N/P reducing pellets (solid vodka dosing)

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I do, I assume thats the brown snotty stuff with bubble all over the place. But if it is how the heck can it be growing in the reactor it baffles me. Especially that there is no light in my sump area.
 
how much MB7 are you dosing?

I dose 2 drops of zeobac mixed with 3ml of sugar water every other day directly into the reactor pump intake every third day.

deoending on your dosing you may want to cut back on the MB7.
 
smokey30 said:
I do, I assume thats the brown snotty stuff with bubble all over the place. But if it is how the heck can it be growing in the reactor it baffles me. Especially that there is no light in my sump area.
Click to expand...

many species of dinoflagellates don't need light from what I've read. their nutrient uptake is mainly bacterial.
 
I'm a newbie to pellets but I'd set you skimmer to pull wetter skimmate and monitor for a few days. Also change you filter socks frequently and make sure the output of the reactor is right on the skimmer pump intake.
 
I do half the recommended dose of the mb7. My outlet to my reactor is directed right at my skimmer pump and my skimmer has been pulling out some nice looking gunk. I was thinking of cutting the mb7 for a couple days until my lights out period is done and see what happens, maybe that will do the trick. For reference I have been battling cyano, dinos and some sort of brownish/green short hair algae. From the looks of things, it seems that things are dying off my rock is cleaner and so is my sand bed, but then again it could just be due to the lights out
 
smokey30 said:
I do half the recommended dose of the mb7. My outlet to my reactor is directed right at my skimmer pump and my skimmer has been pulling out some nice looking gunk. I was thinking of cutting the mb7 for a couple days until my lights out period is done and see what happens, maybe that will do the trick. For reference I have been battling cyano, dinos and some sort of brownish/green short hair algae. From the looks of things, it seems that things are dying off my rock is cleaner and so is my sand bed, but then again it could just be due to the lights out
Click to expand...

what's your TDS?

If TDS is 0, perams are good and lights out doesn't help, the you may want to try pohls coral snow with zeobac as a last resort. I'm too scared of the red slime removers because of the potential for wiping out the bacterial population.

I had a nasty cyano outbreak several months back and dosed a mixture of 8oz tank water with 2ml pohls coral snow and 2 drops of pohls zeobac in a cup. I mixed it well and let sit for 15 minutes then dosed this every other day for 2 weeks and it knocked down my cyano. The coral snow is touted as a biological facilitator (whatever that means!) and mixed with the bac it supposed to put things back in balance. Anyways, worked for me!

keep us posted on how the blackout goes.
 
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Ok little help please.

Here's the deal. Iv been running pellets for a bit over a month now. And yesterday I noticed that some of the pellets where sticking together. So I unhooked and took apart my 2 little fish reactor I'm using (its the small one by the way) it is only half way full. So anyways I took the top off and used long tool and broke everything up so pellets where not stuck together anymore. After I noticed I could see all the bacteria floating in the water. When I reconnected it and starteed pump the bacteria came out of reactor and was floating in the tank.

Well my " will I have any problems? And since bacteria fell off pellets am I going to start all over with the bacteria on the pellets?

Roger
 
Some of the bacteria in the tank might be removed via skimming. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry much. The pellets might take a bit of time to get back into full growth, but nothing like the original break-in period. You might need to increase the flow in the reactor a bit.
 
So I finally broke down and swapped out my MRC media reactor to a reef octo pellet reactor and what a difference! For a year I suffered ups and downs with clumping anytime I added new pellets, changes in the bio-divesity of the DT. The design of this reactor also calls for me to dial the feed pump back by 30+ percent and the pellets no longer clump with any of the above changes.
One question I have for other users that go through a good amount of pellet dissolving:
Everytime you add new pellets for replenishing, do you go through the "white hazing" on your DT glass panes everytime new pellets are added and how do you determine when to replenish pellets to your reactor?
My No3 stays low even though 50% of the pellets are gone but I just base the replenishing on visual cues.
 
Hi All

I am converting from zeo to bio pellets. For numerous reasons. I just don't have the time for accurate dosing that zeo requires.

I will very slowly reduce the Zeovit stones and start3 dosing while gradually increasing increasing the amount of pellets.

I have read that Warner Marine have the beat pellet. Though the vendor I ordered through only has ATB. He assured me they are the same. Anyone have any experience with ATB pellets?

TIA!

cheers :beer:
 
My TDS is 0 I actually just broke down and bought a new RODI unit to cross that off the list as a potential problem. The lights out seems to have gone well I just put the lights on and there is minimal areas of the hair algae left, and what is left looks dead. Seems that the algae growth in my reactor has gone away as well, and looks like I have a nice bacterial population growing in the reactor so the pellets must be working. My corals seem to have lightened up a bit not sure if it was from the lights out or that my tank is actually ULNS now and I can begin normal feedings to color things back up.

reeftivo said:
what's your TDS?

If TDS is 0, perams are good and lights out doesn't help, the you may want to try pohls coral snow with zeobac as a last resort. I'm too scared of the red slime removers because of the potential for wiping out the bacterial population.

I had a nasty cyano outbreak several months back and dosed a mixture of 8oz tank water with 2ml pohls coral snow and 2 drops of pohls zeobac in a cup. I mixed it well and let sit for 15 minutes then dosed this every other day for 2 weeks and it knocked down my cyano. The coral snow is touted as a biological facilitator (whatever that means!) and mixed with the bac it supposed to put things back in balance. Anyways, worked for me!

keep us posted on how the blackout goes.
Click to expand...
 
good to know smokey30! glad it's working out.

update for me is my no3 is now 1ppm and my po4 is .02. I've not had any bloom to speak of probably because my levels were low to begin with. I love the low maintenance compared to my former zeovit regimen. I'm starting my first set of out of town trips soon so I'm happy things are doing good right now.

I'm a bit concerned about my BRS reactor. It has good flow going through it with the Mag 3 at 3/4 open but it still has a clumping area at the lower bottom (on one side) that I thought was from the unit not being level. I adjusted the level and the darn thing still has an area that doesn't move well. It moves, but very, very slow. If I open up the MAg3 more, I get the pellets blowing up to the top screen of the cannister. There's not much of an in between for me so I'm opting to switch to the aquamaxx biomaxx reactor I have and see how that goes.

will update

Tivo
 
Changed over to the biomaxx reactor last night and glad I did.

The reactor stirs the pellets uniformly unlike the BRS. It creates a whirlpool which rotates the pellets around the center tube while churning them as well. Kind of similar to the JNS reactors movement. The pellets don't blow all over the place like in the BRS reactor.

I'll have to get a video up of the reactor.

Tivo
 
I was just checking out that aquamaxx reactor and am close o pulling the trigger since the bio pellets seems to be working out for me. If you get a chance it would be great to see a video of the new reactor in action.
 
The construction is top notch. Very thick acrylic!

I'm using the small biomaxx. They also make a hanging bracket but I already had screws from the BRS mount so I jerry rigged a hanger with a black nylon strap. Works well. I just prefer to keep it out of the sump since I'm limited on room.
 
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