N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

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The rice is still a solid grain form after at least 2 weeks. If you pick up a grain, you can crush it between your fingers but it's still solid.
 
daveonbass said:
well I've removed about half of the pellets. Gone from 500 to 250ml.

the pellets I took out seem to be the same as when I put them in months ago. There was no slime of any kind on them either. They are more or less the same size as well.

the reactor is also interesting. At full flow it seems to tumble less than it did with more pellets. That seems a little odd.

I was wondering what anyone thought of about me "grinding up some of the pellets and adding it to the tank or to the reactor to see if it could speed up "seeding" the pellets. Dose this seem like an option?
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I'm thinking that grinding them up is only gonna make a mess. Take the half you pulled and just float them in the sump in a coarse filter bag. I'm wondering if your reactor wasn't getting enough flow thru to keep the chamber oxygenated enough to grow the bacteria. Doesn't make sense, but who knows at this point. Pulling half should solve that if it were a problem, I would think. The MB7 certainly kicked mine in the pants. The skimmers were going nuts the second day and haven't stopped.

DJ
 
DJ,

Whereabouts in your system did you dose the MB7, just into the tank itself?

My pellets aren't doing much that I can see (been running them since mid-April) and I'm thinking mine may need a kick in the pants too.
 
aurora said:
Anyone ever thought that we can produce the same process by using raw white rice instead of these starch polymers pellets. Rice is only about $1 a lb. You can use small amount of each time since I expect rice to decompose much faster and release it's carbon more rapidly then these polymers. I've started with a cup of rice in my overflow sock 2-3 weeks ago and I'm getting the same skim that I get from dosing alcohol. The rice form a nice brown bacteria coating after only 4-5 days and does not disintergrate or dissolve at all. The grains are small therefore, I also expect more surface area to denitrification.
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The lack of surface area of the rice to me seems to be the biggest limiting factor. The pellets are very porous and have a lot of surface area for the bacteria to colonize. In contrast, I would not expect the same for the rice since it is no very porous at all. Therefore, the same volume of rice could not house anywhere near the same amount of bacteria as the same volume of the pellets. However, I guess you could mitigate this problem by just using much more rice than you would otherwise use in terms of pellets.
 
Yogre said:
DJ,

Whereabouts in your system did you dose the MB7, just into the tank itself?

My pellets aren't doing much that I can see (been running them since mid-April) and I'm thinking mine may need a kick in the pants too.
Click to expand...

I squirted them right on the pellets and dropped them into the sump. I'm not going to make this anymore complex than I have to. Shortest distance between 2 points, right?

DJ
 
daveonbass said:
HAHA! I know it's late (really early 5:50am) where I am but I literally got informed about your reply to me AS I was reading what MB7 is/does. I really do agree that the tanks that work and have dosed MB7 or similar products must give at least partial credit to the addative. It sounds great. Plus I've gone months with adding NOTHING else and have had zero effectiveness from my pellets. I hate that I can't order the MB7 due to lack of money, but it sucks worse that there is no where local (closer than two hours) that "might" carry this stuff. The only (new) LFS guy I know thinks that the new ORA captive breed mandarins (the ones that eat in captivity and live) is just a gimmik to make more money, and that no one will ever buy one...and that WC are more or less a waste of time and money (why add more salt when it's already in there, just add more fresh water).

so in short...we won't be getting any here....LAME-SKEEZ.

But yes I do want MB7 now to seed my pellets with. Obviously it's something (bacteria I need) that my tank lacks.
Click to expand...

PM me your physical address, and I'll ship you some of mine. I got the big bottle so I'm not going to need all of it. I'll just send it first class mail (you're just across state) so you should get it in a few days if that's cool.

DJ
 
daveonbass said:
well I've removed about half of the pellets. Gone from 500 to 250ml.

the pellets I took out seem to be the same as when I put them in months ago. There was no slime of any kind on them either. They are more or less the same size as well.

the reactor is also interesting. At full flow it seems to tumble less than it did with more pellets. That seems a little odd.

I was wondering what anyone thought of about me "grinding up some of the pellets and adding it to the tank or to the reactor to see if it could speed up "seeding" the pellets. Dose this seem like an option?
Click to expand...

If you ever get to San Antonio PM me and I can share some super slimy bacteria coated NP pellets with you. :)
 
Just wanted to give my findings with the pellets. I recently started a new 40 breeder with live rock that was curing/live for about a year. I put about 250 ml of pellets on the tank a few days after it went up and have been doing daily doses of MB7. Current bioload is 2 baby clowns and a bunch of corals that get fed pretty regularly. My nitrates are 0, but my phosphates were reading .5 and then I got an algae bloom that hasn't gone away. I can't definitely attribute the 0 nitrates to the biopellets, given the established rock. I can say that it seems as though at least for a new tank, biopellets have not been effective at reducing phosphates for me.
 
how new is the set up? You say it's recently set up...

the pellets tend to take longer to reduce PO4 than NO3. If it's all still new then I would say you may have to wait a little longer.
 
anen said:
I can't definitely attribute the 0 nitrates to the biopellets, given the established rock.
Click to expand...

I would be more inclined to think that the live rock, substrate (if you have substrate) and bio pellets are all contributing to 0 nitrates. Without the bio pellets it is likely you would still see 0 nitrates with such a low fish load and cured live rock.
 
For pellet systems that are "stalled" with low nitrates and still have phosphate problems, I wonder if it would help to bring the nitrates up (with ammonia) to keep the bacteria population healthy and keep removing phosphates.

Mitch
 
The tank has been set up is about 3 weeks, but the rock is very established
daveonbass said:
how new is the set up? You say it's recently set up...

the pellets tend to take longer to reduce PO4 than NO3. If it's all still new then I would say you may have to wait a little longer.
Click to expand...
 
Hey do any of you guys who are running the pellets use filter socks? I just made a thread about my socks clogging from this completely clear jelly like substance. Could it be from the pellets?
 
TreyK said:
Hey do any of you guys who are running the pellets use filter socks? I just made a thread about my socks clogging from this completely clear jelly like substance. Could it be from the pellets?
Click to expand...

Sounds like a bacteria mass, which is common when dosing carbon sources. I would assume it may result due to the fact that too many bacteria have built up in the filter sock and can't get out to be skimmed out. YOu could try removing the sock and cleaning the pellets and sock well and then putting it back in. You will most likely need to pull the sock out and clean the bacteria out fairly frequently.
 
agreed. Get rid of the socks. You should be skimming out the bacteria, not letting it clog your filter socks. I was using them and my socks werent lasting more than a day without overflowing once my pellets really started working.
 
OK

Results after 11 days of using the coarse filter bag floating in the sump method. I estimate that I have probably 350ml in the pond bag as of this testing. I'm gradually adding as to not cause a bloom.

NO3 - 40ppm down from 60ppm
PO4 - 2.0ppm down from 3.0ppm

I'd like to say that it's working, but I have fluctuations like this quite often. Up 20 one week down 10 the next, so we'll see. I ordered 500ml of Eco-bak from Jon that I'm going to mix in (since I think I'm going to need 1 full liter to do the job anyway). That should be here sometime next week. I may just put that in it's own bag in the overflow, or something. I'll play it by ear.

DJ
 
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