NPX-Xtra Beads BETA testing thread!
 

Testers have been picked!

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SeaHorseFanatic
Pinhead
Marine apprentice
Svaningan

Thanks everyone!

Unless you are picking them up please send $10 to sales@oceaniccorals.com for shipping.

Thanks!

Tony's pellets just weren't good enough or what? Seriously what's the worst he could do? Give you a silly user handle?

PLEASE.

I pmed you Ian about pick up

Ps. This part was a joke by the way, other than a few rogue jealous competitors I believe we are pretty safe, Tony appears to be harmless......... LOL :lol:

Hooked up my Lifeguard Fluidized Bed Filter to a MJ1200 and added 550ml of NPX pellets today. Having problems with clumping. When the pellets clump, they don't tumble. Tried shaking the container and restarting the pump several times. Left it running for now & hoping the clumping stops after the pellets sit in the sw for a while.

Any suggestions? Need a bigger pump?

BTW, decided to Beta test on my 210g mixed reef instead of the fowlr due to not having room for the Filter on the fowlr sump.

Did the pellets ship already then? Haven't received them yet. Really hoping the TLF/MJ1200 combo works out for me.

Can you have too much flow through the reactor? I'm thinking if you get a bigger pump they *can't* clog. But maybe they won't perform right I'm not sure.

I use a maxi 900 on my Kent Marine which is the same size as a TLF and the pellets seam to tumble perfectly. I also use a single piece of plastic bug screen on the underside of the top and bottom diffuser plates.

Got mine going on a Lifeguard Fluidized Filter Bed as well. Mine is tumbling well but I had to do a little bit of a mod.

The holes in the bottom plate were way too small for any flow, so I cut it out and replaced it with plastic mesh. I am also using an Aquaclear 802, so I have a little more flow.

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...0/_IGP4226.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...0/_IGP4227.jpg

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h2...0/_IGP4228.jpg

Shipped Friday!

Wainting on response to my pm i sent you

Well, as expected my display tank water is cloudy after 1 day of having the pellets tumble better. The pellets didn't tumble very well for the first couple of days.

I plan to tabulate all my readings and results later in the beta testing using Excel to make it easier to see any changes in Nitrates & Phosphates.

Woke up this morning & the display tank was noticeably clearer.

Now, at 7:37pm, the tank water is almost completely clear again.

Very happy about this development.

So these pellets are expected to cloud the tank for the first few days?

I have not noticed any cloudiness but i am running mine in the sump so I may not have noticed if it was present.

It happens sometimes. Some people never experienced any cloudiness, others did. I did but my bioload is very high for a full blown reef.

My current system is 450G. I have been using ZEOvit for the last 2 + years.
I decided to go off the ZEOvit system last October mainly because of its cost. Since the end of January my tank has experienced a number of issues.

I decided to use NP BioPellets to control both nitrates and phosphates in my system as one of the problems since discontinuing ZEOvit was a breakout of algae.

On April 10 I added 1000 ml of NP pellets, I wanted to ramp up the use of BioPellets over a 3 month period.

I decided to convert my 3 liter ZEOvit reactor into a fluidized pallet reactor. I added a mesh mode to the upper and lower lids of the ZEOvit reactor. My ZEOvit reactor uses a Sedra KSP2500 pump and with 1000 ml of pellets about 2/3 of the pellets would tumble. The Sedra 2500 was not strong enough to tumble all of the pellets in the 6 inch wide reactor.

On May the 25 I added another 550 ml of the original pallets. The Sedra 2500 was unable to tumble the pellets at this point. As I had a Mag 7 sitting on the shelf, I swapped out the Sedra 2500 for the Mag 7. This now tumbled the pellets very well. Today I added another 625 ml of the new smaller pellets to the reactor and they are tumbling very nicely.

As I have been experiencing a Cyno outbreak since introducing the pellets I have been dosing 45 ml of Brightwells MB7 a week and this is slowly reducing the Cyno Bacteria in my tanks. To dose the MB7 I shut off both the Pellet reactor and my Skimmer. I then add 45 ml of the MB7 to the Pellet reactor and stir it up. I then let the Pellet reactor sit for a couple of hours with the pellets covered in a mix of water and the 45 ml of MB7. I then turn on the pellet reactor and about 6 hours later I turn on the skimmer.

Since starting the NP Pellets I have see an improvement in my tanks overall condition.

I will update this thread as time goes on with my tanks improvement.

Tom R

I received my pellets today and promptly got the TLF reactor online. It's hanging off the back of my 34g Solana and I put about half the 550mL bag into it. The MJ1200 was way too much flow so I currently have an MJ600 on there and it's tumbling extremely well. Much more turbulent in the bottom third of the pellet suspension but the top is boiling nice and smoothly. Kien mentioned they get heavier and I may need the MJ1200 later...I'll wait and see.

One comment I have about the setup is it's super loud. That's got nothing to do with the quality of the product but more to do with the reactor's location. Being out in the open you can hear the pellets all tumbling against the reactor tube and it's quite loud. If these work out I will explore the possibility of relocating the reactor to inside the stand but I'm not sure an MJ1200 has enough pressure to flow down 3 feet, through the media and back up 3 feet. Any opinions?

I have never tested phosphates or nitrates and the elos test kits I have are about a year old.

PO4 - 0.1
NO3 - 0.2

I do build a green film on the glass over the span of a few days and a couple of my rocks have a very thin green film/hue to them so I suspect my values are higher than this? I have done 5g weekly changes since setting this tank up and my bioload is light but I think I'd better buy new kits and verify.

So other than param changes what can I expect to see once these kick in? Improved growth and colour is what I've been hearing.

Will report more as I see/measure it. Thanks O.C. for the chance to test these.

Here is a quick video showing my tumbling. The video doesn't convey how loud it is but I can hear these things rattling and pinging off the reactor cylinder upstairs in bed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LT1v_OR_Ac

Reducing flow makes it quieter but still not great but I have no valve yet can only pinch the hose.

I should note that I did Kevin's 'red coral mod' and simply took out the bottom red plate so water just exits the tube. Maybe that is related to the noise I'm not sure?

Ok Kien pointed out the sound may be from the pellets being forced into the bottom of the reactor plate. Putting my ear up to it this appears to be the case so I'm going to put the bottom red plate back in and get me some of that mesh so they don't contact the bottom.

I realize I'm brainstorming online but hey it might help someone lol!

Alright just me again. I took the same filter floss mesh I use in the back of my tank to filter my water and sliced it thinner. Trick was finding the right thickness and wrapping it around the bottom plate which i put back in. This keeps it from flipping up and flow favoring one side. Running silently and with a much gentler tumble on my MJ600 still.

After several days of clogging up with mulm, I rinsed off some of the mulm and the rest of these new pellets are tumbling very well in my unmodded Lifeguard Fluidized Sandbed Filter.

Anthony

Pellets arrived on Monday but have not had a chance to get them online until tonight.

The test tank is a 40g semi-cube that houses a pair of clowns, two gigantea carpets, two rose BTA's, a mottled leatherjacket/filefish, a smattering of assorted corals and 3 clams. Due to a bit of neglect on my part (seriously overdue for a waterchange), and a higher than average bioload for this size tank (mysis daily for the fish and 'nems) the parameters have crept up a little and there's a small patch of cyano on the right side glass.

The beads are much smaller than what those who used the first round of pellets available are used to. I called the old ones lentils - these are more like hemp hearts (for you health food fanatics) or maybe slightly larger than sesame seeds. Oh - I know a good comparison - bird seed. This stuff is the same consistency as the seeds I used to feed my budgies I had as a kid.

Anyhow, I added the full 550l to a TLF 150 phosban reactor. The sponges are replaced with quilting mesh pinned to the red plates with zap straps. The feed pump is a MJ12 powerhead.

The MJ12 is too much at full bore (the entire column of pellets slams into the top of the reactor) but seems to be perfect throttled back by valve at around somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 open.

I can't hear any noise from the pellets that Brett was having so I wonder if it was the configuration after all. The only thing is I have two skimmers in vicinity and a couple loud pumps anyhow so I probably wouldn't really notice anyhow if the tumbling gave a rattling sound.

So day 1 params -
NO3 (Elos) - 1.0ppm
PO4 (D-D) - 0.06 P

Yeah Tony if you scroll up a bit I solved my issue. They're silent now and people don't think I'm crazy anymore (I hope).

Mostly I added my comments only to back up your theory. I wouldn't even have mentioned a noise issue otherwise because they've never been anything but silent for me (minus any rattling from the powerheads anyhow, but that's usually solveable with a new impeller, the powerhead bodies seem to outlive the impellers easily 10 to 1).

A few days ago seemingly out of nowhere these grassy shoots started popping up around my tank. Mostly from the greenest rock in my tank leading me to believe that one is offing phosphates or something. So that sucked.

Now I've been running the pellets one week I guess. Today before lights out I noticed a ton of the green shoots were turning transparent at the tips and many of them appeared to have gotten shorter. I think the algae is getting starved and the dead tips fall off. Could be wrong but I'll post more as I see it.

I also noticed my first bubble algae yesterday so I'll see how that reacts now that these things seem to be doing something.

Pellets are still tumbling PERFECTLY in my TLF with a MJ600. In talking to other users it seems these pellets tumble easier than the previous ones. They are smaller I think and maybe shape has a part?

Day 7 params, a little movement in the numbers.

NO3 (Elos) - between 0.0 and 1.0ppm
NO3 (Pinpoint) - 2.0 ppm (I should have tested with Pinpoint last week for a better basis of comparison but I got lazy - it takes 10-20 minutes of fiddling with the unit to get a steady reading whereas only 3 minutes with a chemical based test kit)..
PO4 (D-D) - 0.03 P

Cyano patch is still there for now. But overall the tank does have a slightly brighter, happier look to it. Hard to describe objectively, but it's stuff like "I swear that coral and that anemone are open bigger than they were a little while ago."

Expensive day for test kits though. Ol' butterfingers dropped the tubes from the D-D test kit shattering one of them into tiny little bits. Which sucks because it's a nonstandard size and it was a, ahem, somewhat more expensive than average test kit at, I think, it was around $80 from J&L. :( I don't see it listed there anymore (nor anywhere else that I checked, except for out of the country vendors) so I'm a little bummed. Gonna post to see if anyone has an old test kit they don't mind scavenging the test tube from so I can continue testing for PO4 as I go along here.

I found that it takes a week or two after adding new pellets for the mulm to stop clumping up the pellets. Added more pellets into the Fluidized bed filter and it wouldn't tumble until Sunday night. The pellets also get stuck in the return at first, but once that is cleared out, the pellets are now tumbling extremely well.

Not sure why you need a specific test tube. I would think any tube would work, as long as you have the right reagents and the right measuring instruments.

I've been running the new style beads for almost a month and here are some observations:

-I never had problems with clumping or with any cloudiness or discharge from the reactor.

-I had the flow adjusted properly right from the beginning and the beads were tumbling as in the videos.

-I didn't add any bacterial suppliment and let they bacteria colonize the beads naturally.

- Nothing much happened for about 2 weeks and then I had a gradual appearance of cyano

- Cyano was pretty bad but controllable. I didn't siphon it out of the tank but instead stirred up the patches on the sand. It was limited only to the sandbed.

- I have noticed some changes over the last few days. I usually have to clean the glass with the magfloat once a week and really didn't need to this week. Cyano is declining and polyp extension on some of encrusting corals is more apparent.

- My test kits were pretty well expired, so I don't have any measured values for phosphated or nitrates.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the beads. If the Cyano fully disappears, I know it is a result of the reactor maturing because I haven't made any changes to the fish popluation or feeding patterns since I started the pellets.

When will the Xtra beads become available?

I've got what appears to be this type of algae spreading all over now. Haven't been feeding much but then again the tunze 9002 skimmer is a piece of crap. I wonder if it's not skimming well enough to be using these pellets/beads?

From Melev's site: maidenhead algae

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/other/maidens_hair.jpg

The Extra Beads will be available starting Wednesday this week in limited quantities until our large order arrives from the manufacturer.

Retailers can order the Extra Beads any time but will not ship until Wednesday.

Thanks!

Maiden Hair Algae!! That is actually considered a desirable Algae, very strange! There has been some cases of people experiencing limited issues with Algae and sometimes Cyano when implementing any type of PHA beads; however, nine times out of ten it can be attributed to an inefficient skimmer.

50% of the equation with the beads is the skimmer, without efficient skimming the metabolites, dead, and or overflow surplus of bacteria have no where to go but eventually settle back into the tank. Skimming must be a priority and be as wet as possible in order to accelerate the nutrient export.

Hope this helps!

Wait so you mean I can frag and sell this algae? Best of all folks...it does great in areas not receiving much light!

Yeah my skimmer is junk. Tunze for the FAIL. I'll crank the air up more and try and skim wetter. It does great for a day then it can't push bubbles high enough to do its job. Frustrating.

Edit:

"This species is sensitive to high levels of nitrates"

Hmmm =) Speaks well for the beads maybe. I'll have to get pics to confirm this actually IS the same algae.

So, tonight I've decided to temporarily suspend use of NPX-Xtra pellets on my tank.

The nitrate is down, the phosphate is down, that part is great. But what has me puzzled and a little troubled is the bleaching now going on in my tank among the two carpets, my green bubble coral, and the acan's. It all started roughly two weeks ago and has been getting steadily more noticeable every day. The coincidence in timing with the pellets is unfortunately very difficult to ignore.

The one thing that might set my tank apart from others is the fact that I dosed kalk at night to maintain Ca/Alk levels, so I have to wonder if it could be interference with the kalk that could be the issue.

So for now I've turned off the pellets and turned off the kalk as well just to see if I can reverse that trend. My two gigantea carpets are more important to me than the PO4/NO3 numbers so I'm really hoping that this can be fixed.

Is there any downside to shutting these things off for a while and letting them sit? Then starting them up again? I have a feeling they'll fuse into some solid mess but I'm not sure...