Offical Eco-Bak Thread

Dowtish · May 14, 2013

Shelly, anyway you could post a video of your reactor with the pellets tumbling?

Tennsquire · May 14, 2013

shellynjason said:
So last Thursdays p04 reading was .10 ... then I went on vacation for the last four days and could not feed the tank. And just now checked p04 and it is .13.
(my 10% water change was on last Wednesday afternoon). So no new water and no food for four days yet p04 crept back up. Alk dropped to 7 this week , from the steady 8 it was at for the month. Every thing looks healthy though and I had a coraline algea growth spurt this weekend while gone -new pink dots all over my new frag shelf.

Maybe it's coming from your live rock. I think that's where a lot of my PO4 came from, and I did pretty aggressive water changes for the last year since we restarted the tank.

shellynjason · May 17, 2013

I will try to post a video this weekend. Going to change out my GFO this weekend and add a little more ecobak as well.

shellynjason · May 22, 2013

Ok here is my 'vid' of my reef octopus reactor running 400ml Ecobak today, alittle light challenged because Jason was sleeping *smile*

shellynjasonecobak_may2213 - YouTube

After changing out the HC GFO 3/4 cup in the dual BRS on Sunday morning my p04 was .08 on Monday and .05 yesterday (hannah checker). Nitrates still at zero on both test kits (api and salfarit).

bknapp · May 22, 2013

I would say that you need to get the pellets tumbling more than they are in that video.

pickupman66 · May 22, 2013

mmmmm.... Need more tumble in that jumble....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMSMlTcsW5E

This is an example of mine tumbling pretty aggressively.

shellynjason · May 22, 2013

Yeah I guess you can say I am going for the conservative 'gentle tumble' that Jon Warner mentioned in a May 31, 2013 post. So you all think my tumble is still to gentle? I have been running them for over a month so maybe I am over the 'problem' phase.

Quote from JW:
"When you first start running ecoBAK don't be too concerned with making them tumble. For the first few days they may be a bit sticky. Just let it run but keep the flow modest. And the ReefOcto reactors are quite nice. At MACNA last year ReefOcto had ecoBAK running in one of their DEMO models and it ran beautifully. Remember like I posted earlier... running too much flow especially at first causes problems."

schooleyosis · May 23, 2013

I say add a little more flow!

Dowtish · May 23, 2013

Definitely turn it up a bit more, and then bump it up some more after a couple of weeks. Going slow is a great idea. Its safer that way for sure.

Here is mine. This is pretty aggressive flow. Which you will eventually get to, once you are trying to scavenge out that last bit of PO4.
[video=youtube;w0aZvSzpl-Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0aZvSzpl-Q&list=UUiIrju8joSfDCWLj6TKGFng&index=15[/video]

shellynjason · May 23, 2013

Ok I turned up the tumble alittle more. Thanks everyone!!!

Tennsquire · May 24, 2013

Since we're showing each others our tumbling....[video]https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=4982645279419&l=2581135796798735666[/video]

pickupman66 · May 25, 2013

NIce scott.. Love the video comments. you have been outed.

Chaz D · May 26, 2013

Pellets are extremely effective at lowering phosphates IF trace nitrates are present to help along the process. If nitrates are zero, the usual result is cyano, bleaching of corals and a never ending rise in phosphates. You can see this in almost every post where people are having problems with pellets. Here's a good read on the subject. Oh...and ecobak is the *******.

Water Alchemy: Nutrient reduction using Organic Carbon - Nitrate deficiency

shellynjason · May 27, 2013

Interesting read Chaz D - I will keep that in mind if I am limited by low nitrates.

As I suspected it is my salt mix that has been keeping my phosphates higher then then should be considering the amount of HC GFO I have been using. I had bought two big boxes of aqua craft salt mix and the first box was great. The second box I noticed a god awful film on my brute, heater, water pumps in my mixing bucket. I tested my mixed water on three different mixes and po4 was .04 - .05. I bought another salt and used that for two weeks and po4 in my salt was .00 for po4. This week I switched back to the aquacraft just to 'see' and sure enough the po4 was .05. Didn't want to bash the salt without due cause but sure enought. ARGH!

Well atleast I now know the root cause. So won't be using that salt anymore. Oh and I checked the p04 on just the rodi before adding the salt mix and it always reads .00. This is why I use up so much reagent , testing tank , testing rodi and test the salt mix. geez!

Dowtish · Jun 6, 2013

So I have made an interesting observation lately. I currently have my reactor almost 3/4 full of Ecobak. It is really full, and I did this in hopes to create more substrate/surface area for the bacteria to colonize, with the result being lower parameters. Lately I have had some clogging issues with shower head mod that I have on my reactor. It does have small holes that can clog over time and I do regular maintenance to keep the little holes unclogged. But lately it seems that something has gotten in there, and I just havent had time to pull the reactor offline to clean it. So I have had very minimal tumbling going on for the last week or so, and I have tested my phosphates twice since it started clogging, and my phos has been 0.00 both times. So at this point I am leaning towards the theory that once once you have a really established colony of bacteria, that the tumbling isnt as important as it is in the beginning.

shellynjason · Jun 6, 2013

Dowtish - 0.00 wow that is fantastic!!

Curious how often do you have to use an algae magnet on your glass? thinking the super low p04 should help keep that glass clear.

Dowtish · Jun 7, 2013

shellynjason said:
Dowtish - 0.00 wow that is fantastic!!

Curious how often do you have to use an algae magnet on your glass? thinking the super low p04 should help keep that glass clear.

Actually Shelly, I would prefer my phosphates be 0.03-0.05. And even when I'm getting a 0.00 reading I know it cant be true, simply because of the amount I feed. When I get a 0.00 reading I even up my feedings more.

As far as algae on the glass, I almost have to clean it everyday. Maybe I really dont need to, but I do it anyway. There are days that there is really nothing on the glass and others it is covered. I assume it just depends on the amount that I am feeding that week.

shellynjason · Jun 7, 2013

Dowtish said:
Actually Shelly, I would prefer my phosphates be 0.03-0.05. And even when I'm getting a 0.00 reading I know it cant be true, simply because of the amount I feed. When I get a 0.00 reading I even up my feedings more.

As far as algae on the glass, I almost have to clean it everyday. Maybe I really dont need to, but I do it anyway. There are days that there is really nothing on the glass and others it is covered. I assume it just depends on the amount that I am feeding that week.

Yeah I know .03 is the sweet spot - but I was just thinking that ecobak is really working good to get p04 to .00 (after all the livestock gets their share).

And I was hoping when I finally get to .03 I could clean my glass less too.