Anyone running BioPellets without a skimmer? Looking for feedback.
 

I am curious if anyone has experience running bio pellet reactor on a system that doesn't have a skimmer, wondering how much bacteria outbreak there would be over a long period of time and if that would balance out in time?

I plan on adding a small bio pellet reactor (3"x14") to a 75g skimmerless tank but would like to hear any experiences first. I've done large reactor in a large tank with skimmer before and the result was fantastic. Just looking a different approach on the current system.

Maybe this isn't the place for this question but....why no skimmer? What are the benefits? and how the heck does that even work?:biggrin:

Promoted this to its own thread for you as this can generate a completely different discussion :-)

Honestly, I have never heard of anyone running pellets without a skimmer! I'm intrigued to see if there are such people. Everything I've read, heard and my own experiences indicates that a skimmer is a must. But then, like many things in this hobby, rules can be broken, or at least bent. (if you know what you're doing) :lol:

Perhaps if this was for a non-photosynthetic corals tank the extra mulm would be appreciated as food by the NP corals. From what I've read, if no skimmer is used, excess mulm would end up coating equipment and other things in the sump and perhaps even get into the display. Tagging along to hear if anyone actually is already going skimmerless but with biopellets.

The mulm would definitely spread into the display, question would be how much and would that balance out over time or will the acculation be too excessive that other opportunistic bacteria/algae become dominant. My plan is to start with 50ml and slowly increase if the side affects are minimal. Without a skimmer i will only be able to control the amount of mulm by how much pellet i use. Defintely worth a try.

Perhaps have the reactor outlet flow into some floss to capture most of the mulm, which you can then rinse out or discard as you choose. It would give you some level of control over the amount of mulm released into your system.

It's highly suboptimal:

http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread....hlight=protein

TLDR: No TLDR, read the damn thing if you want to be experimenting with the biochemistry/mechanics of your reef :P

VERY COOL!