Bio Pellets During Cycle to Manage Nitrates

[reef_daddy]

Hello,

I Just began cycling my tank (shrimp method) and as we all know, the standard method for reducing nitrates is to perform a water change at the end of the cycle. Instead, I'm going to run bio pellets in a reactor through the cycle and see if it will help keep the nitrates low. I'm going to document it here for anyone interested in the results. I'm aware of the mixed opinions on this topic, and I've decided to test and document this method.

I plan on testing both Ammonia (Red Sea) and Nitrates (Salifert) on a daily basis, and I'll post progress updates.

I'll be adding 25% (84 ml) of the pellets to the reactor, once a week until I get to the recommended volume (336 ml). Per the directions, I will be running the skimmer.

I will not have the lights on during the cycle, and I plan on leaving them off for a few weeks as I add fish. Not sure if this will affect anything during the cycle, but it's worth noting. I'm primarily doing this to avoid algae for the time being.

For reference:
Tank total water volume: 89G (336L) (Measured by liter as I filled the tank and sump)
Bio Pellets: Two Little Fishies - NPX Bioplastics
Picture attached - This tank is starting from scratch. New, dry, uncured, Marco Rock, no sand bed. (Don't judge the wires, I haven't hooked up the apex yet.)

Let me know if there are any thoughts, questions, or recommendations on something I may have missed.

 

[Arego]

Let the tank cycle naturally, you're asking for problems introducing things outside the normal cycle. How do you know you'll even need them?

Before you start fixing things make sure their is a problem and that you're not creating one inadvertently

 

[KrisReef]

Nice experiment.
Are you going to wait for nitrates to rise and fall before you add other things to the new system?

Will you also chart the “Big Three” during the exercise?

How about an ICP(s) along the way? Not trying to waste your money on testing, just asking about your experimental treatment and expected results to be measured.

 

[mdb_talon]

Interested to see how it goes.

 

[polyppal]

I installed some pellet reactors on my new tanks, and haven’t seen much impact yet (prob a month old). I was told they don’t really start to make a difference for 2-3mos when there is a significant buildup of nutrients.

Will be interesting to see your results around that time period vs. a non pellet new tank

 

[GARRIGA]

Bio pellets remove the end product of nitrification therefore I don’t see how that’s an issue unless you’re trying to establish denitrification which would then not need bio pellets

 

[KStatefan]

Will your dailiy testing of nitrates be accurate if there are nitrites also?

 

[Azedenkae]

This does sound like it'd be interesting, but yeah @KStatefan raises a very good point - so long as nitrite is present, 'standard' test kits will throw a false nitrate reading. So nitrate could only be accurately tracked whenever nitrite is zero...

That sounds like it may throw a significant spanner in the works.

 

[reef_daddy]

Thanks for the support, everyone.

Nice experiment.
Are you going to wait for nitrates to rise and fall before you add other things to the new system?

Will you also chart the “Big Three” during the exercise?

How about an ICP(s) along the way? Not trying to waste your money on testing, just asking about your experimental treatment and expected results to be measured.

My plan is to add one or two fish a few weeks after Ammonia returns to zero. As for coral, I haven't determined a timeline yet. I want to get the lights going first for a couple weeks after the cycle, then add some test coral.

I won't track the big three through the cycle, but I'll baseline it tonight and test after the cycle, before any water changes. I'm using Tropic Marin Pro-Reef (Made in Germany) at 1.026ppm, so i would expect it be consistent with what they advertise.

I'll ICP along the way, but I currently don't have any kits. For this experiment I'm mostly focused on the cycle process and keeping nitrates low.

Will your dailiy testing of nitrates be accurate if there are nitrites also?

This is a good question, but I don't know the answer. Does Nitrite affect the accuracy of Nitrate testing?

 

[reef_daddy]

This does sound like it'd be interesting, but yeah @KStatefan raises a very good point - so long as nitrite is present, 'standard' test kits will throw a false nitrate reading. So nitrate could only be accurately tracked whenever nitrite is zero...

That sounds like it may throw a significant spanner in the works.

Interesting. I'll order a Nitrite kit and test both. I'll chart the data along the way. It will be a good test.

 

[KStatefan]

This is a good question, but I don't know the answer. Does Nitrite affect the accuracy of Nitrate testing?

Yes but @Randy Holmes-Farley can explain it better then me.

 

[reef_daddy]

Let the tank cycle naturally, you're asking for problems introducing things outside the normal cycle. How do you know you'll even need them?

Before you start fixing things make sure their is a problem and that you're not creating one inadvertently

Nitrate is the final stage of the Nitrogen Cycle, and as you add food and fish waste, Nitrate continues to increase. At the end of the Nitrogen cycle Nitrate is elevated and one way of lowering Nitrate is to perform a water change. This experiment is to use bio pellets from the start, so that as nitrate increases, the bacteria on the bio pellets reduce the Nitrate. As shown in the timeline, Nitrate will continue to rise if it is not managed. This is a test to see if the bio pellets will prevent it from increasing, or to at least slow the rate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

My expectation is that the biopellets will respond too slowly to be useful. They require very specialized bacteria, and it often happens more slowly than cycling itself.

The way most nitrate kits work is to convert a tiny fraction (say, 1%), as in the Tropic Marin kit) of the nitrate to nitrite, and then chemically detect the much more readily measured nitrite.

Then you multiply the answer up by that same factor, and you get the final nitrate.

If there is any nitrite present all along, it will get counted, and then multiplied up as if it were nitrate.

That means that a little nitrite, say, 0.1 ppm, may read as 10 ppm nitrate, even if there is no nitrate present.

Tropic Marin provides a table to subtract out the interference. Some other kits don't even mention it.

 

[reef_daddy]

My expectation is that the biopellets will respond too slowly to be useful. They require very specialized bacteria, and it often happens more slowly than cycling itself.

The way most nitrate kits work is to convert a tiny fraction (say, 1%), as in the Tropic Marin kit) of the nitrate to nitrite, and then chemically detect the much more readily measured nitrite.

Then you multiply the answer up by that same factor, and you get the final nitrate.

If there is any nitrite present all along, it will get counted, and then multiplied up as if it were nitrate.

That means that a little nitrite, say, 0.1 ppm, may read as 10 ppm nitrate, even if there is no nitrate present.

Tropic Marin provides a table to subtract out the interference. Some other kits don't even mention it.

Thanks, Randy!

 

[ReefGeezer]

If I remember correctly, biopellets produce a carbohydrate that acts as a carbon dose. The bacteria it promotes not only binds nitrate and phosphate, it binds ammonia also. Seems counter productive.

 

[GARRIGA]

Nitrate is the final stage of the Nitrogen Cycle, and as you add food and fish waste, Nitrate continues to increase. At the end of the Nitrogen cycle Nitrate is elevated and one way of lowering Nitrate is to perform a water change. This experiment is to use bio pellets from the start, so that as nitrate increases, the bacteria on the bio pellets reduce the Nitrate. As shown in the timeline, Nitrate will continue to rise if it is not managed. This is a test to see if the bio pellets will prevent it from increasing, or to at least slow the rate.

I used NoPox to reduce nitrates post nitrification cycled which included nitrites showing as zero. Did not have to perform a water change.

As stated by others. Might want to wait for nitrites to zero out before testing nitrates.

I’ve never used bio pellets but NoPox works. Much easier for me to administer since I can stop soon as nitrates get low or inadvertently bottom out vs having to remove pellets. My approach was adding it at half recommended along with MB7 and monitored for clouding due to bacterial blooms.

 

[reef_daddy]

I'm at the tail end of the cycle and I wanted to provide an update. Keep in mind, this is with the Bio-Pellet reactor going. I increased 25% of the pellets, weekly until I hit 100%. I'm interested to see is if Nitrate increases again once Nitrite settles at 0. The graph shows that they are relatively correlated, but as @Randy Holmes-Farley said, Nitrite is likely affecting the results of Nitrate.

I'm also considering adding a couple of Chromis today or tomorrow. Thoughts?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm also considering adding a couple of Chromis today or tomorrow. Thoughts?

I expect it is OK to add a couple of chromis.

 

[GARRIGA]

Damsels how we cycled in the old days before we knew better.

 

[reef_daddy]

Final update.

The original intent of this experiment was to run Bio-Pellets during the cycle to mitigate the increase in Nitrate at the tail end of the cycle. Based on the results, I would consider this a Pass.

It's worth noting that I still have not performed a water change, which is what inspired this test.
I have since added (small) fish, and a couple of frags to get some color in the tank, and everything seems to be stable.

I'll provide more updates in my build thread going forward, but for the sake of this thread, the test is complete.