fix.

Well I discover this product here at RC I was reading it from the beginning and I decided to give it a shot, I bought 500Ml and place 250ML in a media bag in front of the skimmer intake since the was not in the reactor (and the reactor is not mandatory) I placed an air stone at the one side of it to avoid them to don't have oxygen, the idea of the reactor is to avoid detritus and to keep them in movement to avoid spots without oxygen and I shake them every now and then.

Well I placed them around one month ago, at the second day I had a minor bacteria bloom, so now I am still dosing and running everything else and my GHA is almost dead the algae fix kills it and the pellets prevent it to regrow I still have but around a 99% lest than before, the cyano is only at one spot is not growing but not dead too, if I remove it from the spot it re grows but just in that spot.

I discovered that if I dose more than 2ML of wodka I got a minor bacterial bloom and If dose more than 7Ml of MB7 once a week I got it too.
When the GHA is gone I will lower my sand bed again (that is why I just increase it in the visible part of the tank) and I will cut some of the things I am running or dosing one by one, my goal is to keep the biopellets + mb7 + cemipure elite and my skimmer

So just to share with all of you my experience with the biopellets :lol2:

Alex

 

[Alex_GT]

Sorry i forget to mention that my skimmer did not work for the first 3 or 4 days it started again when the bac bloom finished!

 

[holdyourlight]

DOC's...dissolved organic compounds...what the skimmer is trying to remove. It is normal for an oversized skimmer to remove enough doc's that you no longer develop a stable foam head. This is my case as well, I still get smimmate, but not in large quantities, it improved a little with a change to a smaller pump on the skimmer. You can skim more than the input of things that can be skimmed out. This isn't bad, you just have to understand what is happening, and why. Carbon will help with the clarity, but until the bioload is appropriate for the skimmer, expect poor skimmate.

OK, i may have solved part of the problem
I replaced my mag9.5 for the return with a mag 12 and with the added flow it looks like a foam head was begging to start
Last i checked the bubbles were large and there was a small "ring" of foam at the top. Would it make sense that it would take a while for the foam head to start up if there hasnt been one in over a week?
as for the cloudyness.....can't figure it out
I've tried turning off the lights for 48hrs, did not help
again i removed the biopellets about a week ago and still the cloudyness...

 

[holdyourlight]

DOC's...dissolved organic compounds...what the skimmer is trying to remove. It is normal for an oversized skimmer to remove enough doc's that you no longer develop a stable foam head. This is my case as well, I still get smimmate, but not in large quantities, it improved a little with a change to a smaller pump on the skimmer. You can skim more than the input of things that can be skimmed out. This isn't bad, you just have to understand what is happening, and why. Carbon will help with the clarity, but until the bioload is appropriate for the skimmer, expect poor skimmate.

I must be losing my mind. The skimmer is the 2000 not the 3000!!!

makes the non-production a little more unnerving knowing that too :sad1:

thought i was going to get a foam head when i switched pumps but woke up this morning and back to nothing

 

[bluereefs]

holdyourlight, personally and I could be very wrong, I dont think your troubles are related with bio pellets, something else is going on with your aquarium and is just a coincidence that those issue are happening when you used bio pellets.

In 8-9 months of experimenting with bio pellets and bacterial bloom in 3 aquarium, bloom/cloudines always disapear after the bp was removed, same is with other reefers localy who had a bloom from bp, removing or cuting the amount of bp remove cloudines.

I asked about garlic because local reefer once get bacterial bloom, or whatever that was (white cloudy water ) when he used fresh garlic, he do not used bp or any other carbon dosing (vodka, vinegar...) from time to time I hear about similar issue and they do not use carbon dosing of any kind. Dont know exactly what create cloudines in those cases, never find the culprit. Is that hapening to you really dont know.

Regarding skimmer issue, is there a posibility that fresh top of water drop near or close to skimmer pump intake? When you change the water do you add fresh sea water in skimmer compartment, close to skimmer or you add new water in main aquarium? Do you made water changes before skimmer go down, day before?

If your skimmer have large bubbles, there is also posibillity that you can hear stronger hum noise from the pump/air intake then usual, if you get a filling that skimmer work much stronger but no waste production (is hard to explain) then there is a posibility of sudden changes in water tension what afect skimming. Is very often with new skimmers because they not stabilized jet and if water changes, top of water are aded close to skimmer pump, skimmer pump take in short period of time big quantity of new water and that screw him. Diference in temperature betwen aquarium water and new water also create that efect. Strong powerfull skimmer are much more afected with those water tension changes then weaker old type skimmer. I do that mistake in the past when I dump can of new water during water changes close to skimmer pump, he imideatly react, bubbles get bigger and mixing inside the skimmer get very unstable, no foam/waste production for days.
Due to that I always use small 1 liter can with who I dose new water during water changes slowly directly to return pump intake.

EDITED
I am not getting anything now except for rapid bubbling at the top
that is, is one of the sign of suden water tension changes inside the skimmer body

 

[DJREEF]

Also, the same applies to using pellets (at least PCL pellets) in a filter bag (fleece bags). You can reduce the volume of pellets the same way and achieve the same results using the gravel mixed in throughly.

See this link for details:

http://www.wikipatents.com/US-Patent-7244358/denitrification-of-aquarium-water/Page-1

I wonder if using an undergravel filter plate on reverse flow would be even more effective, in essence turning the entire aquarium into a clog free reactor.

DJ

 

[HighlandReefer]

DJREEF,

That sounds promising to me. A hobbyist in another thread suggested trying this in a separate sump or tank attached to system which may help in an existing system. Perhaps in a refugium as well.

 

[tmz]

holdyourlight,

Increasing the exchange from your tank to the sump/skimmer should help.
Bacteria don't care about light.
You said you used "established sand". If it was old and came from another reef it could be the problem.
Personally with 0 nitrate and phosphate , I'd wait on the organic carbon dosing until the tank was established for a while.
Keep the chaetomorpha algae if that's what's in you refugium but ditch any caulerpa algae you may have which can cloud the water as it sporulates.

 

[tmz]

The reverse flow under gravel filter application sounds promising to me. If the idea with gravel is more surface areas for bacteria , perhaps mixing in some matrix media(seachem porous pellets) would work. This media is frequently used in sulfur denitrators for extra surface area.

 

[DJREEF]

The reverse flow under gravel filter application sounds promising to me. If the idea with gravel is more surface areas for bacteria , perhaps mixing in some matrix media(seachem porous pellets) would work. This media is frequently used in sulfur denitrators for extra surface area.

Replenishment of the media would be a simple matter of dumping new pellets down the stand tube as to not disturb the sandbed. Coarser (cheaper) sand could also be used.

DJ

 

[jason2459]

I brought up trying pellets in my Dolomite RUGF tank setup in another thread where Cliff brought up some interesting research showing improved performance mixing the pellets in a course sandbed. I plan on trying this out in a few weeks. Seems like it would make the entire tank the reactor.

I have two stand pipes that feed about 50gph into two plates. I don't think you'd want to put the pellets down the stand pipe. I would imagine they would all get clumped to one side? I plan on mixing them right in the sandbed and disturb it once a week.

Any other suggestions on this approach?

 

[DJREEF]

I brought up trying pellets in my Dolomite RUGF tank setup in another thread where Cliff brought up some interesting research showing improved performance mixing the pellets in a course sandbed. I plan on trying this out in a few weeks. Seems like it would make the entire tank the reactor.

I have two stand pipes that feed about 50gph into two plates. I don't think you'd want to put the pellets down the stand pipe. I would imagine they would all get clumped to one side? I plan on mixing them right in the sandbed and disturb it once a week.

Any other suggestions on this approach?

I'm not sure if clumping would really be an issue. I mean yes they would probably clump, but proximity to the sand bed (nutrient source) would make clumping inconsequential so long as the pellets moved around en' mass underneath the plates. I'm looking at this from a less is more standpoint both in function and form.

Do you plan on gravel vacuuming with your regular water changes, or just stirring? I would think that with the media worked into the substrate vacuuming would be unnecessary.

DJ

 

[jason2459]

I'm not sure if clumping would really be an issue. I mean yes they would probably clump, but proximity to the sand bed (nutrient source) would make clumping inconsequential so long as the pellets moved around en' mass underneath the plates. I'm looking at this from a less is more standpoint both in function and form.

Do you plan on gravel vacuuming with your regular water changes, or just stirring? I would think that with the media worked into the substrate vacuuming would be unnecessary.

DJ

I would imagine the pellets would be pushed to the far end away from the standpipes and stay there not really moving.

I've never vacuumed the sandbed and will just stir it up which I should be doing anyways but haven't either. So, I'm going to start doing that now before I get the pellets going.