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

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Have you given the reactor a shake at all? What about the output sponge, is it clean or does it have white gunk in it?

thx for reply.

Yes shaking every day. Both sponges were thoroughly cleaned on Dec 30, now obviously some debris but still enough flow for pellets to tumble.
No white gunk/mulm at all.

Also i wanted to mention to you that in one of your posts you say that pellets covering the zeolites with bio film , "what if" hypothetically it is the other way around ... that it is zeolites covering the pellets?
Because in my case i have no zeolites and i see no white mulm/gunk...

At this point i am seriously questioning the pellets ability to reduce P or N, perhaps in case when they are combined with zeolites they provide food for bacteria that already exists on the surface of the zeorocks. But that alone would not justified the cost, there are a lot of bacteria food around and its not what we want from it.

Oh well, another "miracle" will see how it goes.
One thing i know that i will not be buying another bag of it any time soon.

[OceanicCorals-Ian-]

Originally Posted by RuGlu6

thx for reply.

Yes shaking every day. Both sponges were thoroughly cleaned on Dec 30, now obviously some debris but still enough flow for pellets to tumble.
No white gunk/mulm at all.

Also i wanted to mention to you that in one of your posts you say that pellets covering the zeolites with bio film , "what if" hypothetically it is the other way around ... that it is zeolites covering the pellets?
Because in my case i have no zeolites and i see no white mulm/gunk...

At this point i am seriously questioning the pellets ability to reduce P or N, perhaps in case when they are combined with zeolites they provide food for bacteria that already exists on the surface of the zeorocks. But that alone would not justified the cost, there are a lot of bacteria food around and its not what we want from it.

Oh well, another miracle will see how it goes.
One thing i know that i will not be buying another bag of it any time soon.

You will not see the mulm in large quantities or at all if the pellets are tumbling aggressively as the bacterial mulm is constantly being abraded off the surface of the pellets. If the were just in passive flow you would likely see large amounts of the mulm being produced.

The easiest way to tell if they work is to test your tank for nitrates, phosphate etc. Then test the effluent from the pellet reactor...

Doing this test myself the effluent from the reactor has always been zero or close to it.

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by OceanicCorals

You will not see the mulm in large quantities or at all if the pellets are tumbling aggressively as the bacterial mulm is constantly being abraded off the surface of the pellets. If the were just in passive flow you would likely see large amounts of the mulm being produced.

The easiest way to tell if they work is to test your tank for nitrates, phosphate etc. Then test the effluent from the pellet reactor...

Doing this test myself the effluent from the reactor has always been zero or close to it.

Hard to tell when my Po4 is already close to zero. I don't test for No3 (no kit)
supposedly hair algae should disappear, but it is growing at its regular rate.
I only have 4 small fish and one small hippo tang, so no bio load, my point is no miracle, nothing dramatic, no real change.
But how else i would learn if not by making a mistake?