Bio-pellets I quit you!

[globaldesigns]

The biggest problem with using them is that they are NOT used properly. Most reefers are tumbling them too aggressively.

Here is an old link to Grumpy Old Reefer, who explains things well:

http://grumpyreefer.net/2010/02/08/n...-story-so-far/

I myself now use a water tank water bottle modified with a 700GPH pump that slightly tumbles them in the middle, while the surrounding pellets are slightly suspended with good water flow through them without tumbling. Every few days I do tumble all the pellets with my hand, and in doing this I can tell you that the mulm production is there and wow is it ever, even better than before when I ran a reactor (Vertex & Deltec). So this DIY reactor is the best.

With the research I have done, most that are very successful, DO NOT use the common reactors like all of us are doing. They do what I now have.... A DIY Project, A Bucket with a pump and so forth.

The KEY to all pellets is having substantial surface area for them and not going crazy on the tumbling. I myself now run about 5L of pellets in my DIY.

[ALang]

Could you maybe show us exactly what you have done??
Really would like to know.
Lenny.

[Lampshade]

The KEY to all pellets is having substantial surface area for them and not going crazy on the tumbling. I myself now run about 5L of pellets in my DIY.

I'll agree with this, i had my pellets hooked up to a maxi 1200, and recently changed them over to a Tee off the main pump. I have less flow through there now, enough to keep them tumbling, but not flying around like the MJ was. This seems to work better, i also changed the outlet from my skimmer intake to my refugium at the same time, that may be the reason also, but my HA outbreak's stopped and is slowly getting under control now.

[Matman]

Maybe the biopellets consume too much potassium like in a zeo system. What salt are you using? Potassium level seems to vary a lot from one brand to the other. It might be one of the reason why some people experience degradation after a while.

I use the royal nature salt which have a 400 ppm potassium concentration which is a bit higher than NSW. Some brand have concentrations closer to 200! Other brands that have high potassium cocentration are aquavitro, brightwell and KV reef best I think.

I recentrly started to put SPS in my LPS dominated nano tank. I was planning to start the biopellets while keeping the heavy feeding of the tank in hope of keeping nice colors and growth. My nitrates are now at about 10 and phosphates at 0.15 with the use of a small refugium and GFO.

I was also thinking about trying mb7 and biofuel as an alternative. Is it really important to dose everyday for those? I'm not always at home!

[whatcaneyedo]

Same here. I keep quite a diversity of coral in a heavily fed, aggressively skimmed system. I was just hoping that I could use them instead of GFO to keep the phosphate in my system undetectable. So I tried the minimum recommended amount and then even less a second time and each time many of my soft coral began to bleach within a few weeks and my sandbed started to get covered with cyano. I can think of two things that I may have done wrong that might at least in part explain why they didn't work for me. The first was that the reactor output probably wasn't aimed well enough towards my skimmer's intake. The second was that I have not had detectable nitrate in several years. From what I've read they consume 4:1 nitrate to phosphate. But to me this still doesn't explain why 100ml of Vertex pellets would begin to kill off some of the coral in my +200gal system.

[Matman]

In fact they consume 16:1 nitrates to phosphates I think. I guess you got very limited on nitrates. In my case I would hit 0 on phosphates before. Maybe I shouldn't clean the frozen mysis shrimp before dropping them to keep some phosphates.

[Dyspnea]

I took my reactors off online last night and cleaned my sump. Today I'll be adding chateo and trying out a couple mangroves. And maybe later I'll run some GFO after my tank settles a bit. hopefully thing will turn around

The output of my bio pellet reactor was aimed towards my skimmer. I have a dark brown skimmate which needs to be empty and cleaned at least every three days.

I've alway used instant ocean, cause I can always find it. Potassium depletion may have been an issue, but I considered the possibly a supplement of some nature was lacking, and that's why I changed to 40% water changes monthly with no effect.

And I don't think tumbling was ever an issue. The first few days I ran the reactor faster than I should have, so the clumping would resolve. When clumping wasn't an issue, I decreased the flow and the pellets would rise and fall gently.

[Aquaria]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

Same here. I keep quite a diversity of coral in a heavily fed, aggressively skimmed system. I was just hoping that I could use them instead of GFO to keep the phosphate in my system undetectable. So I tried the minimum recommended amount and then even less a second time and each time many of my soft coral began to bleach within a few weeks and my sandbed started to get covered with cyano. I can think of two things that I may have done wrong that might at least in part explain why they didn't work for me. The first was that the reactor output probably wasn't aimed well enough towards my skimmer's intake. The second was that I have not had detectable nitrate in several years. From what I've read they consume 4:1 nitrate to phosphate. But to me this still doesn't explain why 100ml of Vertex pellets would begin to kill off some of the coral in my +200gal system.

I'm pretty sure the vertex pellets say that happens because of a lack of something in the tank and it should stabilize out once it's been running for a while the instructions claim that it's old established tanks that it happens with