N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

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Why do you need a sponge on the top at all. The pellets are to big to fit through the holes in a Phosban reactor anyway right?
 
Why use the sponges at all? I realize the holes in the bottom of a TLF phosban reactor are probably large enough for the pellets to fall through but the direction of flow is still going to be bottom --> up, so as long as the flow is not so great that it forces the pellets out the top why not do away with the sponges?
 
luther1200 said:
Why do you need a sponge on the top at all. The pellets are to big to fit through the holes in a Phosban reactor anyway right?
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I have not tried it, but probably the pellets can be used without the reactor sponges. The pellets are normally half spheres in shape, but some are only fragments of these half spheres. These fragments are the ones that may pass by the holes in the reactor plates if some filtering material is not used.ffice<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p

In my case I must use some filter material at least at the top of the reactor. For multiple uses, I have a triple 1/2” manifold with valves connected to the output of my 1,400 gph return pump. One of these manifold outputs is connected to the reactor and if open the valve too much by error without a filter material, surely some of the pellets will end up at my sump/refugium. It will be an inconvenient little project to recover these pellets from the sump!!!<O:p</O:p
 
The pellets will shrink as the bacteria consume them. When they get small enough, they might pass through the perforated grating of a phosphate reactor. However, at that point, it would probably be best to add more pellets.
 
But who cares if they fall through the bottom grate? The flow is still going to pass through them and up the reactor. As long as you don't crank the flow up so high that it fluidizes pellets so they get to the top of the reactor it wouldn't even matter if there was a grate there let alone a sponge.
 
From my experience, I've used a trimmed 1mm thick sponge on both side of the reactor once, and it got clogged within 3 days.

I've ended up removing all sponge and so far it works perfectly. Some newly beads managed to escape from the reactor simply because there were air bubble attached to them, but after the "run-in" period, no more air bubbles on the beads and everything stays in the reactor fine.
 
DJREEF said:
I'm wondering if nylon screen would be adequate in place of the sponges. You know, something a little less flow restrictive.

DJ
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I built my reactor out of an old skimmer body and used screen on the top to keep the pellets in. Seems to work well but it's only been running for about 3 days. Tomorrow another reactor built from a plastic drink bottle will be created. Make sure your screen is nylon and it should work out well.
 
bosshog said:
I built my reactor out of an old skimmer body and used screen on the top to keep the pellets in. Seems to work well but it's only been running for about 3 days. Tomorrow another reactor built from a plastic drink bottle will be created. Make sure your screen is nylon and it should work out well.
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A 2 liter drink bottle. Awesome idea. Heck I'm thinking that you could just drill a bunch of small holes in the side. or top for effluent drainage. O hell, I gotta new project, now.

DJ
 
Would putting bio pellets on a non established tank be a bad idea? I've got a 58 that has three small fish and has only been up for a month or so that I was thinking of putting this stuff on. The rock, sand and part of the water came from an established system. Thanks!
 
kentrob11: can't hurt. it's a set it and forget it system that is used with demand....

Speaking of which I got mine in a BRS reactor now. Had the sponges in for a week and wasn't getting good movement and half of the pellets were sticking together. So I took the sponges out of the top and bottom as mentioned here, and it's working perfect now. No pellets floating out cause they're too heavy. I also filled the reactor with tank water and shook it before starting it up to remove air bubbles that might stick to the pellets. As soon as I turned it on my sps polyps started going mad, and my skimmer grabbed an inch of gunk in the next 2 hours. Pretty cool. Got the reactor connected with a rio 600 powerhead. works fantastic. Fits about 800ml.
 
I can't believe I'm the only one that has pointed out this funny from pg 2 -

"I `ve already removed the panty of my wife and puted the pellets dirctly into the drainpipe box."

I'm currently running the full Brightwell NeoZeo method. Has anybody substituted the NeoZeo stones and Bio Fuel for the NP Pellets?
 
Thank you for the info on where to buy!
I have a 180 gl tank with a 10 gl refuge with macro algee, and a 30-35 gl sump with a filter sock. 100-120 lbs live rock about 2 1\2 to 3 inches of substrate. a Vertex in 180 skimmer, 2 MP40's and 1 koraila #4 and 1 koraila #3 intank for water movement, a Rio 32 Hyper Flow for return pump. I have 4 Tang's, 3 clowns, 2 firefish, 1 royal grama,1 green cromis, 3 cardinals, 3 wrasse's and 1 diamond gobi and a small clean up crew. I have very high nitrate, about 50 to 70 on a API saltwater master test kit, been doing 35-40 gl water changes about every other week and still have the high nitrates. cut back to feeding 1small sheet of nori and 1 cube of myisis per day. Does anyone have any other ideas? Do you think these N/P pellets will help my situation? thinking about using Seachem de*nitrate. any reply would help.
 
Yes i believe they would help as they are specifically designed for your problem, It is recommended that you run it in conjunction with phos remover of some sort to keep everything in balance...that being said...guess who ordered a BRS reactor and 500ml of pellets :) ...finally lol
 
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