Biopellets: Let's here your thoughts

[melev]

Jon, just the guy I wanted to talk to. I'm planning on dosing my tank with Microbacter 7 as a food source for the NP pellets. Do you concur? I'm glad you joined this thread.

Troy, at 85F oxygen levels are dangerously low and that is exactly when we need to add a good air pump and airstone to the tank to help our livestock survive. 85F is hot. I have my controller kill the lights if the tank gets 83F to avoid any more temperature increase to the water. You are running your tank too cool at 74.5 I would suggest 79-81F range.

 

[melev]

And you asked why I'm running them? Same as Paul - I want lower NO3 and PO4 levels, I want to feed my tank without worrying about those numbers, and not have to deal with daily vodka dosing. If this works around the clock like a calcium reactor, that's what I want.

And I haven't run GFO in years - probably four years or more. I don't like the stuff and it never helped my tank's PO4 level.

The good news is that NO3 and PO4 read zero as of yesterday, and I've been feeding my reef the way I want to.

 

[Troylee]

Yeah I knew that part about the o2 levels I was interpeting it as maybe the pellets broke
Down faster or something when the temp was up... Thanks for clearing that up...;)

 

[melev]

Jon, more questions for you.

Is it true that if the reactor loses power for a duration, the water in the reactor can become toxic because of bacterial die-off? Would it be best to drain the water from the reactor before restarting it?
Do you agree that it is best to start off with some media, then add more each week rather than adding the recommended amount to the reactor from its inception?

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

Jon,
Glad you came to join us here. Is there anyway you could provide a few videos of the tumble the pellets should have? Thank you so much for your time and amazing customer service. I love ecobak ive never seen my corals heathier and i feed a ton!!!

Kris

 

[patent]

I am new at this and have a silly question. I know with vodka you need to start with mb7. Is this needed with bio pellets?

You don't need to start with mb7, but it may be helpful. Any bacterial additive is optional, but some strongly recommend it. You have bacteria in the tank already, this may just boost a preferred strain.

 

[Jon Warner]

Jon, just the guy I wanted to talk to. I'm planning on dosing my tank with Microbacter 7 as a food source for the NP pellets. Do you concur? I'm glad you joined this thread.

Troy, at 85F oxygen levels are dangerously low and that is exactly when we need to add a good air pump and airstone to the tank to help our livestock survive. 85F is hot. I have my controller kill the lights if the tank gets 83F to avoid any more temperature increase to the water. You are running your tank too cool at 74.5 I would suggest 79-81F range.

Marc,

You're exactly correct. If you suffer from low O2 levels already... ecoBAK will lower the O2 even more (at first when they're newly added) and the temp will speed up growth of the bacteria. compounding the problem.
I've heard users report using MB7, Prodibio, SB, etc... there may be a benefit when the pellets are new. Necessary? Probably not but might speed up the process.

 

[Jon Warner]

Yeah I knew that part about the o2 levels I was interpeting it as maybe the pellets broke
Down faster or something when the temp was up... Thanks for clearing that up...;)

Hello,

Yes it was the O2 relationship with temperature. Remember.... ecoBAK doesn't "break down". You could put ecoBAK in sterile saltwater and run the reactor for years and the ecoBAK wouldn't degrade. It's only bacterial consumption that reduces the mass and volume of the pellets. Hope your tank is doing better...

 

[Jon Warner]

Jon, more questions for you.

Is it true that if the reactor loses power for a duration, the water in the reactor can become toxic because of bacterial die-off? Would it be best to drain the water from the reactor before restarting it?
Do you agree that it is best to start off with some media, then add more each week rather than adding the recommended amount to the reactor from its inception?

I think any outage over 5-6 hours would be long enough that I'd consider dumping the ecoBAK into aquarium water and rinsing them before returning them to duty. And yes, adding media slowly reduces the initial impact of the product.

 

[Troylee]

But these pellets do break down after time from bacteria correct??? And what exactly is it feeding the nitrifying bacteria??? I'm really lost on them and glad your sharing your knowledge Jon...;) I guess there was a million things that could have went wrong with my tank because i don't change my water... I never did thou and never ran into any problems from not doing so until I got on the pellet bandwagon....:( fwiw it wasn't your pellets as I'm sure you read... What alk levels do you say is acceptable when running ecobak????

 

[melev]

Jon stated it doesn't break down. It is consumed by bacteria.

 

[gqjeff]

The N/P biopellets took about 6-7 months before I could actually finally see they were breaking down. I notice it seems no one uses that brand LOL... If I did use them again I would use the ecoBAK for the fact that Jon is posting and taking a proactive approach. I have a new/old system I am doing over so you never know, maybe I would give them a shot again.

 

[DBarsotti]

I voted never will use them, I use the KISS method and it works for me.

praise the kiss

 

[Paul_N]

Jon stated it doesn't break down. It is consumed by bacteria.

That was one of the main reasons I went with his over the others.

I have a bad habit of saying just like vodka dosing but I mean that in regard to the results that I get.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

 

[Troylee]

Well thAts what I meant ahahaha I mean they say you have to add a little here and there... I would like to know what's in them personally besides polymer resin I know that's top secret thou lol.... Here's food for thought....
Let's say you have 100ml or 1000ml what's the difference besides surface area for the bacteria to colonize???? Why do they recommend x amount per gallon if the bacteria is consuming them it shouldn't matter how much you run right??? I mean besides having to replenish them because a small amount would be consumed faster... Sorry for the elementary questions I'm trying to understand these things better since I didn't know much when I jumped the gun like the rest there isn't any info besides this thread now and now someone with real answers not just a 6 month opinion...;)

 

[CONSTANTNE]

Havent read through this thread just thought I would share my experience. I tried NPX biopellets and had a bad experience with them. I lost lots of color in my SPS and bases were receding, and my sandbed was covered in cyano/diatoms. I tried sticking it out for maybe 3-4 months until I couldnt deal with it anymore and took them offline. Now im back to GFO and couldnt be happier and colors are coming back strong.

 

[Jon Warner]

Hi Troy,

Yes, it's a biodegradable polymer... but whats inside is also important. Ours uses a super high tech inert ceramic to function as a matrix so that the polymer hold it's porous structure and our product is made in small lots to our own specifications. That's part of the basis for our pending patent.

If you use a smaller quantity of pellets the bacterial mass on the pellets will be more dense and more prone to stripping off the individual pellet. We're not tring to grow bacteria just to strip them off the pellet too quickly to be consumed/settled/skimmed, etc. We want the pellets to serve as a media too, not just a food source. When people run excessive flow, the pellets are stripped too fast resulting in more aggressive results. Some high end SPS guys run higher flow because they're trying to scavenge nutrients out of very low nutrient water while we recommend lower flow rates for most applications.

And when your PO4 and NO3 are dropping... feed your tank! Make everyone happy.

Keep in mind, with excessive flow it's possible to have bacterial mass stripped from the pellets and depending on your configuration and that bacterial mass ending up settiling in a sandbed or refugium (why we recommend reactor output to skimmer section)

I can't speak for the other brands because I just don't know what/how they're formulated.

 

[Troylee]

I was running a maxijet 1200 wide open and they barely tumbled my thought was I have to much flow I tried restricting it and playing with every which way I could but anything less the Pellets would not tumble at all... My output was at the skimmer intake per the instructions also...
What reactors would you recommend to use for these?? I wAs running a phosban 550 since I planned on using a hefty amount when it wAs all said and done... I did the mod that everyone talks about removing the sponges and replacing with mesh etc...maybe that played a roll I don't know... What I
Do know is I left the reactor full of pellets and water in the garage and after 2 days it's solid black!!! Nasty looking lol....

 

[melev]

I've been running biopellets for almost 9 weeks and tonight's water tests show 0 nitrate and 0 phosphate. In the same time period, I've changed about 150g of water in my 400g reef. I feed multiple times a day, but my fishload isn't heavy. I'm about to add 20 more fish though, which are in currently in quarantine. http://www.reefaddicts.com/entry.php/1524-New-fish-in-quarantine

I'm trying to keep my alkalinity at 8 dKH.

I've had something on my sandbed for weeks. It's more than diatoms but less than cyano. There appears to be less, but I'm ready for it to be gone.

Jon, if you are still following this thread, what are you thought concerning the treatment of Chemi-clean in a system using NP pellets? Would it be safe to assume the bacteria in the reactor would be killed off? I'm not about to treat, but did want to know the answer if this comes up. Others are using Hydrogen peroxide to kill of some algae or dinoflagellates, which contain bacteria as well. Have you done any reading on this by any chance?

 

[Nicks387]

I used NP biopellets since they came out and am still running them despite a stn problem that I was sure had something to do with the pellets. I do not like that no matter how much flow I give them (NP BIOPELLETS) they do eventually bind up and stop tumbling. I have decided to swap out for the Warner Marine pellets to hopefully avoid the clumping issue. I do not balme the pellets directly, however I do believe that with the pellets (or maybe any ULNS) there is a greater risk of sort to the sytem, be it starving your corals,over dosing too fast, less oxygen, lower ph, need for lower alk, high temps, clumping in the reactor, etc. etc. That said, I have also had great results with them and they do what they advertise. you just need to be a little more strict on keeping steady all your paramiters and doing what is needed to stay on top of things.