Shapelock DIY N/P reducing Pellets or Nuking the tank...

I'm pretty excited to get this started after reading about your good results. I don't really have a cyano problem or anything like that I mostly just want to use it to help clear up the water and maybe clean up some of the small patches of hair algae I get. I'll let you know how mine works out. Hopefully I get get it going once I get the pellets but I might have to wait until this quarter is over I don't have much free time right now lol
 
Hey Jason, are you using a HOB refug with chaeto? I was skimming through your build thread and can't recall whether or not you are doing that.

As may you know from my posts in another thread, I'm using IO brand polymer to keep my system bacteria-driven. My NO3/PO4 levels are undetectable, but I want to bolster this method with a HOB fuge, and shapelock in a reactor if you have good results. Also I want to raise microfauna that only a fuge can provide. Gotta feed my scooter blennies, they're so darn cute.
 
thebanker said:
Hey Jason, are you using a HOB refug with chaeto? I was skimming through your build thread and can't recall whether or not you are doing that.

As may you know from my posts in another thread, I'm using IO brand polymer to keep my system bacteria-driven. My NO3/PO4 levels are undetectable, but I want to bolster this method with a HOB fuge, and shapelock in a reactor if you have good results. Also I want to raise microfauna that only a fuge can provide. Gotta feed my scooter blennies, they're so darn cute.
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Yep, I've got a HOB refug that I have chaeto, ulva, and red gracialias(sp?). I've always had a problem keeping the chaeto alive though for some reason but the other two do good. The chaeto will grow for a little while and I can rip chucks off it but then it starts to just shrivel up. I just pull it out and wait a few months and add some more back in when I find some.

I would still proceed with caution with the shapelock. The torch and blasto seem to not be affected at all but the duncan seems to get ****ed off more often about something but then bounced back out of it. I'd be very interested in seeing how the friendly plastic turns out. I'll probably switch over to that after the shapelock degrades away.
 
BTW, another note which I know I'm always behind on but I want to make sure it's something that's consistent and not just a day fluke. The skimmer is not skimmer near as much as it had been. It's been three days since I last cleaned it and it's about half of what it usually is. It also seems wetter.
 
I wonder why the chaeto doesn't do well sometimes? I used to run chaeto in a HOB aquaclear 110, and it never did well either.
 
Just took some pictures of the tank. I went ahead and went three days with out blowing or cleaning anything off again and you'll see it is not growing back near as much. There's still areas that it's thick in but a big improvement in just a couple weeks.

Also, just last night I noticed a couple areas of white haze on the glass and it has gotten more spread out tonight. I guess that's the "good" bacteria blooming that I'm supposed to be noticing?

Transferring and uploading now...
 
The white haze(yes I know it's blurry, it's a white haze, what do you expect!)
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No cyano growing back on the substrate or front/side glass at all now! :bounce1:
 
Dude that's awesome. No offense but that was some of the worst cyano I've ever seen so if shapelock kicks THAT bloom then it's working for sure.
 
thebanker said:
Dude that's awesome. No offense but that was some of the worst cyano I've ever seen so if shapelock kicks THAT bloom then it's working for sure.
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:lol:

No offense taken. I know I'm stocked on the heavy side and I over feed. I really didn't want to reduce the feedings at all because along with the cyano everything grows really well and is healthy. So, I'm really happy with the outcome so far.

Daniel Reef said:
I have been quietly reading this thread. Sounds like good news.
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Thanks, so far so go.


BTW, I don't remember if I mentioned it in the previous couple posts but I did change out the GFO yesterday. I figured I'll just keep with the same GFO routine for now since the phosphates are continuing to go down. I'm not in any rush and I guess it's a bad thing for the corals if they drop to fast? Could be why the duncans get ****ed off more often if they are more sensitive to po4 levels then the other two that I have.
 
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The past two nights I've seen 0 regrowth of cyano. I haven't been blowing off the rocks and since the last set of picture's the cyano that was there is going away. The duncan has been very ****ed off the past two days and just tonight I can see it starting to peek out. The torch and blasto look great.

The algae is still in a growth phase and it will be interesting to see how long that lasts and how bad it gets before it starts to die off again. I went through a pretty good algae growth phase several months ago and with in 2-3months it mostly all died off. Kept messing up my skimmers mesh wheel which prompted me to get the skimmer I have now. Decided I did not like mesh wheels.

Here's some pictures I took last night or the night before, I can't remember which. I was getting pictures of the fish but you can see the drastic lack and reduction of cyano and spread of algae. You can see the duncan completely closed up in one of them.


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Wow, that is a pretty big turn around from what your cyano problem looked like. I think cyano has a little bit faster metabolism so with lower nutrients that would be the first to go and hopefully once it is gone you will see a reduction in your other algae(s). I'm pretty excited to start my friendly plastic now.. It won't be for another couple of weeks though
 
Flavordsm said:
Wow, that is a pretty big turn around from what your cyano problem looked like. I think cyano has a little bit faster metabolism so with lower nutrients that would be the first to go and hopefully once it is gone you will see a reduction in your other algae(s). I'm pretty excited to start my friendly plastic now.. It won't be for another couple of weeks though
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Yeah, I seriously didn't expect anything like this to happen this quickly. I was thinking this would take a good 2-3 months to make a difference. Could be the shapelock is getting consumed faster then the N/P biopellets that are being sold do. We'll see how long they last in the canister. It was 250ml and I don't remember how much they cost but I'm sure not as much as the N/P pellets are.

I'm not so much concerned with wiping out all the algae. I actually like the look of it in places. Though I did have a briopsis problem for a bit and that I didn't like the look of. That took care of itself however as I just let it take it's course and it died out on it's own.

My duncan is still not happy and fully out yet. That happened right after I swapped out the GFO. I guess the phosphates must have dropped to fast for it? I'm not getting that white haze on the glass anymore.
 
The duncans are finally showing. Not nearly full and plump but at least they are showing themselves. I'll get some pics uploaded later.
 
thebanker said:
What is the shapelock in? You've said "canister" but specifically, how are you housing the material?
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You can see the canister in the bottom left of the picture. It's a marineland c-220.

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I have it setup with Carbon, GFO, Pellets, blank. I just placed the pellets right in the media tray.
 
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