N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

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jlinzmaier said:
1st of all, I didn't know asking for clarification was being argumentative.

Second of all, if you had any idea what POM is then you'd realize it consists of live food - bacteria and other microfauna. Maybe you should do your homework before trying to sound so smart.

There, that's being argumentative so now you've actually got something to complain about!!

Jeremy
Click to expand...

There. Now you've gone from being argumentative to insulting and combative.

Secondly, how can anyone sound smart with the word poop in the sentence. You really take yourself way too seriously J.

DJ
 
Hi Capn ' :) ,

Thx for posting these informatif reads/ topics here , learned alot from you and i will keep doing this way :thumbsup:

Yesterday day i replaced half of my worn out (old formula) pellets for new ones .
I have to say i'm dissapointed :worried: , these pellets are less dense and have little pockets of air in them , due to the fact that i use an open top containment/reactor they got blown out in to my sump where my skimmer and pumps are housed !!!

You could say that maybe less flow would do the trick , but then there is no movement at all thru the pellets .
I'm now gonna soak them , at least 48 h , regulary shacking the batch in an effort to shake those bubbles off.

greetingzz tntneon :)
 
capn_hylinur said:
the cloudiness due to the bacterial bloom will go away on its own. The major concern is that the bacteria will lower the oxygen level in the tank.
this is also another reason for having a good skimmer.
I would add an air stone low in the tank so it is really bubbling up the surface of your tank. an airstone will not dissolve much oxygen in the water but it will stir up the surface area where the main gas exchange occurs.
Also direct a power head so it is really churning up the surface water and keep the surface uncovered.
Keep it this way for the duration of the bacterial bloom
Click to expand...

my "bloom" came and went in less than 24 hours. I think it was from the sugar. I'm going to stop doseing sugar and see if the pellets maintain my 0ppm nitrate levels by them selves. The skimmer did it's job of adding oxygen, and I think having my stand/cabinet open all day helped. Again bloom started around lights on at 12, and was gone and cleared up by 10 at lights out.

I'm glad it's gone too cause there is no LFS that could supply me with gac anyways. :(

my MP10's help keep the surface water moving well, and yes it's an open top tank.

thanks guys, again I hope this success continues now after all this time.
 
I was thinking I may want to take the pellets off line to see the tanks reaction over a months time. If I remove them how can I keep them so if needed again, I could reintroduce them into my system?

Basically, is there a way to save used pellets?
 
I was thinking I may want to take the pellets off line to see the tanks reaction over a months time. If I remove them how can I keep them so if needed again, I could reintroduce them into my system?

Basically, is there a way to save used pellets?
Click to expand...

Just wash them and dry, that is. Is a plastic so there is no harm for them if they are removed from the aquarium and used latter. I do that few times already last few months.
 
spoke too soon

spoke too soon

goochesfish said:
Took the pump apart for cleaning and that definitely did the trick. I'm foaming up once again. Some debris from the biopellets must have shot into the skimmer pump because the foam head dropped and stayed down immediately after starting the BP reactor. Now it's back to normal.
Click to expand...


Wishful thinking, by the next morning, the foam head was down again. Anyone have any ideas?
 
Stevedola, I washed them in tap water, did not notice any side efects, used them few months latter and they worked as new
 
http://glassbox-design.com/2010/np-biopellets-killing-skimmer/

apparently NP biopellets had some bad batches that caused the skimmer to stop functioning. Mine look like the square ones they are talking about.
DSC_0009.jpg
 
Yes , that are the new formula BP , the same ones io added 2 days ago in my open top reactor .

The air bubble problems i seem to have with these pellets are still present .
This is maybe because my tank drain is draining in the reactor and some micro bubbles seem to attach to the surface of the new ones and they won't go away.
Every day i try to stirr the pellets , but with new ones in , i always have alot of them that begin to float and ending up in my sump .

greetingzz tntneon :)
 
I started with my NP biopellets 3 days ago and they are in a zeo reactor which i set to low flow. i have a 120g tank with 50g sump so i started with 100ml of the biopellets and i was planning to add next week. i just checked the pellets tonight and some of them seem to have formed clumps with a translucent white mass covering them which i presume to be the bacteria. Did this also happen to you guys? should i be increasing the flow?
 
ryanuuy said:
I started with my NP biopellets 3 days ago and they are in a zeo reactor which i set to low flow. i have a 120g tank with 50g sump so i started with 100ml of the biopellets and i was planning to add next week. i just checked the pellets tonight and some of them seem to have formed clumps with a translucent white mass covering them which i presume to be the bacteria. Did this also happen to you guys? should i be increasing the flow?
Click to expand...

Yes, this is normal. Just make sure the pellets are at a gentle tumble. If the pellets clump up it is fine. If you need to break it up turn up the flow sligtly or shake the reactor.
 
is it possible for the pellets to reach a critical point and start leaching back into the system? Someone was trying to sell me on that idea. My understanding is that these pellets create a culture of bacteria that devour the trates/phos and there by out compete and reduce. He was saying they simply reach a point where they expell back into the water column which sounded completely wrong...he was very serious about this media being harmful. But then again he said he did 40-50% WCs every 2 weeks?!?!
 
stevedola said:
is it possible for the pellets to reach a critical point and start leaching back into the system? Someone was trying to sell me on that idea. My understanding is that these pellets create a culture of bacteria that devour the trates/phos and there by out compete and reduce. He was saying they simply reach a point where they expell back into the water column which sounded completely wrong...he was very serious about this media being harmful. But then again he said he did 40-50% WCs every 2 weeks?!?!
Click to expand...

Well, given that these are not an adsorptive/absorptive media I would say who ever said that either didn't understand what these are, or was wrong. The only things these pellets leach are bacteria and maybe (as yet to be ascertained) carbon (which then theoretically gets consumed by bacteria in the water column). So, basically what I'm saying is you were right with your original assumption.

DJ
 
capn_hylinur said:
IMO 40 is not a really high nitrate level. However if you have algae then you might want to lower it. If you have no algae then the first thing I would question is the method and test kits you are using to test nitrates with.

Water changes are not an effective method for reducing nitrates. If you dont find the source for importing them then they will be right back up there after the water change
Sources of nitrate importing
over feeding
not enough flow
not rinsing frozen food before using
poor skimming

If you can setup a refugium with chaeto macro then that would be alot more affective then water changes for reducing nitrates
Click to expand...

Well, I do not have any algae problems, the tank water is clear and everything is healthy. The only one that is hard to keep off the glass is the green coraline algae. Red coraline grows like crazy. I am testing with an API test and a salifert test. The salifert reads 50 and the API reads 40 and as low as 20 just after water change.

I do rinse my food. I have recently increased my flow rates. Overfeeding should not be the issue. My skimmer is a BH-800 HOB octopus. I do not think it is sufficient. It does not produce very well.

I have a 12'x12'x10' refuge in the sump with 18 on and 6 off lighting because I also have phyto and rotifer cultures going under the tank too. The refuge has chaeto and it does not grow well AT ALL. It seemed to do okay at 24hr lighting, but seemed to stop. Now it just doesn't really grow. It just stays alive. It has been setup since June.

Brandon
 
update...

still reading undetectable NO3 and PO4. Now that it's been a couple of days an all is cleared up, I am noticing very clear water that is amplified with the lack of algae growth on the glass. I have STOPPED adding sugar and will see if the params stay in line indefinatly. If they go up then I assume the pellets didn't do the trick but that the sugar is what helped. But I'm not seeing any remote climb back up in either so I'm hopeing that now the BP are "active".

thanks guys...i guess it's time to tell SWC what I did...
 
yes..that is my whole point for testing it t see if the pellets "keep" the NO3 down. But till they stay down it's hard to know if it was JUST the sugar that caused the no3 to get removed through skimming, or if the pellets will now hold them at bay.

I think like bluereef, that once they get "activated" that they will continue to work, but before that they are useless.
 
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