biopellets and cyano treatment

[kien]

I've recently noticed that every time I top up my biopellets (add new ones) I get a little bit of cyano flare up. I just blast it off the rocks and it always clears up by itself within a week. I call it new pellet syndrome

[Delphinus]

I think that's sort of normal. The pellets are both a food source for bacteria and a growth medium for bacteria, so at first when introduced they are a food source for bacteria but the bacteria has to colonize the pellets. After colonized they should easily outcompete the cyano bacteria but it can take a couple weeks.

[josie]

so the best thing to do is suction out the most cyano I can and leave the biobeads do the rest?

[George]

Originally Posted by josie

so the best thing to do is suction out the most cyano I can and leave the biobeads do the rest?

Yes, I think that's the best action plan. And remember cyanobacteria is a bacteria also so it may also use the biobeads as a food source. So start with a small amount of biobeads, increasing the amount slowly, and make sure no biobeads are leaking into the tank.

[josie]

thanks

here's the pic of the biobeads reactor



the pic does not show it well, but biobeads are moving good inside

[DiverDude]

I've had major algae problems since I started running pellets. I have a small system volume (~35 gal) but I'm only running ~200ml of pellets. It's not just cyano either, I've got diatoms and wicked hair algae as well.

I'm actually thinking of stopping the pellets until I can get the algae under control and then start back up with about 100ml and go from there.

Frustrating !

[Lance]

If you can, place the discharge from your pellet reactor near to the skimmer intake. (This is recommended by the makers of the pellets). Then, some of the effluent from the reactor will be immediatlely skimmed out of the water column.