Just found this thread. Is there a concise run down on one or two of these pages? 136 pages is a lot of reading. Can someone help a fellow reefer out?
Thanks in Advance
Gary, I don't know if there is good summary that can be given. In all of the threads I've read, regardless of the brand, the results seem to be mixed. For every one person who has great results there is another who has negligible results.
Here's what I can summarize through the last few months of reading these:
1) Add the pellets slowly initially. Take a couple of weeks at least to get up to the final amount of pellets you want to run. This seems to reduce the algae blooms you will experience at first.
2) You need to keep the pellets tumbling but how much seems to be subjective. In my personal experience, if you don't tumble them enough they will clump together.
3) Most people try to dump the effluent of the reactor at the input of the skimmer pump in order to reduce the bacterial bloom. IMHO this may not really do much but it's a current "best practice". Either way, expect your skimmer to kick into overdrive when using the pellets so make sure the skimmer is ready to handle the load.
There is still a lot of experimentation to be performed here. Results are too variable to form solid opinions for the most part. You will also find a mixed camp on things such as adding some form of starter bacteria supplement or how these will really (or if at all) these will change the water chemistry and what we have to do to create the ideal environment for the pellets to be effective.
The bottom line is there really isn't one. It doesn't require an extreme investment so if you have an available reactor and have an issue with algae or your nitrates/phosphates are too high then consider just giving them a try for yourself. If you read my previous post, you'll see that even though my nitrates seemed to go up, my GHA is definitely receding. Figure that one out!
