N/P Reducing Pellets ("Solid Vodka") - "Wow" ... 3 month update

[Delphinus]

Pretty much full on win in my opinion. To me the most telling thing is that in a single-passthrough Phosban reactor running maybe 3/4litre of pellets that the water at the input had a nonzero nitrate reading, and the water exiting at the output had a zero nitrate reading, not just a slightly reduced reading an actual zero reading. Thus the turnover proportion through the reactor versus the tank volume becomes the limiting factor in how fast you will see nitrate reduction in your tank.

In a nutshell, I would say it does what they claim, but if anything what we can learn from this thread is that how you run it is the most important variable. The pellets will do nothing for you or in fact can make nitrates worse if just run passively - they need to be fluidized 24/7. So the the reactor you choose needs to be sized appropriately or you have to tailor back the volume so that the reactor you do use can appropriately energize the pellets without clumping issues or slamming into the top of the reactor and gumming up. The slightest obstruction at the output means the mulm will not have a chance to escape and it's amazing how fast it builds up and then the pellets start to congeal together. It's important to have a strong skimmer removing mulm from the water column.

But compared to other methods I've run - ULNS, sulfur denitrators, chaeto, remote DSB's .. this one seems the most win. ULNS work better for visual results but involves more labor, my sulfur denitrators never dented my nitrates and I tried many different configurations, chaeto never makes a dent for me, and neither did remote DSB.

I would totally recommend for a heavy FOWLR as well as a reef.