Lance's 225 gal tank

[PoonTang]

Lance, mabey its a chemical warfare thing, are you using lots of carbon?

[Lance]

Originally Posted by PoonTang

Lance, mabey its a chemical warfare thing, are you using lots of carbon?

Yup. A full BRS reactor changed monthly.

[Lance]

N-P Reducing Pellets have been running for 7 days now. I measured nitrates with both Salifert and Elos kits before adding the pellets and before a water change. NO3 was 25 mg/l on the Elos kit and between 10 and 25 on the Salifert kit. So, let's say the average was 20.
Today's readings are Elos: between 10 & 25 Salifert: 10 (Avg: 15)
A reduction of 5 in 7 days. Very promising!
Some other changes I've noticed are: thicker, darker skimmate; clearer tank water; and a small outbreak of Cyano has nearly disappeared. Film algae on the glass seems worse though, I'm having to clean the glass every other day.
Although still too early to come to any real conclusions I am happy with what I've seen so far.

[christyf5]

Wow, the info on this is really encouraging! I might have to get me some of this, I have nitrates (about 20ppm I do the test averaging stuff too) that just can NOT be gotten rid of no matter what I try (not that I've tried much other than larger waterchanges). Anyway, I'll stop now

[Delphinus]

The lentils really do seem the real deal shiznit. (Fo shizzle.) I saw all the same things (clearer water darker skimmate and a small cyano patch just packed up one night and left). I have to clean my glass less often though, that's different. So hopefully yours will go that way eventually as well. Mind you I'm doing a combo zeo/lentils approach and maybe that's the difference. Honestly though I don't see how the film algae will be able to keep up long term with the reductions like that. Glad to hear you're liking them so far too.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

The lentils really do seem the real deal shiznit. (Fo shizzle.) I saw all the same things (clearer water darker skimmate and a small cyano patch just packed up one night and left). I have to clean my glass less often though, that's different. So hopefully yours will go that way eventually as well. Mind you I'm doing a combo zeo/lentils approach and maybe that's the difference. Honestly though I don't see how the film algae will be able to keep up long term with the reductions like that. Glad to hear you're liking them so far too.

Yeah, I'm lovin' 'em so far! The film algae is no big deal. In fact, I may even be imagining it growing faster. It's the pessimist in me. I've been battling nitrates so long in this tank I'm having trouble daring to think I may have found the cure.

[Lance]

I forgot to mention I started dosing MicroBacter 7, five days before the pellets arrived to help jump start the bacteria culture.