Bio Pellets During Cycle to Manage Nitrates

[gbroadbridge]

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.

It's not a new experiment, and in most cases results in a new tank being overrun by Dino's.

it is much safer to cycle normally, rather than to risk months of trying to fix an avoidable problem.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just an FYI that impacts the interpretation of the graph you posted and the result of the experiment.

The nitrate likely never got over a few ppm at peak. The nitrite at 1-2 ppm results in a huge false positive result for nitrate. But based on the ammonia and nitrite results, a peak of 5 ppm or so of nitrate seems likely.

 

[reef_daddy]

Just an FYI that impacts the interpretation of the graph you posted and the result of the experiment.

The nitrate likely never got over a few ppm at peak. The nitrite at 1-2 ppm results in a huge false positive result for nitrate. But based on the ammonia and nitrite results, a peak of 5 ppm or so of nitrate seems likely.

Right, I remember you mentioning that the Nitrite would affect the results of the Nitrate. As of March 28th, Nitrite was at zero, which is where I was expecting Nitrate to increase, but it seems to be stable at 0.2 PPM, at least for the time being...

 

[reef_daddy]

It's not a new experiment, and in most cases results in a new tank being overrun by Dino's.

it is much safer to cycle normally, rather than to risk months of trying to fix an avoidable problem.

Interesting, I am noticing a little bit of Dinos, nothing severe, but those little bubbles are present.

I know this isn't the first time anyone has performed this experiment, but the reason I wanted to do this was to document the results and have a discussion. I was struggling to find much information on this method, and I wanted to document it for others to learn.