N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[coltrref]

When there is no more nitrate or oxygen in the water around the pellets, sulfur reducing bacteria take over in the anoxic water and use the oxygen from sulfate(SO4)which is abundant in saltwater. This creates hydrogen sufide( sewer gas) as a by product. It smells like rotten eggs and is toxic. As it gets a little oxygen it precipitates sufides ,the balck stuff. The areas where this occurs need more flow.

hello TMZ

your comment is correct.

but, in this case, to the exit of bacteria and glass of the skimmer remained stored without movement in him, the acid has taken place.

from what I believe, they are working the carbon across the BP in the growth of the bacterial vine-stocks.

Do you agree?

 

[shifty51008]

ok can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here?

nitrates 20ppm
po4 .04

i have been running the ATB bio pellets sence 6/13/2011, the output of the reactor feeds my skimmer directly but haven't noticed any change in nitrates or po4. I only run GAC and have stopped the GFO sence starting BP's.

below is a video of how my BP's are tumbling. maybe to fast, or to slow? I am running 500ml in a Avast MR5 reactor.

thaks for any help.

 

[jimmy frag]

i would run the pellets a little bit faster. i would expect to see your nitrates starting to drop now. its not un common for it to take 6-8 weeks.

 

[shifty51008]

thanks, I will turn them up a lil bit.

 

[Stanley-Reefer]

I started them in both tanks....WM ecobak and TLF's pellets....using a cheap viaqua reactor with a mj 1200 on my 90 with 250ml of eco only....system is only 60 net gal. I just removed the sponges and the skimmer has pulled the worst stuff it ever has to the point it will raise the lid of the RS135 off!

My 175 has a TLF 550 with a mix of ecobak and TLF pellets along with their mesh in place of the sponges with a mj 1200. I thought my dogs took a dump last night and it was the mud-like skimate that the deltec pulled out.

Both will be 3 weeks old tomorrow and I've cut my vodka dose in 1/4 each week with good results.

Both have a rapid tumble resembling the way sand does in a vacuum when doing a water change.

Good so far and my tanks are seeming to like it better than the hard stuff!

 

[gregr]

SJ and others interested in the calcium reactor issues-- I normally get at least a few months of clog-free behavior after I change the media out in my Korallin 1502. This time it went about 7 weeks before it clogged. Significant difference! The bubble and drip rates were pretty much consistent throughout the last year so I think it's directly related to the bio-pellet reactor.
Do I care? Heck no! Small price to pay. Tank is doing great-- pellets running for six months now.

 

[daveonbass]

Shifty: I wouldn't worry yet. I had mine for 8 months or so before they worked. so it could rake some different trigger to get them to work. for me I had to finally dose sugar in excessive I got a bacterial bloom, and after that the pellets dropped my levels to ulns. now I just feed like crazy to keep my water healthy.

good luck.

 

[shifty51008]

wow 8 months. do you thnk by dosing the suger to get the bacteria started in the tank is what caused it? or just time

 

[thebanker]

Shifty, I'm wondering if you have a (rare case of) phosphate limitation on your bacterial growth?

If that's the case, I'd dose some phytoplankton to spike phosphates.

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT a reef chemist, and would seek expert advice here.

 

[daveonbass]

shifty:

I FIRMLY believe that it was the sugar...OR the bacteria that the sugar produced. The reason why I say this is because I have had to add MORE pellets after the first working batch wore off, and those didn't work for almost 2 months...added sugar till I got a bacteral bloom and once again...the pellets reduced the N and P levels. and has continued to.

The PROBLEM is that I wish I could KNOW when the doseage of sugar was about to spike a bloom, that way I could avoid it and still get the benefits of the bacteria that are buliding up for the pellets to utilize.

good luck and as always go slow and try to be more patient with the pellets than Me. haha. once they start to work I think you will be pleased with how easy they are to help maintain your tank levels.

 

[daveonbass]

Again, now that the sugar bloom is well over, my pellets have finally turned from their light tan/whitish color now to a orange brownish color. It's the color of the old pellets that were in there. The tank had measurable NO3 when I added them, but now that they are populated (sped up with the vsv dosing) I now have lots of thick skimmate, and NO3 is unmeasureable. My other tank with NO filter (none at all, just rock) has NO3 off the scale. I guess I gotta be careful and stop swapping frag. :/

Proof in the pics.

 

[rguyler]

Dave, would you please describe your sugar dosing method? How much, how often, duration, etc. I've had my pellets running for a few months now and like you just haven't see much difference (although the hair algae disappeared) so I think I'll give the sugar a try also.

For what it's worth, I'm also still running GFO. I don't have a good means to measure phosphate at the moment but if it's a rare occurrence to limit the phosphate to the point of affecting the performance of the pellets then I'm skeptical that my tank is one of the rare ones. I think it's more likely I just don't have things running well yet.

 

[daveonbass]

Like said, I dosed in excess. I did 1n2 tablespoons everyday till the bloom started. That only took about 4 days tops, then I never dosed sugar again. Once the pellets were working there was/is no need to add any more carbon sources.

Also if I were you I'd investing at least a cheap api phosphate test kit. It doesn't have to be super accurate, but its nice to be able to know what you are starting with and tell if it shifts (up or down). Also if you are running GFO, and your hair algae is gone, its possible that you are PO4 limited. I started feeding like crazy to up my po4 as well and it seemed to help the pellets activate finally. (my text kits have always shown zero, so I was very low on them also.)

If you are po4 deficient, then I say feed more Bork, or crushed pellet food. Do water changes to lower the no3, and try dosing vsv for a while till the levels all reach their ideal points and the pellets start working in the system. Then just keep the feeding up to keep it all working.

 

[daveonbass]

Sorry, Bork(?) = nori. Stupid auto correct.

 

[coltrref]

this is my report with the biopellets with only two months in use

for the increase of the NO3 for the feeding of the azoox corals, I have changed partially the water only two times.

 

[gregr]

I got one month before the calcium reactor started clogging up this time. Changed out the media today using bigger pieces and I'm reducing the bubble rate from 25/min to about half that. Corals continue to thrive, even when the reactor had been working intermittently.

 

[Scej12]

A slight twist to consider...

A slight twist to consider...

I got one month before the calcium reactor started clogging up this time. Changed out the media today using bigger pieces and I'm reducing the bubble rate from 25/min to about half that. Corals continue to thrive, even when the reactor had been working intermittently.

Hey gregr - I've been a little too scattered to keep up with my thread visits, but I meant to add a little observation re the calc reactor/carbon dosing topic. On the system I've been referencing, it actually employs vodka. You might recall that I've been struggling with a gas pocket at the top of my first chamber, and have been reducing the bubble count to try to eliminate it. Well as it turned out, no matter how much I reduced the bubble count, the gas bubble persisted (not a reverse flow reactor incidentally), and the media continued to slurry. So far, I think that DarkXerox gave the best guestimation of what might actually be happening with respect to his dental (cavity effect) analogy. I believe the bacteria is somehow hetertrophically feeding on the media, and this has little to do with CO2... In fact when I finally gave up on trying to compensate via lessening the CO2 bubble count and actually raised to bubble count back up to the normal 2 - 3 bubble/second that was running originally, I found that the persistent gas bubble finally began to disappear (highly ironic but a definite cause/effect of the CO2 increase); also the pH of the effluent actually began to resemble that of a normal calc reactor mode of operation; I was able to better control dKH and Ca levels; and finally the media was dissolved by low pH (in addition to the slurried effect) as would be expected (again by normal CaCO3 reactor operation).

In other words, I opted to ignore the anomolies, and my reactor began to function as normal, with the additional effect of slurried media we are currently discussing.

In response to your clogging issue, I would submit that a dual chamber reactor would help to mitigate some of the clogging in the primary chamber, if you allow a settling area/plenum below the second chamber. I've seen the calcium dust accumulate in this area.

HTH,

Sheldon

 

[gregr]

Thanks very much for the info. I'm going to wait and see how it goes with this latest batch of media, using the same bubble/drip as I have for the last several months. I used bigger pieces of CC (Brightwell Reborn) instead of the standard ARM stuff this time. If it starts clogging too soon a-shopping I will go.

 

[snaza]

]Hey guys,

Been running my tank for 8 months now. mostly used caribsea base rock with some LR. since the start i've had sort of snott slimy stuff over my rocks and back panel. also lots of air bubbles on the substrate too. I also get really bad waves of cyano which last a month or so. not sure if its realated to the pellets but i'm thinking about taking them offline to see if it goes away. my tank is 200g with about 800ml of pellets in a reator staight to the skimmer.

All params are stable and P04 and N03 are 0.00 on multilple hanna. Everything seems to be going well then all of a sudden sps looks bad. poor PE, loosing colour and some even RTN. then its seems to come good again. I'm just confused and not sure what else to blame.

i'm thinking about trying a bit of Rowaphos to see if i can get rid of the algae.

anyone got any ideas or also get the snotty algea stuff.

thanks

Aaron

here is a bad pic of my back wall.

 

[Scej12]

What's your pH

What's your pH

]Hey guys,

Been running my tank for 8 months now. mostly used caribsea base rock with some LR. since the start i've had sort of snott slimy stuff over my rocks and back panel. also lots of air bubbles on the substrate too. I also get really bad waves of cyano which last a month or so. not sure if its realated to the pellets but i'm thinking about taking them offline to see if it goes away. my tank is 200g with about 800ml of pellets in a reator staight to the skimmer.

All params are stable and P04 and N03 are 0.00 on multilple hanna. Everything seems to be going well then all of a sudden sps looks bad. poor PE, loosing colour and some even RTN. then its seems to come good again. I'm just confused and not sure what else to blame.

i'm thinking about trying a bit of Rowaphos to see if i can get rid of the algae.

anyone got any ideas or also get the snotty algea stuff.

thanks

Aaron

here is a bad pic of my back wall.

Hi Snaza - perhaps I would try reducing the quantity of pellets if your params are reliably at zero. Perhaps you just have too much organics in your water column making it past your skimmer...

With regard to the RTN; I would keep an eye on your pH and other parameters. The carbon dosing strategy does tend to lower pH, and if you hover below 8 for too long your sps are effected in my experience. It would be a good idea to list all of your params while you're at it.

Regards,

Sheldon