Bio pellets
 

so im in the process of building my tank setup and come across positive and negative things about bio pellets, im just wondering what are peoples experiences and do you guys use them with other media? im trying to establish a stable tank

this might help.

as might this.

wow theres a lot of mixed reviews

yup. Welcome to marine aquaria! :lol:

I was one of the first in calgary to use with Delphinus/Tony... Removed at some point to issues, not with the pellets, just overall. But can tell you that I am running them again.

I can tell you this, first time use, had no algae, when I removed, had algae build up, and had to clean glass daily. With them back in Algae develoment is almost gone, and I clean the glass every 3-4 days, sometimes longer.

For those that ask, why I discontinued the first time. I had major SPS death with RTN. I removed as I thought just maybe it was the pellets, but eventually figured out it was the Kent Carbon I was using.

So I am using Vertex carbon, biopellets with GFO with success so far. GFO and pellets have been running together for about 4 months now.

Interesting, I thought you jumped to prodibio ?

I did, but ran out and got lazy, so stopped.

Do I feel it worked, yes, but I do feel the pellets did also, and are even easier. So back at that.

Read that running pellets with GFO work well, and it seems to be with me, and I do like not having to keep track of any dosing, being Zeo or Prodibio.

I've actually been meaning to ask you about your prodibio experience as it compares to bioPellets. Since you've tried both you can speak on the pros and cons of both systems. I've never tried prodibio but briefly thought about it. Sounds like I would have probably ended up as you did and gone back to bioPellets.

It worked well, and way easier than zeovit. But you still have to make a commitment to it and it does cost more than pellets. Because of my skimmer issues, then Cyano and algae, thought I would try pellets again, and I was already using GFO. Pellets are the easiest with very little effort.

The only time I was really 100% algae free was with pellets. Hopefully I get that back again.

Yup, used them for a while now.....love them. One important thing with bio pellets is using a large enough pump with them to keep them tumbling very rapidly. My nitrates went from 40-50ppm (salifert test kit), to 2ppm(still salifert kit) took about 6 months to get there and i have a really really really high bio-load. What can i say love my fish as much as I love my corals! I would most definetly recommend them and i would never set up a system with out them....as i begin planning my future 180 gallon upgrade!! Yay!

So do you guys run biopellet s with a gfo?

May I ask which reactor you use and how much bio pellet for your 180G?

I always have, yes.

I use biopellets and love it! Honestly I think that is one of the important factor that's allowing my tank to succeed :-) P. S getting to the sweet spot is the only hard part after that it's very low maintenance.

~Tony

I run both GFO and recirculating bio-pellet reactor. Nitrates have been below 2 ppm since.

Totally forgot! I too run gfo to fine tune everything :-)

~Tony

How do you get it to the sweet spot? :mrgreen:

Right now I have some alge problems, my tank is only a month old, I don't know what my phosphates are at and I don't use ro water, actually I have never used ro water on my other tanks. I'm just trying to figure out what would be a good setup for my tank, a bio pellet reactor with gfo such as rowaphos??

Honestly it's different for everything tank, when I first started biopellets I had people tell me you gotta find the sweet spot as well (in my head I was like ok wtf is the sweet spot) . If you monitor your tank daily you will notice some changes as you slowly add more biopellets. It's like the V :-) you will know once your in.


~Tony

Boi pellets with MB7 and GFO for me. Having said that, it is important to understand where you are at (with tank maturity, bio load and nutrients). Doing all this with a new tank is not necessarily the right course of action. And doing it wrong can make it worse.

I would also seed your Biopellet reactor with ZeoBak or similar.

im thinking of just running rowaphos for now, checking to see the levels and then maybe as i increase my bio load add bio pellets. what do you guys think of that idea?

If you don't have alot of fish, bp is not needed. Just run rowa for now.

I only have two fish. But looking to stock up my tank

Bio pellets with carbon and a bit of gfo for me. Go slowly and add more small amounts periodically until you hit the sweet spot. Avoid going too quickly with the addition and avoid letting the pellets clump up.

IMO don't put them on an unstable tank hoping it will stabilize it, put it on a stable tank to keep it stabilized

I'm started by running 50ml on a 20g system but haven't tipped them up, I'm down to about 5-10ml now after 4-5 months

I think most people who have problems with bio pellets have problems from adding too much