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

[purelife]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ORW67oyxk
tuned it down some more, i dunno its hard to really fine tune it.

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by purelife

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4ORW67oyxk
tuned it down some more, i dunno its hard to really fine tune it.

That looks really good, and is how I have mine. Now I am running 1-1.5L in each reactor, and I have 2 reactors.... But you have yours close to how mine are running now. You will find that you won't have dead spots, the areas that churn a bit will move around the reactor.

With how you have yours now, the bacteria has a chance to grow and can actually attach to the pellets. For everyone who is running pellets, think of it this way... If you were in a hurricane, could you hold on to something, well the same goes for the bacteria. You create a hurricane, they go bye bye.

How big is your system, as you can probably have more running?

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by globaldesigns

That looks really good, and is how I have mine. Now I am running 1-1.5L in each reactor, and I have 2 reactors.... But you have yours close to how mine are running now. You will find that you won't have dead spots, the areas that churn a bit will move around the reactor.

With how you have yours now, the bacteria has a chance to grow and can actually attach to the pellets. For everyone who is running pellets, think of it this way... If you were in a hurricane, could you hold on to something, well the same goes for the bacteria. You create a hurricane, they go bye bye.

How big is your system, as you can probably have more running?

Life has special ways of surviving in adverse conditions, think of the algae that grows on the edge of a water fall. Sure as heck alot of flow there yet it still thrives, besides I was under the impression that the pellets worked by releasing a dissolved carbon source into the water. If that's true you are capitilising on the bacteria growth all over your tank and not just in the reactor.

On that note I just upgraded my pump so the pellets are really flying around, Rick you might be right in giving them some time to produce bacteria but I figure the more flow the more dissolved carbon = more bacteria in the tank = More colonization of all surface area.

Just my 2 cents.

[kien]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

Life has special ways of surviving in adverse conditions, think of the algae that grows on the edge of a water fall. Sure as heck alot of flow there yet it still thrives, besides I was under the impression that the pellets worked by releasing a dissolved carbon source into the water. If that's true you are capitilising on the bacteria growth all over your tank and not just in the reactor.

On that note I just upgraded my pump so the pellets are really flying around, Rick you might be right in giving them some time to produce bacteria but I figure the more flow the more dissolved carbon = more bacteria in the tank = More colonization of all surface area.

Just my 2 cents.

I was under the impression that these pellets provided a localized area inside the reactor for bacteria to grow, ad opposed to all over your tank . That is, I think the bacteria remains in the your reactor and on the pellets as they consume Nitrates, Phosphates and the pellets themselves.

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by kien

I was under the impression that these pellets provided a localized area inside the reactor for bacteria to grow, ad opposed to all over your tank . That is, I think the bacteria remains in the your reactor and on the pellets as they consume Nitrates, Phosphates and the pellets themselves.

I would see no way of containing the bacteria to one localized area of your system considering that it actually came from the system to begin with. On top of that I thought that this bacterial mulm was an excellent source of coral food, if it's contained in the reactor I must be wrong.

Then again it's quite easy to see when someone has a bacterial bloom in the tank from slow flowing pellets. Perhaps we should get an OC expert on here to clear everything up for us?

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by zoaElite

Life has special ways of surviving in adverse conditions, think of the algae that grows on the edge of a water fall. Sure as heck alot of flow there yet it still thrives, besides I was under the impression that the pellets worked by releasing a dissolved carbon source into the water. If that's true you are capitilising on the bacteria growth all over your tank and not just in the reactor.

On that note I just upgraded my pump so the pellets are really flying around, Rick you might be right in giving them some time to produce bacteria but I figure the more flow the more dissolved carbon = more bacteria in the tank = More colonization of all surface area.

Just my 2 cents.

Well, I can tell you this, my newest bags of NP BioPellets explain the same thing as I just outlined prior... Also much more research out there on this now. So I outline this because NP is now telling me this, research from others also supports it.

Again, my 2 cents also... I base it on what the manufacturer and research dictates, and from what I see in results.

If you have any newer bags of NP Pellets, look for a sheet of paper in the bag, believe it or not they do now have instructions outlining use.

[globaldesigns]

Let me also outline a test I did a couple of times. This test was done to see if it had any good or bad results with the use of the NP BioPellets.

As instructed, I have the export from the reactors at the intake of the skimmer. This is to remove any excessive bacterial mulm and to re-oxygenate the water as the bacterial growth does use up oxygen in the water. My interpretation may not be 100% correct, but it is something like that.

Anyways, I added a filter sock to the export from the reactors, and found that the sock itself would filter more when the flow of the reactor was slower than faster (meaning I had to change the sock more often when slower tumbling). So does this indicate better bacterial growth? I would think so, and the filter is taking more out, as there is more.

Just wanted to give you all this example, I think it does tell a story on how better the pellets may work with slower tumbling/flow.

Also, can anybody also state they got the instructions in the bag on the newer bags. Reason I ask is that many people are failing with these pellets, but in my opinion, failing because of not using them properly. So lets try to settle on proper usage and move forward with it.

I don't have a scanner anymore, as I just upgraded to windows 7, so my scanner went to the recycle bin, but if someone can scan the paper that is in the bags, and then post it up, it would be very beneficial to everyone.

[globaldesigns]

I found a link that has the instructions that are coming in the NPX bags, this is the same as what I got in mine.

http://glassbox-design.com/2010/npx-bio-beads/

In the above link go half way down the page, in the blue box is the actual instructions. Please note it says "are best used within a fluidized reactor with enough flow to keep the top layer of Beads tumbling aggressively". I am trying to find some of the research articles I found, if I can find them again, I will paste for your reading enjoyment.

Edit: here is a Link to a great article by Grumpy Old Reefer
http://grumpyreefer.net/2010/02/08/n...-story-so-far/

[Zoaelite]

Thanks for the info Rick, I might turn down the flow if I see anything funky going on in the tank. It's hard to tell the magnitude of them working on my system because I run a few different nitrate sinks.

Do you know if any of the other brands come with instructions like this? I know everyone has taken a swing at producing these pellets now, if running them correctly is the key to success I would hope company's are detailing this comprehensibly.

First time hearing about an instruction insert for the NP-Biopellets.