Biopellets: pros, cons, and my story...

[reefknight]

Great write up! I was a Zeo user and the daily dosing got to be too much along with shaking of the stones. I attempted using NOPOX and ended up with cyano, and am currently battling it. I'm currently using Rowaphos and a combination of Coral Snow / MB7 to combat it. It's come a long way but I still have some cyano hanging on. My nitrate is undetectable and phosphate is 0.03.

Considering switching to bio pellets once the reactors from the PB come in. Any other advise that you'd like to share would be great.

 

[hawkfish]

"People generally feed their reactor's return directly into their skimmer intake"

Stupid question no. 27, Does this mean you just let the reactor's return feed into the sump where the protein skimmer is located, or do you direct it more directly into the protein skimmer's pump?

 

[ripped tide]

I have mine feeding directly into the pump's intake.

 

[hawkfish]

Do you have a special connection to do that, or do you just shove the hose into the input?

 

[ripped tide]

I dont have either... The return tube was cut and placed so that it lines up directly with the pump intake. I'm sure that not ALL the water goes through the skimmer, as it is not a tight fit, but I have plenty of animals that feed on the bacteria.

 

[silver surfer]

I have a T fitting on my skimmer intake to make sure all the waste from BR goes into my Skimmer

 

[cjsparky]

Ripped Tide;773231 wrote: I dont have either... The return tube was cut and placed so that it lines up directly with the pump intake. I'm sure that not ALL the water goes through the skimmer, as it is not a tight fit, but I have plenty of animals that feed on the bacteria.

do you run the reactor T'ed off of the return pump, and then to the skimmer? I run a recirc skimmer, and wonder if this would eventually be useful in my system. I try to give my recirc skimmer decent dwell time so I dont have too much flow going through the skimmer...maybe changes out 1-2 gallons a minute...

 

[ripped tide]

Here's the demo I promised.

The reactor from the power buy.

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I bought this funnel from Kroger. The brand is everyday living. It comes in a pack with a few smaller funnels. It is perfect for the job.

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Since it is such a tight fit, I trim the top "lip" off with a dremel using a cutting disk.

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I then cut off the bottom so that the funnel sits flat.

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Add biopellets.

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It's a pretty easy project, and took about 5 mins. Good luck!

 

[hawkfish]

Ripped, I changed from Phosban to Biopellets this morning. I added 200 ml of biopellets to my Phosban 150. PO4 = .04, No3 = 0. At this point, I'm still dosing small amounts of NoPox (Liquid Carbon) and Microbacter 7. Anticipating my normal water change this weekend. What is your recommendation on flow through the reactor. A gentle tumble, or more active? Any other suggestions, thoughts. I would think I already have a good deal of bacteria in my system, but I'm still anticipating some sort of bacteria bloom after a few days. Would you agree?

Thx. Wade

 

[ripped tide]

Wade, I am at work right now, but will put together a response and video when I get home.

 

[hawkfish]

At work? Oh my gosh, I forgot about work. Thanks for taking the time to put together a note.

Wade

 

[legalreefer]

So is phosguard not considered biopellets?

 

[ripped tide]

LegalReefer;775180 wrote: So is phosguard not considered biopellets?

Nope. Phosgaurd is aluminum oxide. It is an absorbant media that pulls phosphate Directly from the water.

Biopellets promote the growth of a bacteria that consumes phosphate, but there are no absorbant properties.



Hawkish, I would start with a moderate tumble. They don't need to be flying all over the place, but you don't want them to have dead spots either. I would try to use the least amount of flow possible, but still enough to tumble the pellets.

I would probably stop dosing the nopox. If you continue to remove the no3 an po4 via nopox, you won't have excess available food to seed the bacteria on the pellet's surface. this will just take longer for them to set up.


I had been dosing reef biofuel(same as nopox) when I started using pellets, and still saw a small bloom. It didn't last too long, and when I did the first waterchange after the pellets were up, the water cleared completely.

 

[hawkfish]

I decided yesterday to stop the no pox, and found a Marine Depot video that showed the tumbling action. I did my normal water change today. As my NO3 and PO4 are already low, I think it will take some time for the bacteria to seed. Time will tell.

 

[ripped tide]

Fwiw, to any one reading this dinosaur, I have since gone back to gfo.

I've gone into detail about why I switched back in another thread. I'll see if I can dig it up and link them.

http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=86387">http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/showthread.php?t=86387</a>

This should sum it up