USING BIO PELLETS
 

I am thinking of using bio pellets to avoid doing water change. Has anyone here had any success with those bio pellets without changing water at all with no algaes growing in your tank ? I would like to hear your advice. I had someone tell me that he didn't do any water change for over 6 months and he will continue to do that, but I also had someone from 3 different LFS tell me I still need to do the water change at least once a month. Its really confusing me ! I know those pellets are for removing nitrate and phosphate, but why is it necessary to do the water changing if we use them ??? I never check my nitrate or phosphate level, I just do 20% water change every 2 weeks, but my tank still gets quite a lot of brown and green hair algae, other than that my sps corals are doing great with color.

Water changes replenish trace elements that your coral use up as they grow and that skimming and running activated carbon remove.

If you're keeping fish only, then i guess if the pellets keep your nitrate and phos down you technically don't have to do water change.

If you have corals, especially SPS then there's no way around the water change. Water changes not only keeps nutrients low but IT ALSO REPLENISH ELEMENTS that corals need that can't be dose manually.

As you guys say, that means I don't have any alternative to avoid the water change :cry:. I really hate this task.

Nobody does. But it's just a task you have to do if you wanna keep a healthy system.

Tell us more about your system, and maybe we can suggest ways to help reduce the maintenance you have to do! Unfortunately though, as mentioned, waterchanges are still important and necessary, even if extremely infrequent.

Please tell us:

-System size (including tanks/any filtration systems)
-Filtration equipment (eg; refugium, skimmer, hang on filters, powerheads, etc...)
-Lighting
-Livestock (corals and fish - how much live rock?)
-Regular maintenance performed?
-How long has it been up and running?
-Feeding?(what/how often?)

These will be a great start to help get some feedback on your system!

And yes, still need waterchanges with biopellets! Stuff may break down, but over time you just increase the concentration of excess nutrients in the water... waterchanges are pretty much 'the' Way to get that stuff out.

Cheers,

Chris

- Actually, I love doing waterchanges on my freshwater tanks :lol:

I have a 65 gallon tank, it has been running for about 3 years now with no sand. Most of my stuff are SPS corals and a sebae anemone, no LPS but I have quite a lot of red and blue mushroom hitchhiker on the rock from the bigger tank I had shut down more than 10 years ago. I have more than a hundred lbs of rocks including what is in the 40 gallon sump, and in the small refugium I have 2 inches of sand. I am having the ASM G3 protein skimmer, but I am going to change to a bigger one in the future. My main tank has 2 tunze that are over 3000 GPH together, and 3 Maxi Jet 1200. The return pump is the Eheim 600GPH. Lots of flow, my corals love it. I only use 1-400W 20000K and chnage the bulb every 8 months, and keep it turned on 10 hours a day. I feed my fish Mysis in the morning and brine shrimp in the evening. I tried to feed them pellets and flakes but have had no success. I know the frozen foods are making my phosphate level high but my fish are more important. I like to spoil them and have a fatty look (like me) :lol: I feed my corals with Marine Snow twice a week as recommended. I also use Koral Color once a week.
Anything wrong here about my set up please let me know.

Do you thaw and then strain your frozen food before you feed? You're adding a lot of phosphate to your tank each time if you don't which would be contributing to the algae problem you describe.

Yes, I thaw it then rinse it well in tap water in a small drainer, then I let the drainer sit on the paper towel in a few minutes to suck all the water out before I feed the fish. I used to do that to feed my fish in the fish only tank with live rock in last 10 years too, and I never had problems with algae. This is my first coral tank and I don't have very much experience with sps coral, for me 3 years is nothing and I am still learning.

I was hoping that someone here had success with bio pellets and sharing their experiences how to use them to avoid water change, but it looks like there is no one here doing that.

I use pellets, and am a big promoter of them. But I also will say that you need to keep doing your water changes. It is just a fact of life in this hobby.

You can search the internet and find people that don't do water changes, but overall what can happen? System crash? Loss of minerals for coral and if not dosed properly then coral issues?

Personally keep up the water changes, even small amounts is better than nothing.

You could cut way down on your feeding. Your fish may have become lazy and stopped grazing on your rock because of the abundance of supplied food.

I have 120g with around 10 fish, I feed 4 times a week one brine shrimp cube. 4 of my fish are over 4 yrs old.

I don't think you realize just how much stuff is on your rocks for them to feed on. You are supplying them with a eco system of algae and pods and various other things but still adding an abundance of food. If you cut down to a once a day feeding you'd be able to cut down the time between water changes. I preform a water change about 1 every 6 weeks if i remember. just my 2 cents

Wow, if I can do the water change every 6 weeks, I won't complain doing this task :mrgreen:. I will try to feed the fish once a day and let see if I can control the algae problem.
Thanks everybody for all your help. You guys are awesome :biggrin::biggrin:

how often are you doing water changes ??

If you lived in your own poopy water would you appreciate some clean water every now and then :lol:

With corals there is really no way around water changes that I can think of.

You were absolutely right about that ! Never thought about poopy water :redface:

I do it every 2 weeks, but I will try to change the way I feed my fish from now on, let see what will happen.

Sounds like everything is being done right! I agree, you can probably cut down on the feedings. Using R/O water (if you dont already), may help with the algae as well.

I run bio-pellets with a deltec skimmer on my 52g tank, w/mangroves and macroalgae... I still get some algae, and though infrequent (every 2-8wks... yes thats a huge range), I still do waterchanges.

Cheers,

Chris

If people still get algae while using bio pellets, then I am glad that I was asking your advice before spending a couple hundred to set one up. Tonight was the first night after almost 10 years in this hobby, I didn't feed my fish. I have a couple of clown fish which I have had since they were very tiny babies 8 years ago. All my fish were begging for food and waiting right in front of the tank whenever they see me pass the tank tonight. My heart is really broken right now :cry: . I don't know how long I can handle it, I may have to choose to go back to doing water change every 2 weeks, and just learn how to live with those algae :twised:

I cant say my maintenance habbits are terrific... but even with Zeovit, prodibio, etc... You are still going to get minute amounts of algae! I've seen a significant increase in my skimmer's production since starting bio-pellets (only a few weeks though), and algae does not grow nearly as quickly. Most people find bio-pellets worth it. Im liking my results so far.

*** you do have to make sure you go about it slowly... otherwise (if you dump in your full amount right away) you end up with algae outbreaks.

Hey Chris, please keep me updated on how your system with bio pellets is going, I might try to put those pellets in the old Phosban reactor. As you said, I have been reading some people have a problem with algae outbreak in their tank after using them. That makes me hesitate a bit to do it, but I really want to find out if it helps for reducing water change.

is anyone running Carbon and Rowaphos in conjunction ? My large tub of rowa is about to run out, and i was debating trying the bio-pellets. I have 3 Media chambers i could run all there with the hope that because of the Bio-Pellets if would make the Rowa Last Much, much longer. possibly get 4 months out of it.

Thinking maybe, Bio-Pellets, Carbon to pick up anything the pellet leach back into the water, and then Rowa phos to remove the phosphate that carbon leaches back into the water?

Thoughts?

I currently run Carbon, Then Rowa in sequence.

Thoughts?

I have been doing some research lately and as far as I know, you can not use Rowaphos and bio pellets together, but you can use carbon. Please correct me if I am wrong.

All of you were right there is no way to avoid doing water changing.

how it affects them i do not know but there is not a CAN NOT to runing rowaphos with the pellets. battling the algae's myself and i run some rowaphos and carbon with the pellets. Tried it without for a while and was still having cyano <still do occasionaly> so i started the rawaphos back up and it slowed it down a little bit more. cannot say i have ever had a phosphate reading that i can read on regular range phosphate tests though.

My alagee problems are down to one rock so I am wondering how heavily that rock is loaded with crap.

I run rowaphos and carbon together in series along with running an insane amount of BioPellets :)

I am trying to do the same. I run two TLF 150 reactor in series with a MJ400.
But I found out bio pellet stick together in the second reactor. And the water inside the reactor won't drop after I turn off the pump. So water everywhere when I want to change the media. :neutral:

Ya I found out very early on that BPs in TLF150 reactors don't work too well. If you like BPs and want to keep using them I highly recommend a better reactor. They do tend to clump if overfilled in the reactor. The reactor needs really good flow to tumble them. I'm currently using two vertex 20 reactors to run my pellets.

This information helps me a lot :biggrin:

interesting to note that it states combining with Phosban removers could have a negative effect on the pellets. Also no-tingly they mentioned frequent water changes could be a negative.

"Quote"
I have been running the pellets for several weeks and have yet to notice any results.
Cause – Assuming properly inoculation, the heterotrophic bacteria are not becoming properly
established within the system. This may be caused by the use of copper-based medications,
ozone, UV sterilizers, phosphate binding medias or extremely large and frequent water changes.
Solution – Remove any of these retardants to ensure that the medias are becoming properly
established.

Just an FYI - Neither the bio-pellets nor the carbon 'leach' anything 'back into the water'. :) Anything the pellets do let go is what is being consumed by the bacteria. The carbon clogs after some time, and stays clogged, thats it.

Reefpins; i'll keep you updated on the pellets.

Cheers,

Chris

Renegade, you will need to do more research. As I understand that phosphates and nitrate will be used up in a certain ratio (just for example 1 phosphates : 5 nitrate). So if your tank does not have nitrate, no phosphates will be consumed by bacteria. That's why people also run phosphate binding media. Same happens, if no phosphates, no nitrate will be consumed. I may be wrong too. Cheers.

Funky Fish - I believe you need to do more research with regards to carbon use. Many Granular Activated Carbon contain phosphates left over from the manufacturing process, and can add phosphates back into to the water column.

You will find that warning generally right on the manufactures page. Here is an example of one on j&l.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...t_ID=sc-mc2000

Now while this is not the Carbon i use. I personally use Kent, which is suppose to be Non-Leaching. I don't like to leave it up to manufacture to always tell truth. All carbon has phosphates in it so i'm adding a stage of "piece of mind"

Also NP Bio Pellets Suggest that you suggest placing the outlet of the pellet filter in front of a protein skimmer, to limit the amount of bacteria entering the system.

The Idea being to keep the bacteria in the filter containing the Pellets and not in your tank.

Actually putting the output in front of the skimmer is more for re-oxynation of the water. The bacteria uses oxygen and can deplete it, the skimmer re-oxynates. It does remove some bacteria by-product, but this by-product also feeds the coral and isn't bad for the tank. But no oxygen is BAD.

Just wanted to add more to the topic, hope it helps.

Thats a really good point.

NP Neducing BioPellets however seems to be more worried about excess bacteria then the lack of air.

"Quote"
We also suggest placing the outlet of the pellet filter in front of a protein skimmer, to limit the amount of bacteria entering the system. This has the additional benefit of increased gas exchange (CO2-removal and O2-addition). The pellets should never be used without sufficient aeration, as this may lead to low oxygen and pH levels, especially during night time. Proper aeration can be established with air pumps and protein skimmers.

http://npbiopellets.dvh-import.com/i...Important.html

Speak for yourself...

Yes, some carbon has phosphates in it from manufacturing, but not all carbon types available are made like this.



Also... when i said what I said... I was under the impression that you were suggesting carbon will leach phosphates back out after capturing organics. I assumed you weren't using phosphate-washed carbon in the first place. If your getting phosphates from the carbon, get a better carbon.

Thats what I assumed you were talking about.

"Leach" - New Oxford American Dictionary:
- make (a soluble chemical or mineral) drain away from soil, ash, or similar material by the action of percolating liquid, esp. rainwater : the nutrient is quickly leached away.
(Can be adapted to describe nutrients being 'dissolved away' by/within water)


Globaldesigns is right about the bacteria... it is harmless to your tank.

Cheers,

Chris

Funky Fish - I was not talking directly at you regarding the skimming, it was merely an interesting fact, that i wanted to add to the discussion.