Bio pellets and chemi clean?

[ripped tide]

I've been in denial about this situation for about a month. I have a bit of cyano(I blame it on the season+heavy feeding enriched with selcon) and am pretty frustrated. I suck it out, it comes back. Po4 .07-.03 depending on the day and feeding. No3 <2.5ppm.


I know that biopellets feed all bacteria, probably the why I am having a harder time kicking it, even with low nutrients.

History of my cyano:

Ever since ive started the tank, I've had one small spot of cyano. I always have siphoned it out and it would be gone for a month or so. About a month ago, it blew up! Bout the time I started super heavy feedings for my lady leopard wrasse.

Delimma: I am going to treat with chemi clean. Will this wipe out the bacteria on my biopellets? I am willing to take the risk, just want to know what the general consensus is.

 

[jhutto]

Bio pellets did same to my tank causing the cyano to explode. I took bio pellets off line and went back to gfo. I used chem clean and it cleared up cyano and it's never came back. But no more bio pellets.

 

[ripped tide]

I like the convenience of biopellets. They control phosphates and nitrates for me and there is little user interaction involved.

The cyano was there before the biopellets. If I eliminate the bacteria, and don't add it back to the tank by introducing any new coral, theoretically it shouldn't come back, Even with the bio pellets. We'll see.

 

[jead85]

would introducing a product like microbacter7 help make good bacteria take over

 

[ripped tide]

jead85;761640 wrote: would introducing a product like microbacter7 help make good bacteria take over

That's what I am shooting for. I did my first chemi clean dose last night.

 

[jhutto]

I did mb7 and zeo products also when I had bio pellets but cyano still came big time.

 

[silver surfer]

I have had cyano since day one of my set up. I have tried everything to clean up the tank. I will tell you that I just added a bio pellet reactor upgraded my skimmer (x10) and put on a second uv. The reactor I added was a reef dynamic reactor. I like this unit bc I can control the tumble rate of the pellets and the outflow of the water. Also, they gave me a tee fitting to attach to my skimmer so ALL the water coming out of the reactor going directly into the skimmer. My orp jumped to 415 and my cyano is going away. I have a large bio load and I still feed heavy. Don't give up on bio pellets. Just need a monster skimmer.

 

[ripped tide]

Ok update: cyano was gone yesterday. My dosing of chemi clean:

Due to the fact that I wanted to do as little damage as possible to my biopellets, I wanted to minimize treatment time.

If someone has 2 plus weeks to deal with the reprecutions of chemi clean, then follow the directions. I had about 2 days time frame, so that was not an option.

On day one(Friday night) I added ~10 scoops of chemi clean to my ~100g total volume. I cut of skimmer, carbon, and the biopellets.

Saturday morning, ~12 hrs later, I added 7 more scoops.

Sunday morning I changed 25 gallons, siphoning the small amount of dead cyano out, changed carbon and turned it back online. Roughly 8hrs later, I did another 25g change, and turned biopellets and the skimmer back on.

My skimmer didnt blow up or anything, and I contributed that to the volume of water changed and the rox 0.8 carbon.

All cyano is gone.

 

[ralph atl]

I usually have to use chemi-clean about 4 or so times a year dosing vodka....not a big deal (it's just penicillin or similar antibiotic).

 

[acroholic]

Better living through chemistry!

 

[redstang]

Acroholic;762506 wrote: Better living through chemistry!

My wife is a pharmacist and says that all the time

 

[ralph atl]

Acroholic;762506 wrote: Better living through chemistry!

Déjà vu
I used to say that growing up in the late 70's, :shades:

 

[ripped tide]

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Hooray chemistry

Edit: I wonder which spider had the most fun....