NP pellets and bleaching events

[Delphinus]

That is interesting .. Now that you mention it, I seem to recall that in 2010 when my carpets bleached, so too did my Duncan and a bunch of my Acans. The bubble coral and a plate coral however were fine the whole time.

What brand pellets are you using?

This time my acans (the same ones) and the Duncans (also the same colony) did not bleach .. at least not yet. Nor the two gigantea carpets for that matter. Just the one mini-maxi carpet. It's hard to speculate what would happen if I left the pellets on, I've decided not to chance it. I'll deal with the NO3 by some other means.

[kien]

sorry to hear about your nem Tony

I'm still running pellets (ever since we started in '09 was it?). When I ran out of the original pellets I started using Vertex pellets mid 2010 and have been on the Vertex pellets ever since. They're the only pellets I ever seen in stores. Everything seems to have done well on those pellets.

[RSM]

I started with 1/3 vertex bp in my 210gal, the slowly added another 1/3 after 2weeks and so on. Everything looked ok except my leathers. My toad stool started getting lighter( whiter and yellow) so did my devils hand. Lost the toadstool but the devils hand is coming back to life. Sps, zoos and even my 16 head frogspawn seem to like bp.

[Myka]

Tony, have you considered a sulfur denitrator? Not a cheap fix by any means, but they work really well. Need an ORP monitor/controller too. If you buy them used they hold that value pretty well, don't buy new - too pricey. Cheap to run though. I've never use one on a reef (never had nitrate issues on a reef), but have used them on FOWLRs with great success. I'm thinking you need some big guns to keep up to those poop monsters.

[Delphinus]

Yeah, I played around with sulfur denitrators in the past. You nailed it in that you really need an ORP monitor for that. I didn't have one and I found it a challenge to dial in a flowrate that would remain steady state and still allow it to go anaerobic. I like the idea of those for something like a large FOWLR or predator tank.

The pellets are a set and forget thing, I like them that way they are super easy - but I just find it odd that there seems to be the occasional claim of bleaching. Very much in the minority but yet still often enough to dismiss it as a coincidence.

[whatcaneyedo]

I had the same issue while using the vertex pellets. I tried them twice and the same thing happened each time. The first time I used the recommended minimum amount and nearly all of my soft coral plus a few of my LPS began to bleach within a month. The second time I used much less and the same thing happened. I don't know if it was related or not but my montipora also bleached and receded a bit a few months after trying the pellets. While it seems unlikely that they would cause that months after their use I can't come up with a better explanation. My oldest montipora I got back in 2005 and the only time I've ever had any problems with them was when I tried pellets.

[kien]

Ya it still boggles my mind that results with bioPellets are quite varied especially when you consider that they are supposed to be set and forget. I have been using well over the recommended amount without any issues while some people nearly crash their tanks with just a few pellets. Very strange..