http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXpR5HFV5tU

Sorry for the crappy video quality i shot this with my phone.. Is my media tumbling fine or to aggressive when i dial it back more i get a dead spot on the right side

i think that is way too aggressive

I agree, that is way to aggressive.

You don't have many pellets in there, but it is recommended that only the top layer moves somewhat aggresively, while the rest tumbles quite slowly/gently, so slowly that they don't move much, but pressure will build within it and you will see area turn over with time, releasing the mulm/bacteria.

This is the problem with the pellets, many failures, due to the fact of the pellets not being used properly. I myself am one of them that used incorrectly in the past.

I can tell you this, if used properly, they do work... I am seeing great results with them overall.

Rick, when you get a chance, could you maybe post a video or some pictures about how you have yours setup now? (please and thank you)

ok thanks
thats what i was thinking i just was worried about it being stale and sitting creating a bad zone. let me go tune it down some more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ORW67oyxk
tuned it down some more, i dunno its hard to really fine tune it.

That looks really good, and is how I have mine. Now I am running 1-1.5L in each reactor, and I have 2 reactors.... But you have yours close to how mine are running now. You will find that you won't have dead spots, the areas that churn a bit will move around the reactor.

With how you have yours now, the bacteria has a chance to grow and can actually attach to the pellets. For everyone who is running pellets, think of it this way... If you were in a hurricane, could you hold on to something, well the same goes for the bacteria. You create a hurricane, they go bye bye.

How big is your system, as you can probably have more running?

Life has special ways of surviving in adverse conditions, think of the algae that grows on the edge of a water fall. Sure as heck alot of flow there yet it still thrives, besides I was under the impression that the pellets worked by releasing a dissolved carbon source into the water. If that's true you are capitilising on the bacteria growth all over your tank and not just in the reactor.

On that note I just upgraded my pump so the pellets are really flying around, Rick you might be right in giving them some time to produce bacteria but I figure the more flow the more dissolved carbon = more bacteria in the tank = More colonization of all surface area.

Just my 2 cents.

I was under the impression that these pellets provided a localized area inside the reactor for bacteria to grow, ad opposed to all over your tank :). That is, I think the bacteria remains in the your reactor and on the pellets as they consume Nitrates, Phosphates and the pellets themselves.

I would see no way of containing the bacteria to one localized area of your system considering that it actually came from the system to begin with. On top of that I thought that this bacterial mulm was an excellent source of coral food, if it's contained in the reactor I must be wrong.

Then again it's quite easy to see when someone has a bacterial bloom in the tank from slow flowing pellets. Perhaps we should get an OC expert on here to clear everything up for us?