N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

[daveonbass]

but it's still the same bp. In other words it's possible that the tank was already seeded a little from having used the "same bp" in the same tank for up to 5 months. The only way to KNOW if it was completly the diy reactor would be to duplicate the results with NEW, never used, bio pellets. Other wise we can't be sure just what exactly is happening.

also how were you NOT fluidizing the pellets if they were in a reactor. That is confusing.

 

[jlinzmaier]

Blue Reefs

Thank you for taking the time to provide so much detail to my questions.

One thing I immediately noticed about your reactor is that there is extremely vigorous flow at the bottom before the water flows up through the bulk of the pellets. There is also several pellets rapidly swirling around in the bottom of that reactor. I think this may be an important variable.

You are the only one (that I'm aware of) that has reported a significant bacterial bloom after the initiation of the use of these BP's. You also mention that this only occurred after you used them in your DIY reactor. It's my suspicion that the aggressive tumbling of those pellets at the bottom of your reactor is abraiding them and releasing the carbon into the tanks water column. This is just my guess after seeing your reactor in action. That significant turbulance of the BP's in that lower chamber just jumped out at me right away as a significant variable that doesn't occur in other fluidized reactors.

Have you had BP's in that lower chamber each time you experienced a bacterial bloom??

Is there a way to prevent them from getting into that lower chamber to see if, in the absence of the vigorous turbulance, the BP's your using will still cause a bacterial bloom?? Not sure if you have another tank to test this out on but it would be an interesting variable to work with to see if it changes the outcome.

Jeremy

 

[daveonbass]

hmm...that's an interesting take on it as well.

 

[Hdhuntr01]

I was surprised at Bluereefs post. I am in the process of modifying a Reef Octopus 140 Calcium reactor to use as a media reactor for Bio Pellets. This will go on to a 150Gallon tank with approximatelt 200G of total water volume. My plan is to remove the Recirc OTP-2000 pump and use it as a feed pump (500GPH) that will feed into the bottom of the reactor. Flow will come out of the top of the reactor and through a Gate valve and then on to my skimmer and then to the sump. The gate Valve will be used to adjust the water flow through the reactor. I plan on getting the final plumbing parts this week to put this together. I have two different brands of Bio Pellets coming in this week. Warner Marine and Vertex. Not sure yet which brand I will start with. Both are 1000mL but I will probably start with around 500mL of Bio Pellets. Not sure yet how much flow will be required to tumble the pellets effectively. I also have a Mag 7 and an Ehein 1250 that can be used for flow if I need a drastic reduction or increase of flow.

Looks like the big difference between my set up and Bluereefs' will be that my reactor has a top and the flow comes out through the top and then through a 90 degree pipe which I will then send through the gate valve and on to the skimmer.

Any comments or ideas are greatly appreciated. Especially from those who are currently running Bio Pellets.

thanks,

 

[bluereefs]

One thing I immediately noticed about your reactor is that there is extremely vigorous flow at the bottom before the water flows up through the bulk of the pellets. There is also several pellets rapidly swirling around in the bottom of that reactor. I think this may be an important variable.

Maybe, just checked right now after your post and they are not there any more, did they go up,or out of that chamer, or compelty desintegrate due to bacterial bloom/abrasion dont really know. When I started this third experiment they was there as can be seen here : http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=17319537&postcount=1791


Have you had BP's in that lower chamber each time you experienced a bacterial bloom??

Yes

Is there a way to prevent them from getting into that lower chamber to see if, in the absence of the vigorous turbulance, the BP's your using will still cause a bacterial bloom?? Not sure if you have another tank to test this out on but it would be an interesting variable to work with to see if it changes the outcome.

Because now they are not there any more I will see efect on my fourth experiment in next aquarium without them, that is actually first aquarium where I get bacterial bloom (picture above are from that aquarium), he was without bp for 20-30 days, right now there are standard fluid reactor with 1000 ml of bp but no bacterial bloom or any kind of efects what I get with diy reactor.

Hdhuntr01 , thank you for experiment, will like to see results what you get. Still if I understend you corectly you will have different modification, IMO most important part of my diy modification are open top and vortex efect on the bottom of the reactor what create different fluidization.
Anyway will see what you get with your diy.

 

[BFG]

Bluereef, I am thinking of doing the open top with an Eheim 2211.

http://www.eheim.com/base/eheim/inhalte/indexf458.html?key=liniendetail_27510_ehen

I will remove the pump head and use the body only. There is a tube at the bottom where I will connect the pump to push water into the filter body from the bottom. The filter body has 2 tray but I will use 1 only, hence creating the tumbling effect.

http://www.google.com.sg/imglanding...s8xTOaWI8bGrAe5qZDHBA&ved=0CC8Q9QEwAw&start=0

What is your flow rate?

 

[Bennytheblenny]

so you still use the same "successful" pellets. I don't want to be rude, but that's just not experimental. Nor is it evidence that the diy reactor has anything to do with it. You need to either use brand new bp in the diy reactor each time you try something new, or try putting all the working bp from diy reactor into an older reactor that wasn't working as well. Otherwise we still are no closer to understanding what really does work.

If you read what he did again you will notice that he said he used the same pellets for 5 months with no success, washed them in fresh water and dried them and then used a different reactor type and only then did he get success. That to me is pretty telling, unless you think that it took 5 months of soaking to somehow fire up these pellets?

 

[bluereefs]

I use old hagen powerhead 404, declared flow are aprox 1400 lit/hour but due to old age (4-5 years) and valve I think is aprox 1000 liters per hours, not qiute sure because I never measured. In my last experiment I cut the flow a litlle so there is probably even less flow right now.

 

[daveonbass]

that is what I'm wondering. Many people here have not seen positive results for months. And now his old pellets are suddenly working in 2 days. So to "rule out" the old pellets finally working, why not try to get successful results with either "brand new" bp, and/or pellets that haven't been working for him. If either of those two things also started working in less than a week then I'd be a little more convinced. But keep in mind that many pics of his set ups show the diy reactor working along side the less successful reactor. So how do we know it's not more because of a bacterial population that IS seeding the diy pellets from the "non working" bp. There are too many variables to pinpoint why his diy reactor seems to be working better. It needs to be narrowed down.

 

[Bennytheblenny]

that is what I'm wondering. Many people here have not seen positive results for months. And now his old pellets are suddenly working in 2 days. So to "rule out" the old pellets finally working, why not try to get successful results with either "brand new" bp, and/or pellets that haven't been working for him. If either of those two things also started working in less than a week then I'd be a little more convinced. But keep in mind that many pics of his set ups show the diy reactor working along side the less successful reactor. So how do we know it's not more because of a bacterial population that IS seeding the diy pellets from the "non working" bp. There are too many variables to pinpoint why his diy reactor seems to be working better. It needs to be narrowed down.

I think until someone does a comprehensive study on how different flow rates/volumes of media/types of colonizing bacteria impact success we are going to be dealing with anecdotal evidence. Until then each person will probably have to tinker until they get the desired result. As the price of this material goes down, we are going to see more people attempting to use this material and we will see a more detailed picture of what works and what doesn't. I myself am using a competing product that is 2/3rds the cost to see if it is as effective.

 

[SimonSKL]

I agree there are many variables among tanks, water qualities, and different brands of biopellets making it hard to understand why some system work and others not. I was intrigued by the two features of bluereefs' DIY reactors: open top and flow pattern underneath the pellets.

NextReef is now selling a reactor specifically for BP called SMR1 with some uniques features: Blue acrylic body to keep light out and promote bacterial growth, larger 5/8" ID fittings for higher flow rate, and laser cut plenum. May be they know more about how to make the biopellets work.

http://nextreef.com/solidreactors.html

My NP BP are in a NextReef MR1 reactor. Flow rate is not a problem as I have a Quiet One 3000 pump which can push 780GPH thru the reactor. Right now I am running about half of that rate thru the reactor. I did notice the BP only tumble on two sides in the reactor because of the two opposite holes at the bottom in the center tube.

I thought if I drill more holes in the tube, may be it will create more turbulence flow underneath the pellets and thus more even tumbling of the pellets throughout the reactor. Here is my modification.

I did clean out the BP reactor and rinsed the BP with RODI water a couple times this morning. The BPs are now tumbling gently on all sides. After 2 hours, I still did not see any bacterial bloom or notice any bacterial strings. May be it will take at least 24 hours. I will report back if my minor modification makes any difference.

 

[jh2pizza]

We are going to experiment with a recirc designed reactor with high fluidized flow, while being able to reduce the through put to increase the dwell time within the reactor.

 

[daveonbass]

well purely as a personal experiment I have turned up the flow in the reactor, again. I'm gonna see if it is more abrasive and breaks up the carbon, and induces cloudyness. I don't think it will but we will see. It seems pointless now that I have manually reduced the NO3. After trying this for a little while I may finally add my old MJ1200 to the skimmer again and just pump the effluent "towards" the skimmer but not straight through it.

 

[StarF]

just a note, i have ben seeding my biopellets with bacteria (zeobak) 3 days after adding zeobak my tank was clouded..

since that time i have added another 500ml biopellets, so i got 1000ml now, and added some baceteria, this time the tank dident cloud. no3 is still around 1,5-2,5 gonna give it a few weeks before i test again.

 

[daveonbass]

also...sadly...my NO3 is up since last week. It rose from around 10ppm to now 20ppm. This means that the pellets are officially NOT really doing anything in my tank, and that the reduction in NO3 was really just from the water changes. But I'm going to try to simulate what bluereef has done and see if anything changes...starting with potentially more abrasion of the pellets.

 

[DJREEF]

also...sadly...my NO3 is up since last week. It rose from around 10ppm to now 20ppm. This means that the pellets are officially NOT really doing anything in my tank, and that the reduction in NO3 was really just from the water changes. But I'm going to try to simulate what bluereef has done and see if anything changes...starting with potentially more abrasion of the pellets.

Dave,

Is your skimmer output up? I don't even have mine in a reactor (floating in a pond bag in my sump) and my skimmers are going nuts.

DJ

 

[ChuckG]

Following up on the thread I had to pull the bio-pellets from my tank.

I had been suffering from a low level dinoflagellate infestation and addressed everything possible to find the source that was feeding them. This included dissovled C02 as the carbon source. When C02 deprivation combined with lights out for 10 days did not work I pulled the pellet reactor a last resort.

This made a direct impact of the dinos ability to recover after a second lights put period. I still have very light remnants of them, but I think this is a result of them consuming whatever is leftover from the pellet reactor ejecting material into the display tank. They only present as a light diatom looking dust on the bare glass now.

My experience and from what I have seen I do not think any of these pellet medias keep the carbon localised just to the reactor. My skimmer (ATB 8.5 econo) was completly up to the task of removing all that could be skimmed from the reator. Yet in my experience it seems to feed dinos in the display at least indirectly via the bacteria that are ejected from the reactor. When I pulled my reactor I was able to see exaclty how much material was flushed off the pellets when I dipped them in a glass of water.

This material is probably good if you have a mature tank fulk of corals that can use it as food. But in my case I only had a few frags and the low nutrient levels combined with the carbon laden material ejected from the reator made for an evironment conducive to dinos in my tank.

I think the media works well at feeding N&P reducing benficial bacteria. But my biggest issue is that short of physically removing or adding pellets to the reactor it is difficult to balance the effect and or manage how much carbon is introduced into the overall system. That said, when I start carbon dosing again, I will be manually dosing vodka at least until the tank matures enough and there are enough organisms to consume what comes out of the pellet reactor.

 

[daveonbass]

Dave,

Is your skimmer output up? I don't even have mine in a reactor (floating in a pond bag in my sump) and my skimmers are going nuts.

DJ

nope, still nothing out of the ordinary as far as skimmate is concerned. Maybe I should just dump them in my sump.

 

[DJREEF]

nope, still nothing out of the ordinary as far as skimmate is concerned. Maybe I should just dump them in my sump.

Maybe there's something wrong with the skimmer. Is it producing anything? I've got 2 going on my rig and I HAVE to clean the cups every other day or they clog up, and that's with a half dose.

Also - is it possible that you have something in there that may be killing the bacteria before they can get to culture?

DJ

 

[daveonbass]

I didn't say there was no skimmate, it's just the same amount of skimate I've regularly gotten from the skimmer. It's a DAS EX1...and in mine and others opinion...a good skimmer. Also there are no excessive strings of bacteria in the rest of the tank that would be the blow off of the skimmer not working.

what could kill the bacteria. I have rock, sand, fish, and coral in the display tank, and nothing unique or unusual. The sump is sand and rock, with no mechanical filtration. I have the skimmer and the bp. And a chiller. I just don't think they are "turned on" like bluereef said. I just wanna know what to do to activate them.