N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[bluereefs]

No, the skimmer has produced the same or less. It started out less...after first introducing the pellets, and then finally it has ramped up to producing about the same as it used to. And no, to answer your next question, it is not any darker or nastier.

No, there are no bacterial strings in the reactor or on the BP surface, (the BP themselves).

No, there are no Bacterial strings anywhere in the aquarium or the sump...there never have been any since I started using the BP.

Yes, that is what I though, from my expirience your bp as well as others reeferS bp who dont see any results are actually not "ignited", they do not work at all, you just fluidize plastic in reactor, same efect you will get if you put gravel in the reactor.

Sincerely I dont know why is that hapening and why some get them to work and some not, I dont think that is related only with NP bio pellets but with other manufactuer as well.

If they work you will see significant skimmer production, skimmate will be terribly smelling, foaming will be constant, when that is happening then bp are ignited and working, untill then they are just pieces of plastic.

And you will probably get cloudy aquarium, cloudines will last acording to nitrate quantity and nutrients load, from few days to few weeks. I dont see nitrate reduction without cloudiness in all of my aquariums and reading other threads in RC and other forums that is actually pretty normal.

I have similar expirience with one of my reactor, fluidized, with 1000 ml of bp, he just dont work, playing with him last 7-10 days with more flow, less flow, bp washing ... nothing get results. If I have low flow bp are clumping completly , just litlle more flow and no bacteria from them, they become ordinary plastic.
In same time my other diy reactor react to smallest change in nitrate level, I add nitrate , 5 mg/lit, to aquarium where he work and where he drop nitrate to 0,2, and imideatly he made cloudines and start to drop nitrates. So good working bp react imideatly to nitrates and can drop them very fast, from my expirience.

And is not related with bp amount or flow inside the reactor, I try all kind of changes with the non functional reactor without results, diy reactor where bp are ignited work with low flow as well with high flow, with 1500 ml of bp as well as with 700 ml of bp.

That is just my expirience with the bp in last 7 months in 3 diferent aquarium with 3 diferent reactors.

 

[Yogre]

Yes, that is what I though, from my expirience your bp as well as others reeferS bp who dont see any results are actually not "ignited", they do not work at all, you just fluidize plastic in reactor, same efect you will get if you put gravel in the reactor.

Sincerely I dont know why is that hapening and why some get them to work and some not, I dont think that is related only with NP bio pellets but with other manufactuer as well.

If they work you will see significant skimmer production, skimmate will be terribly smelling, foaming will be constant, when that is happening then bp are ignited and working, untill then they are just pieces of plastic.

And you will probably get cloudy aquarium, cloudines will last acording to nitrate quantity and nutrients load, from few days to few weeks. I dont see nitrate reduction without cloudiness in all of my aquariums and reading other threads in RC and other forums that is actually pretty normal.

I have similar expirience with one of my reactor, fluidized, with 1000 ml of bp, he just dont work, playing with him last 7-10 days with more flow, less flow, bp washing ... nothing get results. If I have low flow bp are clumping completly , just litlle more flow and no bacteria from them, they become ordinary plastic.
In same time my other diy reactor react to smallest change in nitrate level, I add nitrate , 5 mg/lit, to aquarium where he work and where he drop nitrate to 0,2, and imideatly he made cloudines and start to drop nitrates. So good working bp react imideatly to nitrates and can drop them very fast, from my expirience.

And is not related with bp amount or flow inside the reactor, I try all kind of changes with the non functional reactor without results, diy reactor where bp are ignited work with low flow as well with high flow, with 1500 ml of bp as well as with 700 ml of bp.

That is just my expirience with the bp in last 7 months in 3 diferent aquarium with 3 diferent reactors.

I speculate that this is what is happening in my system. I have had a large amount of hair algae in the system. The algae and the GFO are probably more efficient consumers of N/P than anything living (or not living) on the pellets.

I should probably take a leap of faith and take my GFO offline, while continuing to aggressively scrub algae off the rocks, just to see what happens.

 

[daveonbass]

Yes, that is what I though, from my expirience your bp as well as others reeferS bp who dont see any results are actually not "ignited", they do not work at all, you just fluidize plastic in reactor, same efect you will get if you put gravel in the reactor.

Sincerely I dont know why is that hapening and why some get them to work and some not, I dont think that is related only with NP bio pellets but with other manufactuer as well.

If they work you will see significant skimmer production, skimmate will be terribly smelling, foaming will be constant, when that is happening then bp are ignited and working, untill then they are just pieces of plastic.

And you will probably get cloudy aquarium, cloudines will last acording to nitrate quantity and nutrients load, from few days to few weeks. I dont see nitrate reduction without cloudiness in all of my aquariums and reading other threads in RC and other forums that is actually pretty normal.

I have similar expirience with one of my reactor, fluidized, with 1000 ml of bp, he just dont work, playing with him last 7-10 days with more flow, less flow, bp washing ... nothing get results. If I have low flow bp are clumping completly , just litlle more flow and no bacteria from them, they become ordinary plastic.
In same time my other diy reactor react to smallest change in nitrate level, I add nitrate , 5 mg/lit, to aquarium where he work and where he drop nitrate to 0,2, and imideatly he made cloudines and start to drop nitrates. So good working bp react imideatly to nitrates and can drop them very fast, from my expirience.

And is not related with bp amount or flow inside the reactor, I try all kind of changes with the non functional reactor without results, diy reactor where bp are ignited work with low flow as well with high flow, with 1500 ml of bp as well as with 700 ml of bp.

That is just my expirience with the bp in last 7 months in 3 diferent aquarium with 3 diferent reactors.

As much as I wish I could just believe that "mine are not turned on," I simply can't. My tank has been notorius for producing Nitrates and in a short amount of time. I used to do a water change only to have the NO3 pop back up to more than it was before in just a few days...less than a week. Even after removing many fish. Still the NO3 would climb fast. Since using the BP the NO3 has managed to maintain a level for much longer...with little increase over the course of a week or two. And I have made no other change...just the BP. My skimmer has always foamed both constantly and consistantly. It's a good skimmer and bigger than what I need for that size tank. so the fact that it's always performed well should not detract from the BP...they are simply being added to a working skimmer.

Lastly on your point, is that you claim that they are only "working" if the tank goes through a cloudy bacterial bloom. yet there are many cases where they have worked successfully and there was no such incident. So I'm really sorry, I hate so sound negative, cause I'm not, after all you know what has worked for you. BUT, I just don't see that being a "nessiccary" event to prove they are working.

So the facts still remain. My NO3 increase time has dropped. That seems like progress. Maybe not as much as some but it's still progress. My skimmer is still producing a consistant foam...so the BP haven't hindered anything there. I just don't see how EVERY tank can be fit into a one size fits all solution.

MY biggest theory is that again I either need just a few more pellets to go from holding the NO3's to finally reducing them...

...OR...

As stated earlier...a few pages back...maybe I will have more success if the BP are not fed directly to the skimmer. In other words let more of the bacteria flow into the main tank display, instead of skimming so much of them out immediately. I don't think this will have a huge impact...but who knows...it may be the "X" factor.

one way or another a lack of NO3 increase is a CHANGE from what whas happeneing in the tank. Now the NO3 is constat to where I manage to reduce it to my manual WC's. This was not possible before the pellets. So for now I will leave them on...(at least get my moneys worth till they run out...hehe)

 

[bluereefs]

Dont get me wrong, I am not bashing bp, I think they are very good product. I just made my observation from my expirience last 7 months of using bp in 3 aquariums. There was the theory that high nitrates cause bacterial bloom but recently there are many posts from people who use bp (and not only NP bp) in aquarium with undetectable nitrates/fosfates and still get bacterial bloom, some are come from the zeovit system and was already in so called ULNS water condition. So there is something what in some cases create that bp start to work imideatly and some can not get them to work for months. And I have both situation in same time. Maybe your bp at least hold the nitrates at the bay but seing what they can do when they are ignited then IMO that is very small percent of actuall bp perfomanse.
Reason for my posts is to try to find why is there so many different reaction/perfomanse from the same thing.

BTW I removed the bp from my first aquarium who had bacterial bloom and where nitrates drop from the 100 to 0,2 mg/lit, nitrates start to rise (heavy feeding) and after 2 water changes (30 %) nitrates are at 25 mg/lit and not rising, there is no bp in this aquarium 20-30 days

 

[nehemeth]

Hello,

So I have been following this thread a couple of weeks and have finally read through it all whew, what a long thread. Ok so I have not started using these yet, but I would love to on my new 125gal that I will be setting up soon. Dave I am not an expert and maybe this might be wrong but it seems since you have always had high NO3 and low PO4 then maybe thats the problem. It seems your tank might me releasing NO3 from somewhere, because I think you said you don't feed heavy. Something in your tank is goofy for your NO3's to be so high or it could just be the imbalance of PO4 vs NO3. So maybe if you got them balanced, it might even out. The other suggestion(your not going to like this) would be to do a complete check of your system, maybe scrub your skimmer down and check your hard to reach areas and just do a really good through check. I am not sure how hard that would be. But I do think these product works, but so some reason certains tanks are better suited for it than others for it to take off completely. But we have no way of knowing that because we don't have a template to work off of. So people who are successful with the product should post there tank specs before the NP pellets. Also state wether you are using the original np reducing bio pellets or the copycats brands like biobeads or whatever they are.

 

[bluereefs]

Here is skimmer picture from today, this is from working bp reactor, skimmer skimming all the time like that, there was no high nitrates in aquarium right now, water is still litlle cloudy due to experiment from 2 day when I add 5 mg nitrates to the tank, from my expirience that is the type of skimming when bp works.

Other aquarium where are the bp reactor who I can not get to work, 25 mg/lit nitrates, bp are on that aquarium for months, skimming is all the time like that

today I made one more experiment, I add bp from the working reactor to this, maybe they can ignite bp in this reactor, quantity of new bp are in the glass on the reactor, I removed same quantity out so there is no change in bp amount in this reactor

So people who are successful with the product should post there tank specs before the NP pellets. Also state wether you are using the original np reducing bio pellets or the copycats brands

Well I dont think my info will help you too much because my aquarium are almost the same, 2 are even same model, all use reef keramik, have same or simillar skimmer (super reef octopus) same return pump, similar light, only what made diference in my situation is my diy reactor he work in every aquarium regardless of nitrate/fosfate level,bp quantity or flow. I use originall NP bp, same batch.

 

[daveonbass]

is your DIY reactor the only one that is not directed at or near your skimmer?

 

[bluereefs]

Outlet from diy reactor go straight to the skimmer pump, if you can se on the picture , grey pvc pipe outlet from diy reactor are above the skimmer pump intake. But due to design aprox 50 % of the water go out from the open top and 50 % throu the outlet directly to skimmer pump.

 

[daveonbass]

dude, that wasn't my question. I know that the DIY has the open top, I wanted to know if the OTHER reactors went directly to the skimmer...in other words is the diy the only one that 50% may be exiting to the sump/display?

 

[bluereefs]

other reactors get outlet directly (as much are posible) to the skimmer pump

 

[SimonSKL]

Bluereefs, I am anxious to hear the result of your experiment in mixing the "ignited" BP with the "non-ignited" ones. Keep us posted.

Add to the confusion of why some BP are working and some aren't was some "faked" or contaminated biopellets leaked into the market, at least in Europe, Asia, and Canada, a few months ago.

Since you are using the same batch of BP in both reactors and the one that is working is the one with open top with unrestricted flow. Someone pointed out earlier about the effluent from the reactor interacts more with air is making the difference. Your experiment may shed some light on that.

 

[daveonbass]

ahh HAH! See that's my new theory. Is that it's being skimmed too fast.

 

[daveonbass]

can you also test to see if it ever starts to work in the "non" working reactors if you don't point the effluent towards the skimmer, but maybe more towards the return pump or something?

 

[daveonbass]

there never were any "faked" pellets...that was delt with by the manufacturer.

 

[bluereefs]

ahh HAH! See that's my new theory. Is that it's being skimmed too fast.

Someone pointed out earlier about the effluent from the reactor interacts more with air is making the difference. Your experiment may shed some light on that.

I will keep you updated with the results from my experiment. Can be in my cases that aprox 50 % of reactor efluent skip the skimmer and thus is not skimmed out too fast. But what is with the others who use standard closed fluid reactors and get bacterial bloom? Did most of their bp efluent also skip the skimmer intake? Hmm, probably not. It is so confusing lol.

Well at least Dave can experiment and remove the reactor outlet from skimmer intake and report what is happening, maybe is worth a trying.

 

[bluereefs]

can you also test to see if it ever starts to work in the "non" working reactors if you don't point the effluent towards the skimmer, but maybe more towards the return pump or something?

Can try tomorow after 24 hours of experiment with mixing bp from diy reactor. But to tell you the truth I loose patience and I think I will just drop my diy reactor in this third aquarium and see will he create bacterial blooom again after he create him in 2 previous aquarium.

 

[SimonSKL]

Here are the pictures who can maybe explain better what I talking about.
Here is the bacterial bloom created second day after I moved my diy reactor to this aquarium who had 50 mg/lit nitrates

here is the skimmer picture

That diy reactor made similar bacterial bloom in previous aquarium few days after modification. Until modification he work for months without bacterial explosion, I think I do something what made him bacterial machine but dont know exactly what,lol.

This picture clearly showed lots of bacterial strings overflowing from the top of the reactor. I have not seen anything like this in my reactor after running the BP for over 3 months. Looks like getting good bacterial growth on the pellets is the key.

I don't think skimming (over or under-skimming) has anything to do with the appearance of the bacterial strings as bacterial growth happens before the skimming process. Once the bacteria are formed, you do want to remove it as quickly as possible as the bacteria incorporated PO4 and NO3.

 

[daveonbass]

well yes and no.
if the reactor created "x" amount of bacteria, and the skimmer can remove "x" amount equally. Then wouldn't the bp only produce enough bacteria to populate just the water inside the reactor? As opposed to the bacteria flowing past the skimmer and then in turn reproducing in the DT. Which would then create more bacteria in the overall water volume, as opposed to just enough bacteria that think that the reactors water volume is all it ever could populate.

or am I going about this all stupid? I'm having a hard time thinking now with so little sleep. Haha.

 

[bluereefs]

This picture clearly showed lots of bacterial strings overflowing from the top of the reactor. I have not seen anything like this in my reactor after running the BP for over 3 months. Looks like getting good bacterial growth on the pellets is the key.

I don't think skimming (over or under-skimming) has anything to do with the appearance of the bacterial strings as bacterial growth happens before the skimming process. Once the bacteria are formed, you do want to remove it as quickly as possible as the bacteria incorporated PO4 and NO3.

Yes, those bacterial string are sign that bp works, that is what they are made for, to create loot of bacteria who will be skimmed out, if bp dont create bacteria and in case with high nitrate concetration there must be a loot of bacteria, then they do not work, how can they work if there is no bacteria to be removed out? Bacteria was everywhere, in the tank also, I think I had few mm fat bacterial colony on front glass. As the nitrates drop there are less and less bacteria but still bacterial string are visible on my reactor, even I washed him completly in freshwater together with bp, they formed again in very short time, 24 hours IIRC. And as you noted I did not see thos bacterial strings in my other reactor who just dont work ful power IMO.
I also dont know is that good (so far I dont have livestock loses) because main reason for chosing bp is to create bacteria only inside the reactor, that was main diference betwen bp and vodka. But as many more people start to use various bp there are many reports of bacterial bloom and it look like that is more or less normall recently. Also it look that mostly reefers who had bacterial bloom get them to work in aquarium and reduce nutrients, in most cases.

 

[bluereefs]

SimonSKL do you have nitrate/nutrient reduction in 3 months of using bp without bacterial bloom?