O.C.'s Pellet questions and answers!

[abcha0s]

Originally Posted by GMGQ

Hi, what are your thoughts about running a biopellet reactor without a skimmer? I want to reduce N & P, as well as provide some food for the frags.

I'm considering running biopellets on my 30gallon frag tank. There's only 1 fish in there, and he's adding to the bioload, so algae is growing in that tank.

From what I read, the main reason for needing a skimmer is to oxygenate the water, as the bacteria uses up the oxygen. I have a maxijet 400 w/ venturi running in my sump to oxygenate the water already, plus my drain sometimes sucks down a gulp of air, and flushes a bunch of micro bubbles into the sump. So i'm thinking that should be sufficient for oxygenation?

If I do run biopellets, I would use a TLF150 reactor and not use that many pellets anyways. Therefore there should not be an excessive amount of bacterial mulm floating around.

So other than the oxygenation issue, is there any other downside to running biopellets without a skimmer?

Thanks in advance.

Simply put - it won't work. Period. Don't try it.

Here's why. The whole point of carbon dosing is to export nutrients from your system. The bateria consume the N&P and are then exported from your system through skimming. If you don't skim them out, the bacteria will eventually die in your system and release the Carbon/N&P back into your water colomn. This creates a really bad bacteria cycle and can potentially lead to a tank crash.

There is no magic to the use of biopellets. The N&P will stay in your system until you remove it. If you don't skim it out, you are just adding carbon to the system and removing nothing.

To answer a question posted earlier - you really need to direct the effluent from the biopellet reactor directly into your skimmer. Ideally it would be a direct link between the two systems. If you simply direct the effluent in the general direction of the skimmer intake, the system will be less efficient and you will have more bacteria in your water colomn. This bacteria will die leaving the carbon in the water colomn (where it was previously only in the reactor) and the whole system will not be as efficient. Even with a good skimmer some bacteria will end up in the water colomn (which may be a good thing) but you really want to minimize this.

- Brad