Bacteria Blooms and Biopellets

[Fastpitch]

I have had bad bacteria blooms for months now. Thought I would just wait it out, but that's not working out to well. I think I may have lost a couple tangs to low O2. Or flukes or maybe the combination. Hard to say.

Anyway, I am now suspecting that my biopellet reactor is the cause of the blooms. I am wondering is it OK to run the reactor maybe a couple hours a day to cut down on the carbon. I would rather not dig into the reactor and remove pellets. If there is no harm in just cutting run time, I'd rather do that.

 

[PhilSD211]

hmm.... following. Think I had the same issue with a bloom from my biopellet finally kicking in after 3-4 months of nothing. Caused a big bacterial bloom to the point all my gold hammers lost the gold tips and I decided to take the reactor offline completely. My nitrate/phos went from 30/0.75 down to 10/0.07 during the bloom. Normally that would be the goal but all my corals were very unhappy. Hope they recover now that the reactor is gone...

Didn't think about just running it a couple/few hours a day on a timer... hmmm

 

[Fastpitch]

hmm.... following. Think I had the same issue with a bloom from my biopellet finally kicking in after 3-4 months of nothing. Caused a big bacterial bloom to the point all my gold hammers lost the gold tips and I decided to take the reactor offline completely. My nitrate/phos went from 30/0.75 down to 10/0.07 during the bloom. Normally that would be the goal but all my corals were very unhappy. Hope they recover now that the reactor is gone...

Didn't think about just running it a couple/few hours a day on a timer... hmmm

Seems to easy, right?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It's not a good idea to stop any sort of reactor with tank water in it for too long. It can become stagnant as the O2 is used up, and potentially generate hydrogen sulfide, especially if there is substantial organic matter around (detritus, the pellets, etc.)

 

[Fastpitch]

It's not a good idea to stop any sort of reactor with tank water in it for too long. It can become stagnant as the O2 is used up, and potentially generate hydrogen sulfide, especially if there is substantial organic matter around (detritus, the pellets, etc.)

That cant be good. So the question is then is running a couple hours a day enough to avoid that. Not sure that is answerable. This hobby is solving for quantum mechanics.

 

[taricha]

That cant be good. So the question is then is running a couple hours a day enough to avoid that. Not sure that is answerable. This hobby is solving for quantum mechanics.

It's not enough. If plenty of carbon is provided, then bacteria can deplete all O2 from a volume of water several times over within one day.
If you cycled it every hour, like 10 minutes on an hour, that would probably avoid the worst anoxic consequences, but I don't know how the biopellets would function under that scheme.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree 2 h/day is not enough, unless it means 5 min every half hour.

 

[Fastpitch]

Thanks all. I have been sufficiently scared out of it. Guess I will have to dig into the reactor.

 

[Bluenote]

why not reduce the amount of biopellets instead?

 

[Fastpitch]

why not reduce the amount of biopellets instead?

Digging into the reactor to make adjustments is more work than making adjustments to a timer. I am just lazy. Thats all.

 

[ThePickeledReef]

Biopellot reactors are finicky, but you should definitely try to stabilize your beneficial bacteria population. Definitely try to stabilize that and nutrients. I know with bare bottom tanks it’s pretty common or large negative space aquariums early on.

 

[King Turkey]

would skimming heavier help?

 

[Fastpitch]

would skimming heavier help?

Since my skimmer is a little undersize, I run it as hard as I can. The truth is that I took a risk and put the reactor on a timer. I dont recommend that to anyone else, but it works for me. The blooms cleared up last month. Nutrients are low. Now I just need to figure out why I cant lose the HLLE.

 

[Sprin001]

I'm running biopellets from BRS on a 150G. I think I've had it up for ~7 weeks now and am in the bloom stage. Nutrients are going down. My skimmer is actually slightly oversized for my tank. I'm curious how you're timer on the biopellet reactor is going as it's something I'm considering doing. I think I've decreased flow to the slowest tumble possible. I'm ~5 days into the bloom and no signs it is decreasing. I miss seeing my tank! Any other things to consider without going to UV?